One year ago, I published a blog entitled “An Open Letter to Young Southern Baptists.” I do not intend here to copy that entire blog, but a quick reminder of the challenges I offered will help in understanding the words that follow:

• Know that many of us realize that we have much room for improvement. We older leaders are not ignorant of the concerns that grip you.
• Do review the history of this denomination. Remember that past and current leaders deserve respect.
• Do not give up on the SBC. You, your church, and the SBC lose if you simply walk away without patiently trying to make a difference.
• Continue to support the Cooperative Program even while you seek your role in the denomination. Be kingdom-minded enough to give even when the immediate benefits for you and your church are not always obvious.
• Stay focused on the entirety of the Great Commission. Refocus our churches on strong discipleship, but never allow evangelism to be a “back burner” task.
• Pray humbly for Southern Baptist Convention leaders. From pastoring a local church to leading a denominational agency, the tasks involved in SBC life are not easy.

That blog ended with these words:

Young Southern Baptist, I believe in you. I want you involved in SBC life, trusting that you affirm our clear stand on the Word of God, choose to live a God-honoring life, and are committed to the Great Commission. Be both patient and persistent with us, modeling humility for us in all that you do. All of us want to see God do a mighty work through this denomination.

During the fourth week of June 2009, young leaders did show up at the Southern Baptist Convention, and their passion brought a renewed sense of excitement to the event. In light of that event, here is my follow-up letter – this time, written to older Southern Baptists (a group to which I belong).

Older leaders, we must first love younger Southern Baptists. This one is not difficult for me. As a seminary dean, I have the privilege of working with young men and women whose Great Commission focus puts mine to shame. Most are energetic, passionate, and unashamedly Christ-followers. They are deeply serious, yet genuinely fun. They want to make an eternal difference with their lives. They are, to state it simply, easy to love.

We must also listen to younger Southern Baptists. Whether or not we always agree with them, their voice is worth hearing. These are brothers and sisters whose Christian integrity, doctrinal fervor, and evangelistic zeal deserve our attention. New voices that critique old paradigms should not threaten us. We will miss much if we choose not to hear their thoughts simply because they are young or inexperienced.

As we love and listen to our younger leaders, we must be willing to learn from them. There is no question that young leaders sometimes wrongly assume that they have the answers to whatever ails us. We have all thought that way at some point, and we recall with embarrassment our own youthful pride. But let’s be honest: if we assume that we have nothing to learn from leaders younger than we are, we, too, are gripped by arrogance. We who claim maturity should know better.

We must also labor in prayer on behalf of our younger leaders. As Paul prayed for Timothy – remembering him constantly, night and day (2 Tim. 1:3) – we must intercede now for those who increasingly lead the good fight of faith. The enemy aims his arrows at young leaders, knowing that their youthfulness makes them vulnerable. Hence, our most important work on their behalf might well be what we do in our prayer closets.

Finally, we must still lead younger leaders. That’s the way it ought to be – older leaders leading younger leaders, who then are better prepared to lead on their own. Indeed, I can say with certainty that young leaders long for strong, faithful, experienced, godly Christian leaders to pour themselves into their young lives. Young leaders may stretch us, challenge us, and even dislodge us from our comfort zones, but we must not abdicate our responsibility to help guide them. They still need us, and we still need them – and a dying world needs all of us working together for the sake of the Great Commission.

I am a seminary dean who believes that the best seminary education occurs in conjunction with service in a local church. Education gains relevance and significance when we put to work what we learn through planning worship services, training laypeople, preaching the Word, and doing evangelism. In fact, if I were king for a day, I would require all seminary students to serve in a local church full-time internship prior to graduating.

With that in mind, I am pleased that the Billy Graham School at Southern Seminary offers a PhD that still requires students to complete their coursework at Southern but that does not require a physical relocation to Louisville. We still encourage students to move to our campus, but qualified students now serving in ministry away from Louisville may attend PhD classes for four weeks a year (typically two weeks in Nov-Dec, and two in May-June) while majoring in Evangelism and Church Growth, Christian Missions, World Religions, or Applied Apologetics. In addition to the intensive on-campus class time, students have significant Internet interaction and discussion with the professor and other classmates throughout the year. All students—whether living on-campus or off—complete the same courses.

