About a month ago, we gathered for our first ever Center for Baptist Renewal event at Oklahoma Baptist University.
Well, we have been saying that, but it is not quite accurate. Our inaugural event was actually in November 2017 in Providence, Rhode Island. That was the year we launched CBR, and to celebrate we had a small gathering and panel discussion at First Baptist Providence—the first Baptist church in America!—in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. The setting was more than fitting: in the city where Baptists first covenanted together on this continent and in the year the worldwide church was commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. That first meeting was sort of a metaphor for what we want to accomplish as a center: we aim to be convictionally Protestant and unapologetically Baptist and, precisely in so doing, to be properly catholic and genuinely Christian.
The venue for our 2022 event was fitting as well. One of our meetings convened in Stubblefield Chapel, the oldest building on campus at OBU. The building was built in 1897 and was originally located in downtown Shawnee, OK, where it housed Shawnee’s First Baptist Church. In 1906, Baptists from around the state met there to form the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. This setting too has symbolic significance. OBU marks the location of two our board members now (Matt and Luke) and one of our fellows (OBU president, Dr. Heath Thomas), and so serves a new center for our activities. But this old chapel also highlights our indebtedness to a particular history and a particular people. Our fellowship extends beyond the borders of the Southern Baptist Convention, and we hope for even further expansion, but our roots are there. For Baptists, the local has priority over the universal and the concrete over the abstract. These ties to our shared history ground us.
The event itself exceeded our expectations. Around 100 people attended, mostly pastors and laypeople, not only from Oklahoma but also from several surrounding states. OBU was a gracious and hospitable host. We shared a lunch together and then Luke gave a presentation on the history and vision of CBR, unpacking our mission statement: “CBR is a group of orthodox, evangelical Baptists committed to a retrieval of the Great Tradition for the renewal of Baptist faith and practice.” The afternoon session consisted of a panel discussion, led by Matt and featuring several pastors from Oklahoma and Texas: John Mark Hart of Christ Community Church at Rancho Village in Oklahoma City; Matt Boswell of the Trails Church in Frisco, Texas; Oren Martin of Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas; and Bill Watson of Lake Highlands Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. It was a deeply encouraging and enlightening conversation about how these pastors have implemented retrieval—doctrinal, liturgical, and spiritual—in their local contexts. The evening session met in Stubblefield and began with a light liturgy and service of songs led by Matt Boswell. This was one of the most heartening moments of the day, as voices filled this small, old chapel with praises to our living God. David Bebbington then presented a talk on his famous “quadrilateral” defining evangelical identity. Another panel followed, led by Brandon and featuring Boswell, Thomas Kidd of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Nathan Finn of North Greenville University. The day’s events were intellectually stimulating, practically relevant, and spiritually uplifting. Our hearts were full.
We hope to do it again next year in some form. We will also continue our work of connecting likeminded Baptists and providing resources to pastors and churches. Retrieval for the sake of renewal is our watchword. We pray that God would continue to bless our work. We are convinced that the church of the future will be one rooted in the past and with arms spread wide in the present—a church that embraces all the faithful from all nations and all ages. We believe that the church is at her best, not when she is bitter and insular, but when she is full of joy and hope and calm confidence, trusting in her Lord who promised to build his church such that not even the gates of hell would prevail against it. God grant us to be such a church.
And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen.