The Manhattan Declaration is a document that calls for Christians to stand with one another over conscience issues like abortion, same sex marriage and government involvement in these things.
I had not made a decision about whether I would sign it when one of my respected church leaders/members asked me to consider it and said he had signed it. I wanted to wait till I read the full text of the document. Due to schedule it took me a while to do so, but this week I finally got around to doing so. Then I read the list of those who signed. The men and woman were people that I have respected, learned from, and prayed for often. But something bothered me. So I began to look for opposing views. Of course there were the people who are not believers including those on the left politically and the news media outlets that think the three tenets in the document are foolishness. But I found one person that I also respect, have learned from, and pray for who said he was not signing it. John MacArthur. I read his reasons and they were a significant set of concerns.
So I thought and prayed and asked what God would have me do. Today, I chose to sign it. You can read about my concerns at my church’s web site where I posted about it at the request of my church member. You can also see at the bottom, the update which outlines why I chose to sign it.
But there is another document that I did not hesitate to sign and I want to focus on that.
I am a Southern Baptist. I have been sad to see that after our internal holy war was finished, our denomination began to decline. For the first time our numbers are smaller than larger than they were the year before. Sadly, this has been masked by growth in ethnic congregations. The heart of the Southern Baptist Convention used to be our Anglo churches. They have been in decline for a long time. I am sad to say that my own church has been one of those.
So when some of our denominations leaders have chosen to stand up for what is called the Great Commission Resurgence, I was interested. I learned about it and studied it and got on board. I chose to sign the list of people who are praying for the “Great Commission Resurgence” or GCR. There has been some debate about this issue, but the motion to appoint a study committee passed overwhelmingly and many of us were excited.
But then I read a blog post this week that criticized it. The heart of the GCR at this point seems to be a call to reorganize the way we are doing missions. And this blog post said that will have little effect because he said that the organizational structure of the denomination has little to do with our decline. He said that our decline was because Christians don’t care that much about the Gospel or witnessing. He said, announce to your church this Sunday that after service you are going to the local stores and passing out Gospel tracts. See how may show up to go. [Update: the blog has a new post about how the GCR could win]
I think he is right about part of what he states. But, does that mean we should not reorganize our denomination thought? No! I have long felt we needed a new way of doing things. The GCR is not this generation’s holy war. It is a sincere hunger to see our denomination growing again. It is needed and I still support it.
The absolute truth is this: until the American Christian church gets excited about changing people’s hearts by living and sharing the Gospel we will continue to decline as a church and anti-Christian beliefs and policies will continue to win out in the public square. We need a multifaceted attack. We need people to be the salt and light to preserve and guide our culture in Washington, state houses, local school boards, and court rooms. We also need them in Hollywood, universities, and civic groups. We need people to influence the culture for Christ by pushing our ideals.
At the same time, all of us need to be about the business of doing the work of the Evangelist. We need all hands on deck! It is not a time to sit back and coast or let others take the lead. It is time to lead and be involved in telling people about Jesus first!
