Baptist missions in recent decades: patterns in Laity involvement, particularly among the younger generation.

Although numerous Baptist groups exist in the United States, and many of these groups have in-house missions agencies, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), as the largest non-Catholic Christian denomination in the United States, served as the trend-setter in Baptist missions in America during much of the twentieth century.

By 1950, the SBC, then 105 years old, had become institutionalized. Southern Baptist missions had been reduced to a formula: local churches sent a percentage of their offerings to the denomination's Cooperative Program (CP), which in turn allocated a percentage for the support of missionaries, primarily foreign missions via the Foreign Mission Board (later renamed International Mission Board). Members of Southern Baptist churches who were called to missions and received proper training through one of several Southern Baptist seminaries were eligible for consideration in appointment to a full-time, fully-funded foreign missions position. Southern Baptists also had a Home Mission Board, which provided a variety of missions opportunities within the United States, but operated in the shadow of the Foreign Mission Board.

Short-term foreign missions projects by teams from local-churches were rare before 1950, although some churches sponsored local or home missions projects, and many Southern Baptist college students volunteered their summer months on the home mission field. In the typical Southern Baptist church, however, missions involvement was limited to missions lessons and special missions offerings, under the leadership of the church's Woman's Missionary Union (WMU) group. The annual offerings were the Lottie Moon offering (foreign missions) and the Annie Armstrong offering (home missions), with the former receiving the bulk of monies and attention. Within local churches, missions sermons were sometimes preached during Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offering seasons, and periodically a visiting foreign missionary preached a missions sermon.

In short, the institutionalization of Southern Baptist missions, by 1950, appeared to be etched in stone: the missions enterprise was owned and operated by the convention, which existed as a collective extension of the local churches. Local churches faithfully contributed to the missions institution by sending money; teaching missions lessons to the children, youth, and adults; and listening to the occasional missions sermon. Sometimes youth groups participated in a missions "project," and, on relatively rare occasions, a local church rejoiced over one of their own sons or daughters who, after graduating from seminary, received an appointment as a missionary with the Foreign Mission Board.

Changing Perceptions in Baptist Life

Fifty-six years later, this snapshot of Baptist missions has been obliterated. As an institution, the SBC structures have been taken over by fundamentalist Baptists whose churches initially were largely unsupportive of the Cooperative Program and institutional missions in general. Under fundamentalist leadership, the CP has declined to the point that the average Southern Baptist church in 2005 sent 6.64 percent of its receipts to the CP, compared to 10.6 percent in 1984. Robert White, executive director of the Georgia Baptist Convention, noted, "This blase attitude about the Cooperative Program began to be revealed through the election of SBC leadership who pastored churches with exceedingly low levels of Cooperative Program support." The current SBC president has called this steep decline "frightening" and has issued public calls for SBC leaders to lead their own churches to increase support of the CP. (1)

On the local church level, many former Southern Baptist churches have left, or are in the process of leaving, the SBC. Many of these churches have affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), a coalition of moderate-conservative Baptist churches formed in 1990 in reaction to the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC and primarily focused on missions. Within local Southern Baptist churches that continue to be affiliated (in whole or in part) with the SBC, the "frightening" decline of support for the CP signifies a shift away from support of traditional Baptist agencies and institutions.

In a broader sense, the decline of institutional Southern Baptist missions reflects changing perceptions of institutional Christianity and the influence of the SBC, as well as the rapid growth of non-denominational missions sending agencies in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century to the present. Within Baptist life, as the SBC after 1979 increasingly represented the fundamentalist wing of the Baptist spectrum, negative public perceptions of Baptists seemed to increase. As a result of these perceptions, in the 1990s some Baptist churches across the theological spectrum began dropping the word "Baptist" from their church names, a practice that is becoming more and more common. Some SBC agencies, such as LifeWay Christian Resources (formerly Baptist Sunday School Board), have also dropped "Baptist" from their names. (2)

In a more narrow sense, the decline of institutional Southern Baptist missions against the backdrop of growing public negativity and toward Baptists in general has been accompanied by the creation of new ways of doing cooperative missions (such as the CBF's concept of "Missions Without Borders" and an emphasis on "partnership" rather than ownership (3)) and a growing interest among local churches in hands-on, local-church funded and lay-led missions involvement.

