A Plea to the Current Leadership of the SBC
By Trevin Wax on Feb 19, 2009 in Southern Baptist Convention | 
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Please share your wisdom!
As the weeks go by, I continue to see articles and hear comments about the loss of young pastors from the ranks of the SBC. Some of the current leaders in SBC life worry that their concerns are not being heard by the younger crowd. Others lament the fact that when their concerns are heard, they are often misunderstood or misinterpreted on blogs.
To those who have courageously led our convention in these past years and those concerned about the future of the SBC: may I make a humble suggestion?
Release your resources.
Give away all sermons and conference talks for free on the internet.
Let us hear your heart!
One reason why pastors like John MacArthur and John Piper have such a large following among young Southern Baptists is because all their sermons (audio and manuscript) for the past 30-40 years are available online for free. I suggest that Southern Baptist pastors look to these men as an example of how to invest in younger pastors. Make your resources available online, for free.
Consider the recent pastor’s conference at First Baptist in Jacksonville. Talk about a line-up! I would love to listen to the conference talks by Al Mohler, Paige Patterson, Matt Chandler, Johnny Hunt, Jerry Vines, Ravi Zacharias, and a whole host of others. But to my dismay, in order to listen to the conference, I will have to purchase more than $50 worth of CDs (I don’t even listen to CDs!), wait for them to be delivered to my home, download them to my computer, and then download them to my Mp3 player.
Consider the lack of efficiency in this outdated method. Someone is paid to bundle up CDs and ship them across the country. So I’m paying for the cost of a CD, postal service, and a handler that can send me the CDs that I will immediately convert into Mp3s anyway. Why not cut out all the middle, inefficient waste and just put the Mp3s online for free?
But some might say: No one will come to next year’s conference if the resources are widely available.
Actually, it works the other way around. Want to see more young people showing up at your conference? Stop charging for outdated media materials and start posting them online. This year’s conference resources are next year’s advertising. Just ask the coordinators of Together for the Gospel or Desiring God (conferences which post materials online immediately following each session).
The same is true of preaching. Want young people to listen to your sermons? Then open up the archive. And please… do not charge for sermons… The days when a popular pastor could have a lucrative cassette tape or CD ministry are coming to an end.
One way that those of you who currently lead of the SBC can invest in us younger pastors and seminarians is by providing your wisdom to us free of charge. So…start a podcast. Flood the world wide web with your resources. Give everything away, and then watch how God blesses.
We look forward to hearing your heart!
© Copyright by Trevin Wax | Print This Post | Share (Twitter, Email, Facebook)
There a lot of truth in that post. I wonder if anyone in the SBC old guard has ears to hear. Just one example… I’ve listened to 3 or 4 talks by Ed Stetzer over the past two months that were available for free online. If they had been CDs or paid downloads, I probably just wouldn’t have taken the time.
Brent Hobbs | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
excellent post. The Gospel is free, so should sermons be on it.
Dr. Paul Foltz | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
This is an excellent suggestion! Preachers will reach a far wider audience if they do this especially for us here over seas who don’t have the chance to listen to these preachers in person. And I really dont think that people would not come to conference if they put their sermons out on line for free, in fact as you said, people will eventually turn up because they have a good sketch of what a preacher is about!
Jon | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
This admonition should be heeded by all denominations. And, as middle ground, why not give them away online, and offer CDs for sale?
Brian Jensen | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
I think this is an excellent idea. I work at Southwestern Seminary where Dr. Patterson serves as President. We have many of our resources online for free and are currently working to make our podcasting and even I-tunes U more effective and larger. For now you can download several of Dr. Patterson’s sermons here http://www.swbts.edu/mediaresources/ I can’t help you with some of the conferences since organizers control that information, but we are doing what we can. God bless,
Thomas White
Vice President for Student Services and Communications
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Thomas White | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Great post! This is one more example of how John Piper’s leadership has flown in the face of most of the way ministry has been “done” in the past 20 years. I have no idea how the first local tape ministries (originated to bring sermons to shut-ins–for free) devolved into the for-profit industry it has become. With mp3 technology, even a staff-of-one small church pastor like me can record and post sermons for free. in today’s world, the only reason a ministry could find for charging is that they want to profit from the gospel. I think Peter had something to say about that in 1 Peter 5.
Pastor Jim | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Thanks everyone for the comments. Our seminaries really do well with the audio ministries. Southwestern, Southeastern, Southern all post great material from lectures, chapel, panel discussion, etc.
