Editorial: What a Baptist institution is for

I’m going to put some things in print some may consider impolite or imprudent. Perhaps so. Here we go.

The purpose of a Baptist institution is to point people to Jesus.

Far too many Baptist institutions are about self-preservation.

We need to be about the point of our existence.

Pointing fingers

By “Baptist institution,” I’m referring to the tens of thousands of churches Baptists have started, as well as the schools, hospitals, disaster relief and other human welfare agencies, mission agencies, conventions, associations, financial institutions, and publishing houses created by Baptists over the last two centuries and more.

By “point people to Jesus,” I mean people interacting with our institutions should be closer to Jesus because of us. There are seemingly endless ways we can point people to Jesus.

By “about self-preservation,” I mean we’re more anxious about threats to our existence than we are about developing disciples of Jesus Christ. If you think I’m wrong, you haven’t been to our business meetings.

Every Baptist institution needs to take a hard look at what it’s about. What we spend our time and money doing, and what we exert the most energy over in our meetings will make clear what we’re really about, no matter what we may tell people.

Bottom-line reason for being

Every Baptist institution exists at the Lord’s pleasure, not our own pleasure or the pleasure of any other person or group of people. We are not entitled to existence, no matter how long we’ve been around or how influential we’ve been or are. No matter what life support we may be on, we will cease to exist when the Lord decides.

We exist to serve Jesus and to do as he commanded us. Jesus’ commands can be fleshed out through us in seemingly endless ways. So, we need to continually seek his direction for our institutions to be sure we are doing what he commands us to do.

All too easily, though, we turn more and more to self-preservation, baptizing each turn as the Lord’s will for our institution, washing it in Christian language, until we are serving the institution’s survival and not the Lord of our institution. That’s called idolatry.

The first wrong turn may have happened at our beginning, as a look at incorporation documents might show.

Pointing fingers again

So I’m not confusing specks for planks—referring to Jesus’ teaching not to judge others lest we be judged—I will use Baptist Standard Publishing as an example. Here’s the less-interesting part.

After a quarter century as a privately owned newspaper, the Baptist Standard Publishing Co. was incorporated in 1915 as a nonprofit for “the transaction of a printing or publishing business, … it being the principal object of the Company to print and publish the BAPTIST STANDARD, a newspaper conducted by and for the benefit, and under the direction of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, … for the advancement of the denominational work of the Baptist General Convention.”

Further down: “This corporation is organized for the promotion, advancement and carrying out the general purposes, and forwarding the interests of the Baptist Denomination, and in the publication and dissemination of the literature, and the furtherance of the missionary, educational and benevolent interests of said Denomination through the publication of the Baptist Standard …”

Part of the purpose statement was amended in 1963 to read “to aid and support the Baptist General Convention of Texas and to interpret events and movements that affect the welfare of the people of God.”

In response to technological changes, that part of the purpose statement was amended again in 2010 to read: “The purpose for which this corporation is formed is the operation of a communications organization, using a variety of technologies to support, inform, and resource the Baptist General Convention of Texas, churches, and faith-based institutions that serve the broader Christian community, and individual people of faith.”

Notice: No version of the purpose statement explicitly states Baptist Standard Publishing exists to point people to Jesus. That purpose is assumed. It shouldn’t be.

The subtle turn away

The people who created the privately owned paper and the people who later incorporated the nonprofit denominational entity were a group of ministers of the gospel and Christian laypeople. They likely did not see the need to state the obvious, that Baptists’ denominational interests were intended to align with Jesus’ interests. Or perhaps legal documents aren’t supposed to be the place where you do that, in which case, somewhere should be.

When we—any of us, not just newspapers—state our purpose is to serve something other than Jesus, we will eventually serve something other than Jesus. Even while thinking we are doing what Jesus would want.

Whatever that other thing is will take on a life of its own. It will require sustenance, sacrifices, submission. It will look good and right, and we will give ourselves to it. One of the most powerful “other things” is self-preservation.

I am guilty.

I’m not the only one.

The purpose of a Baptist institution is to point people to Jesus.

Far too many Baptist institutions are about self-preservation.

We need to be about the point of our existence.

The intentional turn back

To be about the point of our existence requires an intentional turn and return to it. I challenge us to do just that.

I don’t issue this challenge because I or the Baptist Standard have overcome the temptation to serve something other than Jesus. That temptation is too subtle and too crafty for us to have overcome it.

I also don’t issue this challenge to discredit Baptist institutions, but to check them, including the one I lead.

I issue this challenge out of gratitude that Jesus forgives and redeems me and would entrust me with pointing people to him.

I issue this challenge because I imagine, in the seemingly endless ways the Lord has called us and gifted us, the wonder of what the Lord will accomplish through us in this world.

I issue this challenge because we have turned toward lesser things too long. The life we long for is not in them. It is only in Jesus. Let us give everything we have to pointing people to him. Let us start with ourselves.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher, and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.