Changes within the Local Church

In regard to local churches, the trend toward missions ownership and lay involvement is evidenced in the evolution of church staff positions. In 1950, the local church staff position of "minister of missions" or "pastor of missions" did not exist. As late as 1990, paid staff positions devoted to missions were uncommon at best, if in existence at all. The same was true of other Christian denominations. Not until 1998 was the first professional organization for local church staff missions personnel formed: the non-denominational National Association of Missions Pastors. (4)

Among Baptists in America, the first appearance of the position of pastor of missions or minister of missions in a local church is not known, but clearly, this development is a very recent phenomenon. In 2005, a number of Baptist churches (from moderate to fundamentalist, some of whom do not use "Baptist" in their names) employed ministers or pastors of missions. Among these churches are Wilshire Baptist, Dallas, Texas; First Baptist, Carrollton, Texas; First Baptist, Concord, Tennessee; Wooddale Church, Eden Prairie, Minnesota; Mountain View Baptist Church, Lafayette, Colorado; Cornerstone Baptist Church, Roseville, Michigan; The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, Alabama; Snyder Memorial Baptist, Fayetteville, North Carolina; Biltmore Baptist, Arden, North Carolina; Quail Lakes Baptist Church, Stockton, California; Grace Church, Racine, Wisconsin; and First Baptist, Columbus, Georgia. (5)

Wilshire Baptist's 2005 description of the "minister of missions" position provides a snapshot of how local church concepts and implementation of missions has changed since 1950:

   This [position] includes coordinating and directing
   partnerships with other mission organizations where appropriate,
   developing lay mission skills, educating all ages within the
   congregation concerning missions, communicating with the
   congregation and the community about mission programs, and
   demonstrating personal involvement in missions. The Minister
   of Missions should foster a mission program with the congregation
   that is balanced between local, state, national, and
   international mission activities. (6)

The emphasis on fostering and coordinating lay involvement is clearly stated. In addition, the second major responsibility of this position (not listed above) is to "Empower broad lay involvement in missions." (7) A survey of the websites of the churches listed above clearly indicates that these churches are hiring missions coordinators (broadly speaking) for the express purpose of involving their lay members in hands-on missions.

Changes in Youth Participation in Missions Activities

Although the presence of missions professionals on church staffs is a recent and limited development, the broader trend of local churches taking direct ownership of missions efforts is widely recognized, and seems to have followed on the heels of a dramatic increase in the use of short-term foreign missions volunteers by missions-sending agencies in the 1970s and 1980s. Prior to the mid-1970s, short-term foreign missions assignments, specifically involving lay church members, were a nominal part of missions agency strategies. Between 1978 and 1988, however, the number of short-term foreign missions volunteers skyrocketed from 6,000 to approximately 60,000 people, serving in 130 countries. One agency, Youth with a Mission, sent more than one-third of the 60,000 missions volunteers in 1988. (8)

A significant portion of the volunteer short-term missions participants have been teenagers and young adults. Writing in 2000, the executive director of a non-denominational missions organization that focuses on short-term youth missions trips described the increase in youth missions involvement (whether domestic or international) in this manner: "In 1970 you could count on one hand the number of youth groups doing short term missions. Now it has become a standard feature for thousands of youth groups across the country. Many youth leaders affirm that their summer missions projects have greater impact than any other single event they schedule." (9)