Pastor Jim, I do hope we will refrain here from judging others’ motivations. I do not think that the pastors who charge for their sermons are seeking to “profit” from the Gospel. Once you figure in the cost of a CD, together with a person paid to handle and ship them, the prices are generally reasonable. I understand why tape/CD ministries have thrived over the past twenty years. And I do not believe it is greed or “peddling” for pastors to continue charging.
But the times are changing. And the pastors who want to make the greatest impact on the largest number of people (especially young people) will need to open up the archives if they want their wisdom to be heeded.
Trevin Wax | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Trevor,
There were the same complaints about the John 3:16 Conference. I agree that these resources should be made available for free. I also agree that doing so will not lessen the interest or stop people from attending. T4G gives their presentations away for free and they still have 5,000+ show up.
Also, when Ravi has given seminars recently here in Atlanta he only charged $10 for admission. That probably only covers the cost to use the facilities.
Mark
johnMark | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for tempering my comment–it came across harsher than I meant it.
Pastor Jim | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Not to sound snarky, but free stuff isn’t even worth what you pay for it if it doesn’t have any value to begin with. There is “tons o’ stuff” on Sermon Audio that I wouldn’t waste time listening to.
Johnny Mac and John Piper aren’t popular because they are free, they are popular because they have meat.
Jerry | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
excellent post!
i hesitated to read this post because i thought “plea” would probably mean some sort of bashing lol. to the contrary, you have made a helpful suggestion to a much-discussed problem. kudos!
mike
mike | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Mike,
You should know by now we don’t do “bashing” here at Kingdom People!
Trevin Wax | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
I somewhat agree with Jerry above, it is what is in the sermon, not it’s cost that determines how popular it is. Having said that, this is a great start to discussion of how to more effectively reach out in today’s world. I am currently changing our church’s website into a blog in hopes that it will be more attractive to the current generation and also be more useful to our members. Will either of these things “fix” what is wrong with our outreach efforts? Definitely not! They are just two of a thousand points of light that need to be addressed. But, you have to start somewhere.
RJ | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Using a sports analogy…if a team is good enough to be on tv for free, they will still be able to fill the stadium on game day. If the quality is there, the people will come. Same for sermons on mp3.
Kevin | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Trevin,
I join you in your plea! This is a great post and I think every word is true. It seems that by not putting the resources online for free they are widening the generation gap and even encouraging young pastors in the SBC to go elsewhere!!
Matthew Svoboda | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
This is definitely a great post. It shows a disconnect from leadership at the SBC with a developing technological generation. Yes, the sermon has to have good content, what sermon doesn’t? These conferences are filled with quality. Making it free allows the entire country to engage in the ideas being presented and begins uniting people in thought. Look at Driscoll and the Acts 29 network regionals for proof.
My issues with the SBC stem from not engaging social issues biblically. The SBC is fervent about inerrancy, but as a whole they seem to lag behind in mercy ministry (Matthew 25, Luke 10, etc.).
They make more news by what they are against or outlawing than what they are for. They also avoid a biblical discussion on drinking, which is a secondary issue, but they hold to it as primary.
logsatm04 | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Amen, it costs almost nothing to make mp3s available and is a great way to spread the word…that is what it’s supposed to be about right, getting the Gospel heard by as many people as possible?
God bless,
-jim
ke4juh | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Trevin, bang on the money! CD’s are so outdated and such a waste of space! I’m all for free stuff on the net.
aworthydiscussion | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Sermon Browser is a plugin for Wordpress that makes it easy enough for ANYONE almost or any church to distribute audio sermon and text online… instantly makes audio available on iTunes too! There’s no excuse for not making this material available quickly.
Reformatus | Feb 19, 2009 | Reply
Consider the New Testament. Two hot technologies of the day: Letters and highways.
Did Paul charge?
Mike | Feb 21, 2009 | Reply
Trevin,
I agree with your post. Spot on.
And Jerry you are right – it is not simply the price or the package, its the Product.
MacArthur, Piper, Mohler, Dever, Mahaney (all the Sovereign Grace folks), Ligon Duncan – the T4G folks – They are all On Point in their messages, no fluff and giving the stuff away breeds more attendees next year. Look at the growth of T4G.
Terry Thomas | Feb 21, 2009 | Reply
I was just talking with the assistant dean of men here at Word of Life about this very issue. If there are any pastors out there perhaps you yourself could do what Piper, Driscoll and the rest are doing and post your own stuff on the web. The truth needs to be available.
Phillip | Feb 28, 2009 | Reply
I have several blogs of studies see my profile under freegracepreacher@blogspot.com
or google.
Dr. Paul W. FOLTZ | Mar 1, 2009 | Reply