Therefore I want to challenge every member of the Executive Committee tonight, and every agency head tonight, within the next two years to take at least one mission trip somewhere other than this land we call America. I would like to challenge every pastor in the SBC in the next two years to schedule at least one mission trip with people in their church, that they might come to know firsthand the opportunities of sharing the gospel with a world that is lost and hungry and in need of a Savior. Giving to missions is no substitute for living missions. My second priority would be in evangelism. By the next Executive Committee meeting, I would challenge every member of the Executive Committee and every agency head to be able to share at least one experience of sharing their faith with a lost person.
Dead orthodoxy is as dangerous as live liberalism.
My third priority is to motivate our Convention to reach the next generation. Dr. Bob Reccord of the North American Mission Board told me that last year baptisms of youth between the age of twelve and eighteen were at an all-time low in the Southern Baptist Convention. Fifty percent of kids in church drop out after they reach eighteen, and half of those never come back. The cold hard fact is if we do not reach the next generation, we will die out before we ever dry up. Finally, I have a burden that we reach out to the next generation of pastors.