To be certain, the sending of young people on short-term missions trips was not unheard of prior to 1970. Southern Baptist college students were participating in domestic summer missions through Baptist Student Union (BSU) decades prior to the dramatic increase in volunteer missions. In addition, the Foreign Mission Board founded the Journeyman Program in 1965 for the express purpose of sending college students to the foreign mission field on two-year assignments. The BSU, however, was a college campus ministry largely funded by Baptists as a denomination, rather than by Baptists on the local church level. The growing involvement of local church youth groups in the 1970s and following led to much greater local church awareness, from first-hand accounts, of short-term missions opportunities than had BSU missions. Although firm statistical data does not seem to be available, many Baptist youth of the 1970s and 1980s who were involved in short term missions trips, but did not pursue careers in professional ministry, most likely maintained an interest in hands-on missions involvement as adult lay members of local Baptist churches. Their missions experiences and ongoing interest would naturally have contributed to the aforementioned reshaping of local church attitudes and perceptions toward missions since the 1980s.

The impact of this trend, of course, went beyond the local church. Even as the short-term youth missions movement gathered steam, the SBC in the mid-1970s launched an initiative, Bold Mission Thrust, to evangelize the world by the year 2000, relying to large degree on short-term lay volunteers. Although the initiative fated in its stated goals, the increased focus on short-term missions teams eventually resulted in over 30,000 individuals serving short-term through the International Mission Board in 2000. (10)

Observations from Campus Ministers and Local Church Ministers

If Baptist youth of the 1970s and 1980s were a transitional generation who ushered in a new approach to denominational missions with a focus on lay involvement that in turn led to the empowerment of the local church in terms of missions, how have the succeeding generations of young Baptists influenced Baptist missions?

Baptist campus ministers on college and university campuses have long been a barometer of changing missions patterns in Baptist life. Handson missions, whether local, stateside, or international, is a primary focus of Baptist campus ministry. On the local church youth ministry level, youth ministers are increasingly focusing on missions, not merely as a part of their ministry, but as a primary focus.

In an effort to move beyond the aforementioned statistics and glean first-hand accounts of the changes in patterns of laity involvement among the younger generations, feedback was solicited from fifteen Baptist campus ministers, youth pastors, and pastors, representing the South, Southwest, Midwest, and Western regions of the United States, and ranging on the theological spectrum from moderate to fundamentalist.

Each respondent was asked the following three informal "essay" questions that were intended to probe the respondents' personal observations gleaned from working with young Baptists:

1. What changes have you witnessed in "missions" among the younger generation(s)?

2. Why do you think the above changes have come about?

3. Who or what do you think has influenced these changes?

Respondents were allowed to answer in whatever manner they so chose, with no direction in terms of length or detail regarding their answers. The remainder of this paper is based on the personal responses received from the surveys. General observations will be introduced, followed by specific examples cited from respondents. (11)

First, the personal observations of Baptist campus ministers, youth pastors, and pastors surveyed strongly suggest that today's younger generation of Baptists are not committed to a Baptist identity. This foundational lack of commitment in turn informs views and attitudes toward missions.

The most oft-repeated observation among respondents was the assertion that today's young Baptists have little, if any, denominational loyalty. As one respondent noted, "students are much less denominationally loyal than a generation ago." Tellingly, no one suggested that denominational loyalty is increasing.

Second, today's younger generation of Baptists have both a broader and a deeper missions awareness and involvement than prior young generations. Furthermore, this awareness is neither institutionally specific nor theologically confined. In other words, Baptist young people are likely to choose non-Baptist missions options, and missions awareness and involvement cross the theological spectrum in Baptist life, although the manner in which missions work is conducted does appear to correlate (at least in some instances) with theological persuasion.

One campus minister respondent noted that his Baptist students are "more open to non-Baptist options," and stated that by a 4 to 1 margin, his students choose non-BSU options over BSU options with regard to summer missions involvement, despite the fact that non-BSU options typically incur out-of-pocket expenses, while BSU missions positions include a stipend. This same respondent noted that his students depend less on adults for guidance (an observation noted by other respondents), and "often come in and tell me where they are going instead of asking me to help them find a place to serve."

