Landmark Baptist

For anyone on the board who may be interested, Bro. Matt Gholson, instructor at Texas Baptist Institute and nephew of Bro. R.L. Vaughn, takes minutes of association meetings I'm assuming on his laptop. To follow it as it happens, go to Matt's blog, Pastor Matt's Blogosphere at:

http://www.ebenezermbc.blogspot.com/

IMO, I think the real-time nature of the internet is great, is just another method of communication we can use, and that we should take every advantage of.

Bro. David P. Smith wants the number of churches planted to be included in the stats... according to his blog, goxstream.blogspot.com, he feels that if more than 10,000 people are making professions of faith annually, there should be more churches organized. Bro. Smith, If I misuderstood your position, I apologize.

I understand your feeling, though. It seems that everytime I turn around, "missionary accountability" is being thrown in my face.

Currently, I have one report I make for the state, one (a very detailed report) for the sponsoring church, and another that I mail out to supporters and potential supporters. I keep three sets of books. One for the missions account, one for Grace Pointe's account, and one for my personal finances. Maybe I'm overdoing it, but with the level of support I receive, I want to keep everyone happy.

Here is another viewpoint of the meeting from Bro. James Snyder (calvaryyouth). This was his first meeting. I have personally only been to one in Birmingham in 1997, sent as a messenger from Line Creek BC in Ida, LA. This was not due to any opposition to association or from bad rumors about fighting, politics, etc., but because of job obligations, affordability, etc. His reporting includes personal thoughts and are very rough due to the fact that he did not have his laptop with him. Bro. Matt's are much like a clerk's report, saving analysis until later. They are posted as comments to a post by Bro. Adrian Neal from TX on his blog requesting someone keep him updated on the meeting. From what I understand from one of Brother Neal's comments on the post, there may be other ABA bloggers covering the meeting. If I discover any more, I will provide links. Apparently, if you wish to wait, minutes will also be posted to the abaptist.org website after the meeting.

http://adriansarrows.blogspot.com/2009/06/aba-national-meeting-comments.html

There were three very interesting discussions that I wanted to point out from James' coverage:

1. The proposal to amend the Articles of Agreement Article III Section 1 to say that the association will be composed of regular Missionary Baptist Churches "that agree with the doctrinal statement." First of all, these Articles of Agreement are in no way binding on any church. A church may simply vote to associate with or identify herself with the ABA. However, IMO something needs to be done to keep our fellowship from drifting into doctrinal error. Also, if you are in association with a church, by the very Biblical etymology and the definition of the word, and since the ABA is "composed of" churches, you are in a limited sense in fellowship with all churches who identify themselves as ABA, represent by letter, or are included in the directory. At the least, a church or churches with firsthand knowledge of heretical doctrines and practices against could bring a resolution of censure. This would in no way violate that church's sovereignty (as resolutions are never binding), but other churches could be made aware if they wish to cease fellowship the offending church. One glaring problem with this is that it opens the door for false accusation. However, with many Scriptures in the Bible dealing with false doctrine and worship and commands to be separate from it (such as Amos 3:3; Romans 16:17; 2 Corinthians 6:15-18; 2 Corinthians 11:2; 1 John 1:7; 2 John 10,11 to name a few), there must be some sort of solution in a voluntary association that would preserve the sovereignty of the offending church while at the same time preserving the sovereignty and freedom of all other churches to not be forced to fellowship a church who practices false doctrine or worship. Here is a real-life example (I have absolutely no fellowship with the Southern Baptist Convention but wanted to give an example): they voted in their convention this week to expel Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, TX from representation because of the church's stand on homosexuals which included gay members holding leadership positions in the church. My point is this: would the ABA messenger body be scriptural in voting to refuse to seat the messengers of a church if (hypothetically speaking), for example, the church practiced open communion? What if these issues were not decided by the messengers , but referred back to the churches? Would this make it more scriptural and be any less infringement of church sovereignty? Keep and underline in your mind that I am talking about doctrine and practice only.

2. The issue over the recommending of Bro. John Steich as missionary. Notice a charge was brought against Bro. Steich because his mission work takes communion apart from the sponsoring church. This does highlight our need to take a stand one way or the other on whether a mission is an arm of the sponsoring church, much as a Sunday School class, Bible study, ladies' auxiliary, etc, or a church. Fellows on here know my view on it, that according to Scripture, a mission is a church. If you say that the members of a mission are the members of a church, you are unintentionally promoting the universal church concept and you present real problems of doctrinal practice, as this situation shows, as the Lord's Supper is clearly from Scriptures an ordinance to be partaken by the local, assembled church body. A church cannot take the Lord's Supper in two different places. To me, this brother (I know nearly nothing of him, his marital status, his work, what they practice about things such as worship, etc. I would hope that I can assume he holds the 21. You used to be able to count on those things in the ABA but that is not the case anymore. In any event, I am only commenting on the issue at hand.) needs to go one way or the other. My view is that they need to formally organize. Another trend that is disturbing to me are that when complex problems such as this arise, churches devise these strange solutions, as this mission acting as a church but retaining membership in the sponsoring church.

