Gathered in the second-floor pastor’s office of one of our local churches, several Baptist pastors and a couple of nondenominational pastors sit around a table over coffee and cookies. Together, we are reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.
We know each other’s spouses. We know each other’s children. The last thing any of us would want to do is hurt each other, our families, or our churches.
Our churches have different approaches to ministry, but Abilene is better because of them.
One started a classical school and has a notable passion for teaching and sending college students. Another has a great homeless ministry and supports a professional counseling ministry. Another does terrific neighborhood ministry, while another hosts our local association’s food pantry.
The body is big enough for our differences because the mission is massive. Unity doesn’t require uniformity. At its simplest, unity is a shared connection and a shared purpose.
Shared connection
Our churches are made up of people from our region’s 180,000 residents. Our congregations include one another’s friends, neighbors, coworkers, classmates, bosses, and Little League coaches.
Our training is diverse. We have been educated at various seminaries, including Southern, Southwestern, Logsdon, Wheaton, and Truett. We represent churches at different poles of Baptist life. In fact, our local association has nearly every major group in Baptist life represented. We are united, though we are by no means uniform.
We have different convictions on women in ministry, church governance, and other theological issues. Some uphold Reformed convictions along the lines of five-point Calvinism, while others lean more Arminian. Some are egalitarian, while others are complementarian or soft complementarian. Our views of eschatology differ. Yet, we believe each of us takes Scripture seriously and aims to apply it faithfully.
Some churches have no national affiliation. Some align with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention; others with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Others are dually aligned with the SBTC and BGCT. Others hold no Baptist affiliation at all.
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We share meals, read books together, pray for one another, and encourage one another. In a city where churches are sometimes pitted against one another, it is good to know we are not in competition.
Shared purpose
These relationships matter. We cooperate through a food pantry serving hungry neighbors. We collaborate on a hospitality ministry housing families visiting loved ones in prison. We support a camp that ministers to thousands each year and a ministry empowering women through job training.
Our churches aim to be healthy, centered on Christ, faithfully proclaiming the gospel and reaching the lost. We are focused on reaching our region’s 180,000 people, not nitpicking each other’s theology.
Yes, there are disagreements. But at the local level, where we shake hands, share meals, sip coffee, and share life, we have figured out how to live and work together across lines of disagreement.
Rebuilding relationships
The way forward begins with relationships. Relationships do not make theological convictions less important. Relationships do change the way we handle those convictions with one another.
As denominational life has declined and become more decentralized, we Baptists need to do better at building bridges.
Decades ago, many Texas Baptist pastors shared similar educational experiences, often at the same seminaries. Today, Baptist pastors come from a wide variety of seminaries, traditions, and backgrounds. With that diversity has also come the loss of some common experiences and relationships.
When our local association needed a new director of missions, one of my Reformed-leaning pastor friends chaired the search committee. I knew when he interviewed candidates, he was also considering my interests and the interests of churches different from his own. That kind of trust matters. Trust is the currency of our relationships.
Locally, we believe the best about one another. As Paul said, love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13:7).
Local is where life is lived. When disagreements move beyond the local community, people quickly become unnamed opponents and ideas we wage war against. But the Baptist across the state—and country and world—who disagrees with me is my neighbor, too.
A local model for state cooperation
I see in the relationships among our local churches in Abilene a model for how churches throughout the Baptist General Convention of Texas can continue to work together despite real differences. I will say more about that next week.
John Whitten is the senior pastor of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.
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