The Graham School doctoral degrees emphasize biblical foundations for evangelism and missions, honest analysis of church growth and missiological methods, historical reviews of God’s work throughout the world, apologetic preparation for countering world religions, and scriptural approaches to spiritual warfare in evangelism and missions. Equipped well, our current PhD students and graduates have served, or are serving, as local church pastors, North American and international missionaries, seminary and college professors, college executives, denominational employees, church staff members, mission administrators, and in other church-based roles.

Our prayer is that Graham School doctoral students will continue to lead evangelicals throughout the world to focus on the Great Commission. If you are interested in getting more information about this program, contact Dr. Adam Greenway, BGS Director of Research Doctoral Studies, at agreenway@sbts.edu.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I do not readily sign my name to a document. I read, re-read, and re-read again. I dissect every sentence and analyze every word. Hence, when leaders within the Southern Baptist Convention produced a document entitled, “Toward a Great Commission Resurgence,” I did not sign it without thought. For what it’s worth, here is why this Southern Baptist is on board.

I am a product of a Great Commission Southern Baptist church. Not having been raised in a Christian home, I knew nothing of the gospel until a junior high classmate told me the good news of Christ. Neighbors – a Southern Baptist deacon on one side and a Southern Baptist church secretary on the other – provided a ride to church every week. My Southern Baptist pastor and church gave me two gifts that mark my life to this day: a belief in the authority of the Word and a commitment to the Great Commission. I will forever be grateful for those faithful Southern Baptists.

I have seen needs around the world. As a consultant regarding international theological education, I have met people who worship false gods, who offer fruit to statues, who carve idols from wood, and who fear demonic forces. Others reject any belief in God, choosing instead to live for the temporary gains that this world offers. For the sake of the billions in the world who still need Christ, Southern Baptists must take a frank look at our commitment to the Great Commission.

I believe in the missiological approach suggested. Ours is a denomination that has taken a clear position on the Word of God. That stance does not, however, require that we all do church the same way. I have worshipped in services where the music was not my style, but it was appropriate for that context. I grew up in a church with a typical pulpit, but good preaching is not dependent on the pulpit furniture. If Southern Baptists are to influence the world for God’s glory, “methodological diversity that is biblically informed” is indeed on target.

I know many of the leaders who have signed this document. God has allowed me to serve alongside many of the SBC leaders who support this call for a Great Commission resurgence. I know some of these men well, and I trust them. We do not always agree on every issue, but I have no doubts about their commitment to the Word of God. Men like these will lead us to a healthy evaluation without compromising any ground gained during the Conservative Resurgence of the last thirty years.

I know many of the young leaders who have signed this document. Some of these young leaders were my students. Others I have met in other settings. The young leaders that I know are not liberals who believe that God’s Word is no longer relevant. They are not radicals out to destroy the Southern Baptist Convention. In fact, they understand that they are building on the shoulders of others who preceded them. They want to be part of a Great Commission denomination.  They are not, though, going to wait for decades for the rest of us to get re-focused.

I work with unhealthy churches. As a church consultant, I assist many churches that are inwardly focused. Evangelism happens there by accident more than by strategy and training. Leaders might sound good in the pulpit, but the gospel is hard to find. Intentional discipleship is non-existent. In the end, non-growing believers and unhealthy churches lead to an unfocused, maintenance-oriented denomination. Somewhere, change must begin.

I believe in continual evaluation. This document’s call for a “more effective Convention structure” is discomforting to many, if not threatening. I understand that concern, both as an older Southern Baptist who likes consistency and as a denominational employee who prefers security. I have also appreciated greatly and worked well with associational, state convention, and national convention leaders. I love the work of the SBC, but all of us must be open to honest assessment.

I am reminded of the words of Anna Quindlen, Newsweek columnist who recently announced her last column for that magazine. Her reflections about the United States are telling, particularly regarding our approach to change:

Throughout the country there seems to be an understanding that this is and ought to be a time of reinvention, in the economy, in education, in the office. But no one seems eager to reinvent on an individual level.

It is that last sentence that caught my attention. America knows that change is needed, but individual Americans do not want to change personally. Southern Baptists must think differently about change in our convention if we intend to be again a Great Commission people.  Together, we must live out the biblical truths for which we have stood so strongly — even if the changes necessary to get there are personally uncomfortable.