Voices: The fight worth fighting in Baptist life

There is a line in the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire that has always stuck with me: “I just want to play football.”

You thought I’d go with the other quote.

I cannot speak for any pastor other than myself, but if we were to survey pastors and ask, “What is it you seek in ministry?” I suspect it wouldn’t be the money but something like, “I just want to love God and be a part of building the kingdom.”

In short, they “just want to play football.” They want to see lives changed for God’s kingdom. They don’t want to fight.

A right to fight?

For as long as I can remember, there has been a “fight” in Baptist life. These fights range from the worship wars of the 1980s and ’90s to church polity, fundamentalism versus liberalism, women in ministry, and more. For most of us, this fighting has gotten us nowhere.

Baptisms are down. Giving is down. There are fewer getting theological training with the intention of entering vocational ministry, let alone the pastorate.

The fights are often cloaked in the rationale of doctrinal purity and scriptural observance. I understand that, and there is a need to understand and proclaim the truth of God’s revelation to the church.

However, if we are going to be Team Jesus and play the game called the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, then we must figure out how to be a team. This is all the more true as we approach the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting.

Do our personal convictions give us the right to break fellowship with other believers? No.

Does my interpretation of Scripture give me the right to spend my energy fighting on the floor of a convention just to prove a point? No.

Can we be the big-C Church and have different convictions and applications of the Scripture? Yes. Notice: I did not say “different interpretations of Scripture.” The Bible says what it says but is applied contextually.

Confession: I am tired of the fighting.

I am tired of the “fight” in Baptist life. I am tired of convention politics and all the extra junk that goes along with it. “I just want to play football.”

I am tired of church politics and the reality pastors can be constrained by the fear of losing their jobs because they might have offended a deacon who only comes to church once a month. “I just want to play football.”

I am tired of this modern manifestation of “church,” especially this Americanized version of it. The more I reflect on Scripture, the more I sometimes want to get out altogether. Some days, I find myself wishing Jesus would return before we mess it up any more than we already have.

Bottom line: I just want to make disciples.

Here is the real fight: Making disciples. I want to teach people what Jesus said. I want to help people follow Jesus. I want to be part of something greater than myself—something that has endured for two millennia. That is a fight I can get behind.

Why I don’t quit

Some of you may be saying, “Then, why don’t you just quit fighting?” Or, “Go, find another denomination.” You mean, take my ball and go home?

Believe me, the thought crossed my mind. Yet, here’s the reason I don’t: Because the Father’s church is his Son’s bride. Whether that church is Baptist, Methodist, non-denominational, or other, the church is the bride of Christ. And while I lament for her along with myself, I know Jesus loves his bride, and abandoning the bride as she waits for her groom is not what Jesus calls us to do.

I surrendered to ministry. There is the key: Surrender. Not only have I surrendered my life to Jesus, but I have also surrendered my life to his work in ministry. I can no longer be about me. It must be about his bride.

And I don’t need another strategy to tell me what the Bible has already commanded me to do in this work: Make disciples. Love God with everything you have. Love your neighbor as yourself. Serve. Forgive. Go. Teach. Live like Jesus.

If a church cannot love God with everything it is, love its neighbor as itself, and make disciples, then something fundamental has been lost, even if we still call ourselves a “church.”

The original pilot program

Throughout its history, the church has been messy. Churches had questions. Churches disagreed. Churches struggled with how to live out their faith in a complicated world. And that is OK.

Questions aren’t something to be feared. Disagreement doesn’t have to mean division. Different convictions don’t automatically have to mean broken fellowship.

To use Aaron Tippin’s words, “You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.”

I understand. That has been the mantra underpinning many of the arguments we have seen in Baptist life in recent years. And yes, there are certain nonnegotiables—truths Christians across traditions and denominations must hold firmly because they are foundational to the gospel.

But we aren’t fighting over nonnegotiables. We are fighting over less important things, and we just keep returning to that fight.

“I just want to play football.”

The officers, executive directors, boards, and denominational leaders of our beloved Baptist organizations can play the “game” of denominational life. They can debate. They can argue. They can draw lines. They can determine who is in “fellowship” and who is out.

But, as for me and my house:

I want to love Jesus.
I want to love people.
I want to make disciples.
I want to preach the gospel.
I want to see people come to faith.
I want to see churches become healthy.
I want to see the church be the church.

I don’t want to spend the rest of my ministry fighting over the game of church. I want us to be the church.

So, if you’re coming to Waco to pick a fight at our annual meeting, now is not the time nor is it even appropriate. But if you’re coming to Waco with questions and concerns, as some of us do, by all means, let’s have a rational, transparent conversation.

All for the kingdom.

Seth Pitman is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Seagraves. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.