Furthermore, missions attitudes are seemingly not confined to denominational ambivalence. Aversion to institutional authority was also noted: "The young people we are sending out are seeking to get a job and support themselves rather than answer to an institutional authority," stated one respondent. The tension in this latter statement is evident: the desire exists to continue thinking in terms of "we" doing the sending, even as Baptist young people are intentionally choosing self-sustaining, independent missions avenues with no formal institutional support. Another respondent echoed this sentiment, noting a "shift from seeking authorization to do ministry from a church or denominational group, to becoming Christ where you are, how you are, without the red tape of permission," a trend which he labeled "free style missions."

In terms of the manner in which missions efforts are conducted, most respondents, regardless of theological persuasion, acknowledged that service-oriented and/or relational missions are now the predominant missions frameworks for young people. One respondent indicated that today's students "are very service-oriented." A theological moderate responder pointed to the influence of Habitat for Humanity as a primary reason for the growing interest in service-oriented missions, noting that "social awareness, justice and economic issues seem to be at the forefront among my students as we explore our faith." One of the more theologically conservative responders expressed regret with the trend of "work missions," viewing one-on-one "witnessing" missions trips as being of greater "spiritual depth." Although the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-supported Passport missions camps were not mentioned specifically by respondents, the success of Passport's "service-oriented" missions paradigm provides an apt illustration to the aforementioned observations. (12)

Third, the popularity of missions among young persons seems to be at an all-time high. Although missions opportunities within the Baptist family have expanded in recent years, non-denominational missions organizations are intentionally targeting Baptist young people and are using modern marketing techniques.

A youth minister, addressing the growing popularity of missions, observed that "missions has become a full-time youth ministry enterprise." Missions has become a "packaged commodity," one respondent declared, echoing the trend of missions as a market. Another noted, "I receive numerous offers weekly for work missions trips." Yet another respondent addressed the downside of the competitive nature of youth missions in this way: "they [college students] don't have much experience with which to evaluate the options they find, so the group that makes the better plea will get more response. Baptists need to do a better job of selling their [missions] program."

Finally, technology now plays a major role in missions involvement among young people in a number of (and some surprising) ways, including both positive and negative aspects. "The Internet has become a major source of information about missions opportunities," noted one campus minister. Another campus minister fleshed out this reliance upon technology:

   The world has become smaller, largely through the Internet. There
   are few places left to the imagination. There is no place that
   can't be reached within 24 hours physically or immediately
   through e-mail, cell phones, Blackberries and other communication
   devices that are being developed everyday.

A veteran campus minister, whose primary responsibilities include planning missions opportunities for college students, as well as supervising students on missions, offered this assessment:

   They are very connected to their parents, probably due to the
   "microwave" generation. They have constant, immediate contact
   through cell phones, instant messaging, etc. I think this is
   hampering their growing up and making decisions on their own.
   They can always call someone and get an opinion or directions
   rather than thinking it out. This really causes problems
   on the mission field. Any little thing that goes wrong, they don't
   call me first or try to work it out with their immediate supervisor.
   They call their parents, get them in an uproar, which usually is
   nothing and could be worked out with little trouble. I challenged
   all my students to leave their cell phones at home last summer,
   but I really doubt that they did, or that their parents would
   allow it. I think that this also keeps them from relying on God
   for help and direction.

These latter observations point to a perceived downside of modern technology. This same respondent summed up by pointing to only one root cause of the changes she had "witnessed in missions among the younger generations"--"advances in technology."

Conclusion

This brief survey of late twentieth-century patterns in lay involvement in missions among the younger generations of Baptists in America points to several broad conclusions that are both encouraging and disturbing.

First, Baptist young people today are much more interested in hands-on missions experiences than their counterparts thirty years ago, or fifty years ago. The result is that missions participation is on the rise. This fact is consistent with the growing global awareness brought about by modern transportation and communication. On the other hand, Baptist young people are much more prone to choose non-Baptist missions venues, a pattern reinforced by the growing number of, and higher visibility of, non-denominational sending agencies as a product of post-denominationalism.

