FORT WORTH The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s annual Roundup collegiate ministry event kicked off Wednesday night, May 12, with worship and a message from North Carolina pastor and Southern Baptist Convention president J.D. Greear. 

Speaking at Common Grounds, part of Christ Chapel Bible Church in Fort Worth, Greear challenged college students to lay down their “yes” and be willing to go wherever the Lord calls them.

Roundup, which has been held for the last decade, drew over 250 college students and ministry leaders from eight states this year. Mitch Tidwell, SBTC collegiate ministry associate, called the event unique in that in targets college ministry done in the local church rather than through parachurch organizations.

“The biggest thing here is that this is an event for local churches,” Tidwell told the TEXAN. “In almost every other area of ministry in the building, that’s a no-brainer, but in the college world and in Southern Baptist life, it is one of the only events specifically designed for church-based college ministry. I just love that we’re investing in that and have decided to put resources behind that.

“This is the conference that the church-based leader comes to and they are the primary target audience. And I think that’s what makes Roundup what it is.”

Encouraging kingdom growth

Greear’s message to open the event focused on “the most strategic mission field,” as he challenged college students to not miss the opportunities God has presented them for kingdom impact.

He shared the vision of The Summit Church, which 12 years ago set a goal to plant 1,000 churches. According to Greear, 468 churches have been planted in that time by over 1,400 Summit members—mostly college students—who have been mobilized.

Greear described Summit’s practice of meeting with college seniors active at the church.

“We meet with our seniors and say, ‘God loves you. We’ve got a wonderful plan for your life. Will you put your yes on the table and let God put it on the map?’” he said. “We say to all of them that unless they’ve heard from God audibly or turn 30 years old, whichever comes first, they need to plan on spending at least the first two years after they graduate on one of these church plants.”

Greear next discussed the rapid spread of the gospel after the resurrection of Jesus, citing statistics from sociologist Rodney Stark that there were likely only about 7,500 Christians at the end of the first century.

With only 7,500 believers with “no money, no political influence,” whose very faith was illegal, Christianity spread to over “half the Roman empire” so much that the emperor converted 200 years later, Greear noted. He cited Stark’s explanation that the early church “had a sense that the Great Commission belonged to every single believer, that every Christian was responsible to multiply, every church was responsible to multiply.

“The DNA of multiplication was in every single believer, so that they all understood that it was their responsibility to go make disciples.”

Greear suggested we may be seeing the end of the megachurch era, that the movement “hasn’t really quite worked” because of a lack of emphasis on multiplication: “the one thing that actually would multiply the church forward in every single generation.”

Noting there are more Southern Baptist churches in America than there are Starbucks, McDonald’s and Subways combined, Greear asked, regarding the spread of the gospel: “What if just a third of those churches understood it was their responsibility to multiply? And what if each of them said we’re going to have one church that we plant this year?” 

He challenged college students who are “coming online” at a strategic point in church history, as the COVID-19 pandemic draws to a close, to see ways in which the past year opened doors for the gospel.

Calling all Christians

“You’re alive in a moment when God is doing something,” Greear urged, enumerating five “mind shifts” necessary for the church to embrace a culture of multiplication: 

1. The greatness of the church occurs only through individual members filled with the Spirit.
2. Unchurched and de-churched people can only be reached by disciple-making disciples.
3. Every believer is called.
4. God multiplies the ministry only as we give it away.
5. Risk is right for the Great Commission.

Calling is for every Christian, Greear said, not just a mystical, sacred moment for a few. 

“The biblical truth in Matthew 4:19, the calling to leverage your life for the Great Commission is included in the call to follow Jesus,” he said. “The question is no longer if you are called; the question now is simply where and how.”

He challenged the college students to intertwine their commitment to the gospel with their other gifts and passions, leveraging all their talents for kingdom impact.

The rest of Roundup was held at First Baptist Colleyville, May 13-14, and featured Drew Worsham and Dusty Thompson addressing the general sessions. Breakouts and panels led by more than two dozen experts along tracks for student leaders and pastor and college ministers allowed participants to choose among more than 20 topics, from leadership development to counseling to conflict resolution to discipleship to communications to evangelism.

Next year’s Roundup is scheduled for May 11-13, 2022, its location to be determined, Tidwell said.

GRAPEVINE—A five-person panel advocated understanding, intentionality and proactivity when confronting racial issues dividing the body of Christ. The April 13 discussion was sponsored by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention in Grapevine and attended by online and in-person registrants.

