SBC not helping Jesus’ reputation, Bart Barber says

The Southern Baptist Convention isn’t doing Jesus’ reputation any favors, but he still uses Southern Baptists to advance his mission, SBC President Bart Barber told participants at the convention’s annual meeting in Indianapolis.

Unlike Jesus, Christians often fail to accept fellow believers because they are embarrassed to be associated with them, Barber said in his presidential message.

“The Southern Baptist Convention does not help Jesus’ reputation one bit,” said Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville.

While the SBC creates “a ding” in Jesus’ reputation, so does every other denomination and church, he added.

The perception that “crazy uncles” in the SBC family have as much right to speak at a microphone as anyone else at the annual meeting is both the strength and weakness of the convention, he observed.

“Jesus knows the craziest of us and still chooses to be associated with us,” he said.

Barber praised Southern Baptists for the good they are doing—including increasing baptisms by 26 percent over the previous year—but acknowledged ongoing challenges, such as efforts to eliminate sexual abuse in churches.

People in Southern Baptist churches have a right to “enjoy the assurance that their children are safe from abusers there,” he noted.

“Abuse prevention is an ongoing war with predators who are studying and seeking to circumvent everything we put in place,” he said. “We must remain vigilant.”

‘God highly values unity’

Preaching from Romans 15:1-6, Barber told Southern Baptists, “God has obligated you and me to accept and bear the weakness of people who disagree with the witness of the truth.”

While God values doctrine, ethics and resistance to the evil in culture, he places greater emphasis on preserving fellowship and promoting brotherhood, he said.

“God highly values unity and mutual respect,” Barber said.

Even so, Christians often choose to disobey God’s command to accept weaker brothers and sisters because “rejecting them pleases us more than accepting them does,” he said.

Frequently, Christians are more interested in winning debates than in fulfilling their responsibility to encourage and edify other believers, building them up, he noted.

Furthermore, bearing with weaker believers takes effort, and “we are tired and discouraged,” he said.

God can grant “supernatural endurance, supernatural strength, supernatural hope [and] supernatural comfort,” Barber said.

When Christians obey God, diverse people can experience the miraculous gift of unity, and they have the ability to help weaker believers grow, he said.

“People we push out are no longer influenced by us,” Barber said.

God is glorified when his people work together cooperatively for a shared mission, he asserted.

“I care about preserving our missional unity,” Barber said.