3. The issue over the recommendation of Bro. David Law as missionary. It boggles my mind and frankly infuriates how Landmark Baptist churches can be so divided over fundamental issues such as this one. I'm with the brother who said that could not be more clear. Paul was not setting forth guidelines for the office of pastor, but used the words "if" and "must" to describe them as qualifications. Jesus clearly recognized marriages made by lost people as when he spoke the words of Matthew 19 and Mark 10 to the Pharisees and the Sermon on the Mount to the multitudes, and demonstrated by the fact that he recognized the marriages of the woman at the well. The issue is not over whether a man is single or married. Proverbs 6:32,33 clearly states that those who commit adultery (by divorce and remarriage as taught by Jesus) get a wound, a dishonor, and a reproach which shall never be wiped away. It also says in 1 Timothy 3:11 that their wife must be "faithful in all things." One of the qualifications for a priest was that he was not to take a wife who is "a whore, or profane; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband..." (Leviticus 21:7) Therefore, neither shall a man who is promiscuous in his youth be qualified, and also these strict marriage requirements extend to the preacher's wife. Some will say that we focus on that one qualification to the neglect of the others. This is not so. This is the one, provided he in no other way has so sinned to completely destroy his testimony in those areas, that once it is broken it cannot be changed. A man can quit drinking, for example, but he either is the husband of one wife or he is not. The only exception that I see is the one given by Jesus himself--if the previous marriage was ended for the cause of adultery or fornication. I noted this at the beginning to be a fundamental issue. It is one that should not be up for debate at every annual meeting, but it should become part of our doctrinal statement.

Bro. Mike,

I feel the same way about "stats." Mission work should not be based upon numbers and buildings, but upon the souls of men. Noah would have been considered a failure to many, and we should not be judging a work's status on whether they are a church on whether they have a building. To anyone else who may have read that comment, don't classify me with any of the current movements such as emerging church, because you will find I am just as vehemently opposed to those as you are. They want to fundamentally change our doctrine and our methods to reflect post-modern thinking and engage the culture. I am staunchly ABA Landmark Missionary Baptist and I believe we have stood for the truth of the Bible over the years. I only see the problem above in a wrong focus.

Bro. Acker,

I don't like the term "accountability", either. Accountability implies authority over. Churches and individuals have every right to ask questions about doctrine and practice. If they find something unscriptural about a man or his work, by all means they should pull support. However, when you start making missionaries "accountable" to the messenger body or a missionary committee, you are going down a road our work doesn't want to go down. It is one thing to "strongly urge" a sponsoring church to help support the work if they are going to ask for support (I can see the side of some that feel that way.) There is no compulsion there. However, when you start requiring such, you are making a law and not a guideline, as the Mission Policy clearly states they are guidelines and as the Articles of Agreement states that the association has no ecclesiastical power. Landmark Missionary Baptists have not only stood for chuch autonomy (I have always heard it called independence) which means that an association can in no way tell a church how to run its internal affairs, but also for church sovereignty which means that the association is only a committee and subject to the churches and that the church is the sovereign unit in associated capacity. An association in no way can tell a church what to do. I am with Bro. Brooks on that. To me, when the association allows a missionary two weeks paid vacation or two paid revivals and requires all other income to be reported, they are by influence controlling the work of the missionary, which I also feel to be unscriptural. Furthermore, if the association says that a sponsoring church must send 20% to Texarkana, what will be next: that a representing church must send $1000 to Texarkana to be able to vote? What's the difference? Change never happens all at once, but it is always incremental.

I'm glad we agree. The problems that are sparking these controversies and all the "accountability" talk need to be addressed individually without messing up the missions policies and program.

The marriage issue was brought up in Bro. James' reporting. I don't know the man himself personally. I don't know about any other issues with the work itself.

Bro Law was divorced from his first wife. They remarried to try to reconcile. They still could not and divorced again. He has since remarried and has been with his second wife the past 20 years is what I understood. I realized that I did not explain the issue with him personally and went straight into a restatement of what I believe the Bible teaches about pastors and marriage. I apologize.