SBC Name Change? Yes. SBC Behavioral Change? Better.

Ed Stetzer, on the proposed name change for Southern Baptists to "Great Commission Baptists"--

"For the foreseeable future, my church will still list itself as SBC, rather than GCB-- and not because the other unfortunate meaning of that acronym."

Heh.

He makes a serious point in today's post, though. He says it's a change of actions, not just a change in name, that's needed.

I believe there are three needs facing the Southern Baptist Convention currently that new resurgences, name changes, and study groups can't fix.

First is a need to stop bickering and infighting....You could name yourself an Egyptian hieroglyph and say you are "the Baptist denomination formally known as Southern." But if you are mean-spirited, you just have to change the name again in a few years....

Secondly, we must work together to promote cooperation....We must act like a convention, not a bunch of small constituencies that want to get their own way....The promise of the SBC's conservative resurgence was that we would eventually agree on enough to cooperate for global missions. Well, when will that day come...?

Finally, we need to keep the goal in sight. The new moniker, "Great Commission Baptists," does that. If nothing else, every time we think of our additional name, we will be reminded of what we should be doing. Clinging solely to our legal name, Southern Baptist Convention, would have worked functionally, but GCB speaks to our DNA. We don't need to be primarily "Southern" or "conventional," but a group of churches on mission. Our goal is to be about the task for which Jesus called us....God is a sending God, and we are a sent people. The most profound instruction we have ever received as it relates to our mission is the Great Commission....

So, Southern Baptists, let us act like Great Commission Baptists--that will both help fix the reputation of the old name and build a good reputation for the new "nickname."

Here is the full post.