Chipley pastor among those assigned to Southern Baptist task force

A Chipley pastor was among 18 Southern Baptists assigned Wednesday to a task force designed to look into reasons behind the denomination’s decline in numbers, and suggest ideas to reverse the trend.

Rev. Mike Orr of Chipley’s First Baptist Church said the task force will begin work immediately.

“In the past two years, our denomination has seen a decline in worship attendance, a decline in baptisms,” Orr said Tuesday in a phone interview with the Dothan Eagle from the Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville, Ky. “Obviously, if we are in decline, we are failing somewhere. Part of what we have been tasked to do is examine why this is taking place and work to getting our focus back to where it needs to be.”

The task force was announced Wednesday morning at the convention, the night after the convention overwhelmingly affirmed the “Great Commission Resurgence” declaration, a statement of 10 “commitments” denomination leaders say will help Southern Baptists gain focus. Included among the commitments are a “commitment to Christ’s lordship” a “commitment to Biblical inerrancy and sufficiency” and a “commitment to a methodological diversity that is Biblically informed.”

“We call upon all Southern Baptists to consider themselves and their churches to be missionaries in non-Christian cultures, each of which requires unique strategies and emphases if the gospel is to penetrate and saturate every community in North America,” the declaration states.|

More than 8,000 messengers are attending this year’s convention and have been presented with numbers that indicate decline across the board.
According to Southern Baptist-affiliated LifeWay Research, the denomination could face a 50 percent decline by 2050 unless “the aging and predominantly white denomination reverses a 50-year trend and does more to strengthen evangelism, reach immigrants, and develop a broader ethnic base.”

Orr said he believes the denomination is committed to reversing the trend.

“There is a great sense of excitement here, especially among a lot of younger Southern Baptist pastors, some of whom just a few years ago were discouraged and talking about possibly leaving the denomination altogether,” Orr said. “The Great Commission Resurgence declaration is a healthy move for our convention.”

Orr is one of five Floridians named to the task force. Others are Tom Biles, director of missions of Tampa Bay Baptist Association; Ken Whitten, pastor of Idlewild Baptist Church in Lutz; Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, and John Drummond, layman at St. Andrew Baptist Church in Panama City.

For more on the Great Commission Resurgence declaration, visit http://www.greatcommissionresurgence.com.