Today, Frank Viola comes by the blog and interacts for the day.

As I have written before, I like Frank. He is not a subtle man. He is calling for big changes. And, he loves Jesus. Those are some good qualities.

Now, if you have read my books and my blog, you also know that Frank and I have some pretty significant differences about an important subject-- ecclesiology. And, I believe that ecclesiology will be one of the defining issues in the evangelical conversation in the years to come.

I am so passionate about the subject, my next scholarly book will be on ecclesiology, probably out in 2012 (my missiology textbook comes out in 2010), so I am pretty concerned about this subject and have some firm convictions.

And, it is no secret to Frank that I found his last two books to be lacking in ecclesiology (as I see it in scripture), but I appreciated his passion for the church and God's mission in From Eternity to Here. His passion for the church and its mission comes through in From Eternity to Here. Whereas his other books seemed to want to deconstruct the church (in a way I found destructive), this one provides the reader with reasons to love the church.

I also see this when Frank writes against "churchless Christianity," something I was encouraged to see. He did so in two parts at Out of Ur:

While I'm here in Chicagoland, I wanted to take time to point you to a helpful website. Bill Yaccino shared this with me and I thought it was worth your time. Bill is the Executive Director of Catalyst, a network of congregations in Lake County, IL that collaborate towards greater Kingdom impact. (www.Catalystweb.org)

The site is a tool for organizing people to pray for their neighborhoods here in Chicago. You can also sign up and join others who are also praying for their block-- and you don't have to live here in Chicago. Take a minute to see how many people are praying for their neighbors all across northern Chicago at Pray4YourBlock.org

The guys behind it all want to encourage you to sign up at the website and...

1. Plant a virtual flag in your neighborhood.

2. Start a movement in your corner of the world by inviting dozens of others to do the same.

3. Use their attached bulletin insert to encourage your church or organization.

4. Finally, write about it and tell others.

Check it out here.

This is part 2 in my "Baptists come in 32,234 flavors series." For part 1, click here. Fear not, there will probably only be a total of three parts.

Wednesday: Southwide Baptist Fellowship and Independent Fundamental Baptists

Yesterday, I was supposed to be in Pensacola speaking at Southwide Baptist Fellowship. You can see the whole program here. In fact, I was supposed to be the entire morning program and they graciously sent a plane so I could make it from Nevada to Pensacola, but we hit severe weather and were forced to land in Albuquerque. (And, yes, it was as scary as it sounds.)

Southwide is part of a whole different stream of Baptist from the SBC-related state conventions I discussed yesterday. There are not three types of partnership (association, state, national) as in the SBC world. Southwide is part of the Independent Baptist movement. Wikiepedia explains:

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Baptist churches were awakened to the advancement of modernism and liberalism into national Baptist denominations and conventions in both the United States and the U.K.. Many local Baptist churches began to feel that the core elements and doctrines of the Christian faith, such as the nature of God, the infallibility of the Bible, the literal person of Jesus Christ as both God and man, the nature of the Trinity, the literal resurrection of Christ, and the need for Christians to be separate from worldliness were being watered down and abandoned. Although during the same time period mainline denominations were struggling with the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy, many within these local Baptist churches felt that any association with Liberalism/Modernism even in the forum of debate was tantamount to compromise and was therefore unscriptural. As a result, many of these local Baptist churches separated from their former denominations and conventions and reestablished themselves as independent churches. Often within these Denominational churches more conservative elements would set about establishing new Independent Baptist churches instead of remaining within the denominational churches.

The movement is probably larger than you think-- around 14,000 churches. If it were a denomination, it would be about the size of the Assemblies of God.

Southwide is one of several "orbits" in the movement. There is no denominational connection among Independent Baptists, but there are certain "orbits," or points of connection. A friend of mine in the movement described it this way (indicating there was overlap between all the categories):

20% Independent Independents (might attend conferences, but not really connected to anyone)
20% Fellowship Independents (Baptist Bible Fellowship, Southwide, GARB)
30% College Independents (BBC, PCC, Hyles-Anderson, West Coast)
20% Conference Independents (Pastors School Hammond / Leadership Conference-- Paul Chappell)
20% Cause Independents (King James Bible, Conservative Music, Standards, Sunday School)

Southwide is in one of these orbits, but generally considered part of the "fellowship" orbit. The Wikipedia article has some issues, but contains some helpful information:

The Southwide Baptist Fellowship is made up of about a thousand churches. It is a member of the International Baptist Network.

Southwide is in a unique space in the Independent Baptist movement. Again, from Wikipedia:

Considered a conservative and "Fundamentalist" association of Baptist churches, the Southwide Baptist Fellowship is not as staunchly devoted as other Baptist Fundamentalist Fellowships to the concept of absolute autonomy (local church independence) or the essential requirement of the King James Version (KJV). Certainly, most member churches of the Southwide Baptist Fellowship are Independent Baptist and remain "KJV-only".

When it originated, the Southwide Baptist Fellowship was almost identical in teaching and outlook as the core of Independent Baptist Fundamentalism. It was heavily influenced by Lee Roberson and John R. Rice. Its hallmark code of behaviors (short hair on men, dresses on women, no mixed bathing, no movies, no contemporary music) and its theology of Dispensationalism were standard for Baptist Fundamentalism. Many of its members were openly antagonistic towards the Southern Baptist Convention and were outposken critics of SBC policies which, two decades ago, permitted a certain degree of liberal theology.

The Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement is, as you can tell from the article, in a bit of flux. Some are more open to working with different groups, but they still tend to be very conservative. It is highly unlikely that an IFB would have had me to speak at their meeting just twenty years ago. However, recently, I have spoken at Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Springfield and at Tennessee Temple. So, there is an increasing openness to different voices while still maintaining a conservative Baptist stance.

Most observers in and out of the movement would acknowledge that the IFB movement was much more influential in the 1970s than it is today. As an outside observer, I have been intrigued about how some are still thriving while maintaining traditional IFB beliefs and practices while others believe change is needed to engage contemporary culture more intentionally. In the next couple of weeks, I will interview a leader of the IFB movement and talk more about the its future.

Tomorrow, we look at Converge Worldwide / The Baptist General Conference / the old Swedish Baptists.