I’m not always in agreement with Internet Monk, but often he says things that are not only true, but need to be said.  In a post titled Evangelism Won’t Cure It, Michael Spencer identifies a perennial source of self-deception among Southern Baptists, namely, that the problem of decline in the SBC would be reversed if only we would become more evangelistic, and therefore, what the SBC needs is an evangelistic campaign that everyone needs to get on board with.

Read the whole thing, but here is how Spencer wraps it up:

I love what the SBC does right.  I really do. My denomination can be awesome at some things, especially in the area of cooperative missions.

I’m not dogging evangelists.  I spend a significant amount of my time in evangelistic ministry. It’s one reason I will remain an evangelical.

Our denomination has some wonderful churches and some great people.

But let’s just say it:  We’re Johnny One Notes on evangelism because we don’t want to admit how flawed, hurting, confused and increasingly dysfunctional we are.

We need evangelism in its place, and that won’t happen till we stop and look at the whole, not just the parts we want to blame.

And 100,000 more baptisms won’t solve those problems.

We showed the documentary “Beyond Gates of Splendor” at Beaver Baptist Church and it was very well received. The documentary was well done, and the story was quite moving. The quality of the trailer for the movie was excellent and I anticipate that the movie itself will be outstanding. We are praying that it will have a wide viewing beyond the church-goers who will see it. We hope to buy a block of seats at the theater when “End of the Spear” comes out. IMHO your church should do the same.