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How to change a denomination

I attended a denominational meeting last night. Good news: it wasn’t so bad. Honestly, I had been dreading it.

I received our denominational state paper the other day. They had printed the schedule for the upcoming annual state convention. Question: what kind of emotion comes over you when you look at a schedule for your denominational state convention meeting? For me, a yawn started to form in the back of my throat.

For my generation, it has not been a fun time to be a part of a denomination.

Best I can tell, it was very different in my parents’ generation. Their feeling about denominational life is different from mine in the same way that their generation felt differently about God, country, war and the military. I grew up in the Vietnam generation.

They served their country in World War II, stamping out the scourge of Nazi Germany. They were part of the great generation that fought in the Great War that sought to right the wrong of the great atrocities of Nazi Germany.

Perhaps you have visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. At a minimum, you’ve watched documentaries about Nazi Germany or read books. You know the villainous deeds that my parents’ generation served to rectify. That generation felt very differently about going to war than my generation—the Vietnam generation.

My parents came home from the war, got an education, got married, started a family, got some experience, and went out to fight God’s war.

A quick look at some of the hymns that were popular during that era reveals the sentiment of a generation. For my parents, this is what it felt like to be a Southern Baptist:

Like a mighty army moves the church of God;

brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod.

We are not divided, all one body we,

one in hope and doctrine, one in charity.

I can tell you that a denominational meeting on the mission field is as different from a denominational meeting in America as a foxhole in World War II was different from a foxhole in Vietnam.

Every year they would go to denominational meetings, and they would hear of the unprecedented expansion of the kingdom documented in graphs and charts. Every year, record-breaking baptisms, record-breaking church plants, and record-breaking attendance. Again, the hymnody captures the spirit of a different generation.

For the darkness shall turn to dawning,

And the dawning to noonday bright;

And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth,

The kingdom of love and light.

I can tell you denominational meetings were quite different back then.