Should ABCUSA and CBF merge?

I think you didn't understand my comment. By "centrally focussed" I meant to infer having a strong central organization which has a major impact on the local church. The SBC church I grew up in in my estimation had about the same impact from the national convention as the ABC church I have recently been a member of. Understand?

 

Well, I guess I understand the concept of "a strong central organization", whatever that actually means, but still am not sure what you are driving at. Are you suggesting that the 'central organization' of the ABCUSA is more akin to the SBC back a few years ago, or more like it today? And also are you suggesting 'a stronger -nah I'll just call it what it is - "bureaucracy"' (since there is no "Convention", per se, except in the annual meetings, at least in the 'SBC') is preferable, or not? And don't necessarily assume "bureaucracy" is a 'negative', for it is not inherently so. And I am not sure whether you are saying your own local church (and others of like mind) are the 'influencers', or are the 'influenced'. I'm not trying to be dense, here, but am not exactly clear on how you are using the language. Sorry, if I appear dense. As I told someone on another thread, I'm not real good in the "mind-reading" department. So please explain just a bit. I may or may not agree with any or could with all, but cannot really comment, until I do at least get what you are driving at.

Ed

 

OP's get all the breaks, Tim! raying::thumbsup:

 

CBF is a fellowship, which doesn't even have a doctrinal statement, leaving that completely up to the churches. It is a networking organization, which means that churches connect to the ministries they either feel led to support or from which they need information or assistance, and are not compelled by program to support other things that they don't need. The common element is a commitment to unreached people groups, those who haven't yet received the gospel, through international missions. ABC-USA is similar in structure. Once you've let Baptists have a taste of that, they'll never go back to the stronger convention structure.

 

All I was doing was replying to this original statement.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Matthews
I think both of these groups are so loosely tied together, and work to a great degree through church and organizational networking much more than through a central structure, the idea of a single organization is probably anathema to both groups. I believe they will connect through some of the individual organizations. They already are through the retirement fund, and most churches in both groups support the BJCRL. CBF's international missions effort tends toward unreached people groups, which might open the door for some ABC-USA congregations to get involved in, and there are a lot of ABC churches that support Passport, which is CBF's youth missions initiative.

These are groups where the structure and support is done by the society method rather than the convention method. ABC-USA's national body only meets once every other year, and CBF is much more of a network organization, with a central office in Atlanta that probably only has a staff of a dozen people.

Baptists seem to work together much better this way, with a high degree of local church autonomy and no authority vested anywhere else. After all, that's historically the way they have always done it.

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Actually, I believe that the ABC-USA is about as centrally focussed as the SBC was before the Fundamentalist takeover. I spent about the same time (over 10 years) as a member of each so I think I have a pretty good perspective on this. I asked my ABC pastor this question about 10 years ago and his reply was no. Of course this was before the ABC split.

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I generally believe in the historic Baptist belief in the autonomy of the local church.

 

As to the last sentence, so do I.

As to the rest of your explantaion, Thanks.

Ed