Renewal, Revival, Redirection

My wife is a member of the Executive Board of the Northwest Baptist Convention. This group of pastors and laypersons represents the messengers of the 420 churches that voluntarily identify themselves with the NWBC.
Last year, Dr. Bill Crews, then interim Executive Director (and since Nov. 2007 full time Exec. Dir.)shared a statistical overview of the population growth of the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, the Idaho panhandle, and a few scattered churches in Northern California) and church growth among Southern Baptist Churches. The statistics were favorable- if you happen to believe that there is no God, that hell is a figment of some one's imagination, and that Jesus was merely a great teacher who left a remarkable example. If you believe that God sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for sin, that Jesus is the way, the life, and the truth, then the news was bad, very bad.
The upshot of all this is a proposal put forth by Dr. Crews to reorient the resources of our NWBC in what he calls a "Strategy for Renewal." I won't go into the details here- most of which haven't been fleshed out anyway, but what I can say is that the Executive Board, after a long and fruitful discussion, approved the new direction (with only two dissenting votes that I could see from my vantage point at the back of the room). By early September Dr. Crews hopes to have a more fully developed proposal that can be voted on by the convention in our annual meeting in November- which happens to be the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Northwest Baptist Convention.
I believe that something has to change. Our churches- let me be candid, my church- is not reaching people with the gospel. We are not impacting the lostness of our culture. We are attracting about the same number of people to worship and Vacation Bible School and other Bible teaching opportunities as we always have- there have been a few years when our average attendance was higher than it is currently, and a few years it has been lower- but in the past 17 years we aren't making any more of a difference than we were before.
Multiply this by over 400 churches and you discover that although population continues to grow in the Northwest, churches- at least Southern Baptist churches- are losing ground.
So, change- while formidable, frightening, and even foreboding- must occur. Several asked my opinion. Simply put- Is Dr. Crews suggestion the only way to reorder our resources? I don't know. But I don't see any other alternative strategies being suggested. Will this strategy work for every church? I seriously doubt it. If it enables 25% or 40% or 50% of Southern Baptist churches to become more effective at reaching their communities for Jesus Christ- seeing people come to faith, making disciples, changing the godless culture in which our churches are located, the strategy will be worth whatever the cost.

Bottom line- as an older pastor (I am over 50) I have fewer years of ministry ahead of me than behind me, and I want to be desperate enough for God to use me in Winston to see people come to faith in Jesus Christ, to see the number of believers who are growing into fully formed followers of Jesus Christ increase, and to make a difference in the world in which we live.

Steve