I usually try to write something encouraging, inspiring and perhaps challenging in this space each week. Maybe I can offer a few positive words to interrupt this crazy negative world we live in. But I don’t remember a harder week for me to try to come up with something to write about.

I am grieving about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday, and the tragic loss of life of those 19 fourth-graders and their two teachers. I am grieving and angry about the embarrassing report from the sexual abuse task force of the Southern Baptist Convention. All this on the heels of senseless shootings in Buffalo and California within the last 10 days is almost too much.

I have had a few people ask me this week how such things could happen in our world. I am the pastor, and I am supposed to have answers, but I feel at so much a loss for words, and the thoughts I have been able to string together seem at best trite. 

Quite simply, the world is broken and messed up. Evil is real, and sin always destructive. And I believe we are reaping as a nation what we have been sowing for the last many years.

For now, my mind is confused, my spirit troubled, my heart heavy. And I do not have answers, except for the simple truths of God’s word. I am inclined to follow the old adage, “If you don’t have something good to say, say nothing at all.” But I do feel the responsibility to address at least a couple of things.

First, as for the school shooting, let me advise you to be careful with your words. Resist the temptation to turn this into a political football that you kick around, trying to make a point for your “side.” That always seems to be the first response these days, and usually the conversation ends up in the muck and mire of highly inflammable politics, instead of in expressions of Christ-like compassion. What the world needs most from the church right now is faith, hope and love. 

We need to learn how to deal with evil and tragedy, and the heartbreak that it causes, without feeling like we have to control everything. We can’t, and we never could. Our politically charged social media-driven world today wants to blame someone for everything, so immediately we start trying to point fingers and come up with fixes. Perhaps our first response might just be to listen. “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” (James 1:19-20)

For now, we should probably just grieve, for the families in their loss, and for our nation in its brokenness. And we should pray—for those hurting families, and that devastated school and community. We should also pray that God would bring revival, so that His people as salt and light would be the preservative and illumination that this dark, rotting world needs. 

As for the Southern Baptist report which has been all over the news this week, it is nothing less than disheartening, if not surprising. The “scandal” involves many incidences of sexual abuse in churches over the years, and even worse, the cover-up of those abuses usually to protect those in power. Denominational leaders and executives chose to listen to the advice of attorneys concerned with liability more than God’s word, to do what was right. And along the way, not only did they ignore charges of abuse, they turned on the accusers and made them out to be the problem. It was a disgusting abuse of power and trust, some by “celebrity” pastors of mega-churches, and it was another troubling chapter in the denomination’s history.

In that light, I have had a few people who asked me this week about our church’s affiliation with the SBC. You may know that Shelby Crossings in its founding was a Southern Baptist mission church, as a daughter church of The Church at Brook Hills. However, over time we have become more and more distanced from the denomination, both out of intention and disinterest. We are ever-so-technically still on the rolls of the Birmingham Baptist Association, but we have no other involvement or connection there.

In Baptist polity, which is “bottom-up” instead of “top-down,” each church is essentially independent in its association and involvement, and does not come under the direction or authority of a national or state denomination, or local association. Participation and cooperation is voluntary, and usually to be determined by two things: financial support, and active voting or involvement in convention affairs. We as a church have not given to the SBC “cooperative program” since I have been a pastor almost 13 years ago, nor have we been involved politically in any way.

Now, make no mistake, the issues at the national level of the Southern Baptist Convention concern us, if only because we are all members of the same body of Christ. But more than that, it is heartbreaking how our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who tried to shed light on sin have been treated. Survivors of abuse have been victimized even more, humiliated after the fact, just because they came forth publicly and wanted to remove predators from positions of leadership. All in all, men in power have been corrupted by their power, and have brought great shame on the name of Christ because of their sinful actions.

But in reality, I don’t know any other way to say it but that they don’t represent us at Shelby Crossings. In our weekly on-the-ground ministry of seeking to make disciples and reach the nations, I don't know how the actions of denominational officials could affect us any less. Baptist politics is not even on our radar screen. Rest assured, we will continue to do all we can to protect families and children and prevent issues of abuse, or sin of any kind, involving our church. And if we ever have to deal with such issues in our church family, we are committed to dealing with them humbly and openly in an environment of transparency, like we have everything else in this ministry.  

For now, I hope you will join me in praying for our nation, and the church as a whole in our nation, that God would shake us, break us, and wake us up. May His gospel spring forth from this brokenness and bring revival to our land.

I am so grateful to be the pastor of such a wonderful church body, and I love you all. I pray you have a safe and blessed Memorial Day weekend, and I hope to see you on Sunday.

--Pastor Ken