Tony Mathews, pastor of North Garland Baptist Fellowship and SBTC interim senior strategist for Missional Ministries, moderated the  afternoon panel which included Michael Criner, pastor of Rock Hill Baptist Church near Tyler; Todd Kaunitz, pastor of New Beginnings Baptist Church in Longview; Joe Ogletree, pastor of Image Church in Houston; Kasi Pruitt, adoption and foster care coordinator for Lakepointe Church, Rockwall; and Mike Satterfield, teaching pastor at Fielder Church in Arlington.

Mathews, Satterfield and Ogletree are African American. Kaunitz, Criner and Pruitt are Caucasian, with Pruitt the mother of a multiracial family.

The discussion was designed to motivate action, Mathews said. He asked questions of panelists along the topics indicated below. What follows is a summary of the conversation. The discussion was serious, yet cordial and respectful.

Their hopes and fears about the panel’s work

“My hope is that we become real and not reactionary, but intentional and proactive,” Satterfield said.

Criner noted his desire that the group would create “light and not heat,” while Kaunitz said he hoped the conversation would not be “hijacked by politics,” too often an unwelcome distraction.

“I pray that this is not just something for show,” Ogletree said, adding, “As African Americans, we’re tired. … We want to see some progress. We want to see some steps. I am here hopeful, and I want to be part of the solution.”

On national and SBC tensions, CRTI

Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality proved not to be divisive in the panelists’ churches. 

Ogletree said that until the [Nov. 30, 2020] statement issued by the SBC seminary presidents, CRTI was “not even a topic” at his mostly Black church. Neither was Marxism (to which CRTI is frequently linked). Still, he called the seminary presidents’ statement “hurtful,” since it was not part of an ongoing conversation, and he urged “more listening” and “less labeling.” 

“Some of the hot topic discussions that are happening within the convention aren’t happening in our pews,” Kaunitz said, echoing Ogletree’s observation about CRTI and adding that people are concerned about injustice, not labels.

“What our church is concerned about is unarmed Black men dying at the hands of police,” Ogletree replied when Mathews confirmed that CRTI was not the issue. “Our church is concerned about the silence of our friends.” 

Satterfield offered a new acronym, not WWJD but WDJD: What Did Jesus Do? “[Jesus] came in humility and he came to effect change for unity, and I want to look just like him,” he explained.

Pruitt affirmed the dangers of making racial reconciliation too political. 

“Heaven is going to be a diverse kingdom. All different people worshiping Jesus together. Why would we not want this now on earth?” she asked.

Barriers impeding racial harmony

The panel offered the following, with suggestions for the sort of “actionable” responses Mathews urged.

1. Lack of trust: Satterfield noted that people don’t trust others of varying backgrounds, income levels or even sports affinities. “This lack of trust has caused individuals to come to church with fists up instead of arms open,” he said, calling for believers to break the “wall of distrust.” 

2. Mistaken identity: Criner argued that Christians are often “not confident enough in our identity in Christ” to submit ourselves. Pride spawns posturing, but instead, like Paul in Galatians 2:20, we must die to ourselves.

“Dead men don’t bow up. If they do, run,” Satterfield quipped.

3. Lack of historical understanding.  “There have been no good old days since the fall [of man],” Pruitt said, suggesting white believers sometimes lack historical context regarding what other races have endured. “The good old days [for some] were also the days of segregation,” she added. 

Ogletree agreed with Pruitt’s assessment about a lack of education regarding slavery, segregation and Jim Crow: “1964 was not that long ago, the Civil Rights Act.” He added that the SBC started because of slavery and the South was its epicenter, yet affirmed, “The beauty of what the gospel does is that [past] doesn’t have to define you.”

We must be willing to have this conversation about history, Kaunitz said: “It’s not about living and wearing the sin of yesterday. It’s about being sympathetic [to] the sin of yesterday and its effects today.” 

“Many of us are not sensitive of the fact that many are carrying the scars of what their fathers have done,” Satterfield said. “We jump to protect ourselves instead of listening to understand. Our churches need to repent individually and in community, collectively, so we can start now and really use what’s become a cliché for truth: the best is yet to come.”

4. Anti-social media. All panelists acknowledged the dangers of social media. 

“When social media determines the platform and culture determines the tone, it’s never going to end well,” Kaunitz said. 

Owning your bias

“I really do see our family as a picture of heaven because it’s diverse and that’s what it’s going to look like,” Pruitt said. She noted the challenges of having to hold conversations with her adopted kids that she did not have to have with her older biological daughters. 

“When it comes to the context of church, I want a family,” Satterfield said, and this involves embracing differences: “We don’t laugh at the same jokes. We don’t like the same foods. There are a lot of different biases that exist just culturally from your upbringing. You have to learn that getting along is messy.”

“When you start having conversations with people who grew up in a different ethnicity than you did, you learn,” Criner agreed.

Kaunitz noted his church’s intentionality toward diversity, with its multi-ethnic staff. Having to swallow his pride and “hear things that are hard” has been challenging,
he said. 

Ogletree admitted that privilege is a “hot word,” and that he had grown up in privilege, in a good home with his middle-class family, only discovering differences in college. “We all have biases,” he said, adding, “The answer to bias is to listen.”

Pruitt agreed that bias exists for all and it must be surrendered. She admitted that walking through the adoption of most of her children with their biological moms exposed biases she held. She warned against preconceptions and urged people to see others as made in the image of Christ. She also said the adoption process revealed her own previously unrecognized privilege.

Avoid the broad brush

Mathews told a story from the early days of his church decades ago. A white man who had come to his office to ask about the church had refused to shake Mathews’ offered hand. Discouraged, Mathews wondered if his idea of a multiracial ministry would work. An hour passed, and in walked a white couple. 

“The lady hugged me. The man talked me to death. They were so nice and friendly. I learned something from that: I can’t paint with a broad brush,” he recalled.

Satterfield suggested another acronym: DIMTY: “Do I Matter To You?” To matter is a deep-seated need of humankind: “I acknowledge you matter to God. You matter for eternity.”

Ogletree cautioned against minimizing the pain or sin carried from generation to generation. 

“Within the African American community, racism has always been the topic,” he said, pointing out that the Black Lives Matter cause has grown because “a black life has really never mattered.” Events such as the killing of George Floyd trigger memories of years of mistreatment among Blacks and provoke reactions akin to PTSD.

“The answer is relationship,” Kaunitz said, deep, honest conversation that reveals the pain another person has experienced. “You can’t find [perspective] without relationship.”

Ministering to all races

How does one minister to white congregants who feel they are being blamed repeatedly for race problems? Mathews asked.

Remember “Jesus is our substitute, but he is also our example,” Criner said, later adding, “We are to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.” He said he tells people questioning why they must apologize, “There’s no they. It’s us. If they are part of the body of Christ, they are us.”

“Usually people who ask that question often don’t have a lot of relationships with people who don’t look like them,” Pruitt said, advising others to pursue such friendships to hear their stories.

“Just like I’ve got to listen to my Black friends as they process, I’ve got to listen to my white friends as well,” Kaunitz said. 

Bridge-building tips

Becoming all things to all people builds bridges, Satterfield said, whether it means preaching in chaps and a cowboy hat at a Jasper, Texas, cowboy church or donning a “19-piece suit” for a New York church.

“It is enabling the Spirit in his wind to blow me wherever God wants me to go,” Satterfield continued. Assignments can be uncomfortable, and you must realize you can’t “fix” people, he said, adding, “I plant, I water, and then I lift my hands and watch God bring the increase.”

Criner advocated purposeful church planting, noting that his church is investing in a predominantly Black church start. He also recommended involvement in foster and respite care.

The key is to be “slow to anger,” Ogletree said. “I grew up with my own blinders. With people in my congregation, I have to listen more and stop judging and listen to their circumstances. I want to reach out. But at this point, it would be nice to have someone reach in. I need someone to hear me and understand me.” 

Pruitt again urged the development of intentional relationships, noting that Gen Z is more diverse than prior generations and the trend will continue. She also cautioned parents to be bridge builders for their kids at home and not to criticize other ethnicities, for the children are watching.

About staying in the SBC

During a Q&A session afterwards, panelists affirmed support of the SBC. 

Satterfield likened abandoning the SBC to abandoning family. Criner, Kaunitz and Pruitt noted doctrinal unity with the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 and missions.

“I am hopeful. I not only want to see change, I want to be part of change,” Ogletree said.

“This is not the end. This is the beginning,” said Jim Richards, SBTC executive director, closing the meeting in prayer. 

Watch the panel discussion at sbtexas.com/racialharmony