Those who know me or who have been reading this column for a while know that I am on a bit of a quest to climb as many of Colorado’s 14,000-foot mountains as possible. My oldest son, Caleb, and I have summited 37 “fourteeners” together, some with other family members. My wife, Beth, would be quick to tell you she’s been to the top of six of them with us.
On some of these more challenging hikes, it’s even possible to climb more than one fourteener in a day. Peaks are often joined by a ridge called a saddle. From the first fourteener summit I can descend several hundred feet down the saddle and then climb on up to the second summit.
The saddle is one of my favorite places to hike. Suspended between two giant mountains, my view is framed by majesty to the left and right. Looking out between them, it feels like I can see the entire world.
A saddle between summits is also a place to exercise great caution. The ridge is often narrow, with only one safe path and with steep, potentially deadly drop-offs in either direction. Saddles can also be windy, requiring both balance and focus. Still, there are few views of the world more inspiring than a saddle between two summits.
As a family of autonomous yet cooperating Baptist churches, we too travel a saddle between two summits. One of those summits is the biblical unity that is expressed doctrinally in our simple but profound statement of faith called The Baptist Faith and Message. The other summit is the missional cooperation that is expressed tangibly in our Cooperative Program commitment to fulfilling the Great Commission, together.
Last month in Memphis, Tennessee, I attended a national gathering celebrating the 100th Anniversary of these summits. Both were established on May 13, 1925 by messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention that met there in Memphis. Since then, The Baptist Faith and Message has been rarely but faithfully updated to apply the Bible’s truth to pressing issues of the day. And since then, the Cooperative Program has provided the channel for faithful Baptists to invest more than $20 billion dollars in taking the gospel to the world.
My great grandparents were among the first to benefit from the clarity of The Baptist Faith and Message, and to give to worldwide missions through the Cooperative Program. Now my grandchildren are starting to learn about the Bible, and about missions. And whether your Baptist heritage is multi-generational or just beginning, we stand in this saddle together. For our generation, we are faced with the question of whether we will continue to stand firm and balanced in both biblical unity and missional cooperation.
It’s from this saddle that we can see the importance and beauty of both summits. If we compromise biblical unity on the core doctrines of our biblical faith simply to invite others into the mission, we risk diluting the gospel message or making disciples that are shallow or even biblically errant.
Yet if we focus too narrowly on secondary issues that are open to honest and varied biblical interpretation, we risk division into smaller and smaller doctrinal camps, and missional cooperation will suffer. Fewer people will hear the gospel in fewer places.
While traveling this saddle together means walking a narrow path carefully and with balance, and while the tempting winds of compromise or division may blow, right here between the two summits of biblical unity and missional cooperation is where we belong. It’s here that God gives us the best view possible of a lost world, and then it’s there he bids us go, together.
Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association. Respond at IllinoisBaptist@IBSA.org.