Second, missions attitudes and participation among young Baptists are highly dynamic in response to the modern flow of information. Modern communications and information technologies--the Internet, cell phones, handheld computers--have reoriented the manner in which young people, the early adapters of personal technological advances, receive and evaluate information about missions opportunities. If advances in personal technology continue at the rapid pace of the past five to ten years--and there is little indication this will not be the case--and young people continue to be early adapters of the technology, missions patterns among young Baptists will remain fluid in the foreseeable future. If Baptist missions organizations are able to make effective use of modern communication and information technology in recruiting and equipping young persons for the task of missions, the number of Baptists participating in Baptist missions experiences may well increase. Competition from technological-savvy, nondenominational missions-sending agencies will also continue to increase.

Third, the recent development of local Baptist churches hiring mission coordinators ("minister of missions" or "pastor of missions") signifies a shifting in the locus of Baptist missions from Baptist institutions to the local church. Ironically, this shift may represent a triumph in mainstream Baptist missions thought and practice of Landmarkism--the nineteenth-century isolationist ecclesiology that, among other things, eschewed denominational missions efforts in favor of local churches directly supporting missionaries, a view reflected among Independent Baptists in the twentieth century to the present. In addition, if the presence of missions coordinators on local church staffs transitions from cutting edge to mainstream, the coming decades will likely witness unprecedented levels of participation in hands-on missions experiences by the laity.

Tensions between the two basic mission field models--servant or works focused, and intentional verbal evangelism--will likely remain for the foreseeable future, although there is a shift away from verbal evangelism only among some Baptists, reflective of larger missions trends.

In conclusion, post-denominationalism, saturation of personal technology, reorientation toward the local church, and reevaluation of mission field models have resulted in higher levels of lay missions involvement among young people, more diverse expressions of missions, and greater external pressures upon the Baptist missions enterprise.

(1.) Michael Foust, "SBC President Welch, Driggers Hafts CP Report," Baptist Press, September 20, 2005.

(2.) A collection of representative news articles concerning U.S. Baptist churches dropping the word "Baptist" from their church names in order to combat negative perceptions of Baptists can be found online at http://www.adherents.com/largecom/baptist_namechange.html (accessed January 15, 2006).

(3.) Information about the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's Global Missions may be found online at http://www.thefellowship.info/Global%20Missions/(accessed January 15, 2006).

(4.) See the National Association of Missions Pastors website at http://www.missionspastors.org/ about_us.htm (accessed January 15, 2006).

(5.) The list of churches was gleaned from a search of the Internet via the search engine Google (http://www.google.com) (accessed December 3, 2005).

(6.) Wilshire Baptist Church, "Minister of Missions Job Description." Located online at http://images.acswebnetworks.com/qimages/acs/ilappl_4/MOMjob.pdf (accessed December 3, 2005).

(7.) Ibid.

(8.) Raymond DeHainaut, "Anachronism and Adventurism: Recent Mission Trends," Christian Century (March 1, 1995): 239-42.

(9.) Seth Barnes, "Ten Emerging Trends in Short Term Missions," Mission Frontiers: The Bulletin of the U.S. Center for World Mission, January 2001. Online at http://www.missionfrontiers.org/2000/01/tentrend.htm (accessed December 3, 2005).

(10.) Based on International Mission Board statistics online at http://www.imb.org/core/aboutus.asp (accessed December 5, 2005).

(11.) The three questions were emailed to fifteen persons, consisting of campus ministers, youth ministers, and pastors, with the understanding that if their responses were used, they would remain anonymous. The survey was not conducted in a scientific manner. Rather, the purpose was to glean personal insights from Baptist ministers who have worked with Baptist young people. Responses were received from ten individuals. With one exception, each respondent had ten years or more of experience working with Baptist young people within the context of professional ministry.

(12.) Passport is based in Birmingham, Alabama. The organization's website is http://www.passportcamps.org/ (accessed January 15, 2006).

Bruce Gourley is the associate director of The Center for Baptist Studies, Mercer University, Macon, Georgia.