What Lay Across the Booth

A week ago Friday I had the privilege of taking two fellow seminarians along with three pastors out for lunch to Ricatoni’s, the best Italian restaurant in North Alabama.  The three pastors, only one of whom I had met, sat across the booth as us seminary boys packed in on the other side.  It was lunch break at the True Church Conference, and we met together for encouragement and discussion about life, theology, church, and Jesus. 

The three pastors across the table together combined for over 70 years of ministerial experience.  One had pastored the same church for over twenty years, another recently planted a church (less than 3 years old), and the third is a new pastor of a church needing reform.  They all came from a different perspective and had a boatload of wisdom and encouragement for us young guys who are eager to serve God’s people in the local church. 

One of the first questions that was asked had to do with the concern they had about the young pastors focusing primarily on church planting with little interest in taking up existing churches that were dead or dying.  I began to share with them the frustration that many of us younger guys have with the mantra and politcal talking points coming from leaders in the SBC who are making the mandate and warning that every young Reformed guy must explain his theological convictions to a committee vaguely if not entirely unfamiliar with the terms and doctrines, except that they were “bad” because they heard one preacher railing against them.  I began going down the list just from the past year from Drs. Danny Akin to Paige Patterson to Morris Chapman and Frank Page.  These men were not aware of the agenda in the SBC that has many young SBC pastors not willingly or desirous to fight those battles.  It befuddles me to think that in a day where there are so many SBC churches dying and are without pastors that the leaders of the SBC are doing everything they can to discourage or marginalize the young, competent, and passionate young pastors from the churches that so desperately need them simply because they hold to historic Southern Baptist doctrine.  One is led to think that it is more likely that churches would prefer closing their doors than to invite renewal and reform that a fresh work might begin. 

As our conversation continued, I quickly realized something I had not up to that time reckoned with, that is, there are pastors and ministers in the SBC much older than me who are as equally as passionate about renewal and reform in the SBC and a commitment to unity around the gospel of Jesus Christ.  As we talked about our passion for the local church, for regenerate church membership, church discipline, and biblical evangelism, our hearts were in tune and our voices were in unison, and my eyes were opened to what lay across the booth.  There sat three veteran ministers who were saying things I wish every young Southern Baptist minister could hear.  You won’t find such encouragement from the blogosphere or Baptist Press or even the Convention addresses in San Antonio.  But you will find it at Ricatoni’s, across the booth, over some excellent Italian bread.

So what’s my point in sharing all this?  It is to say there needs to be greater trans-generational communication among ministers today.  Young brothers, you will be surprised to find so many elder ministers who stand and have stood for the things you and I are praying for in the SBC.  The greatest encouragement I received was from these three men who with tears in our eyes and hearts opened found ourselves united for the glory of God in His Church.  It is easy to get discouraged and frustrated from what we hear and see these days, so much that many are leaving the SBC never to return.  I wonder, however, if some of my fellow young Southern Baptist brothers who left had a tasty Italian lunch topped with 70+ years of minister advice and a buffet of encouragement and support would they have left the SBC.  If there is going to be a future and hope for the SBC, it must begin by coming together across generations and personal preferences for the sake of the gospel and the developing of true churches.  Such communication will likely not happen in the blogosphere, for I doubt they have ever read a blog.  But I will tell you where it happened for me. 

It happened across the booth.