Woven The following is an edited excerpt from Suzii Paynter’s June 26 address to the 2014 CBF General Assembly in Atlanta. View Paynter’s address and other 2014 Assembly videos at www.thefellowship.info/atlanta2014. I AM A NATIVE of San Antonio, Texas — home of the San Antonio Spurs. I love basketball and my hometown team, as you know, recently won the NBA Championship. Every year, of course, there is a winner, but not every year is the buzz
A PUBLICATION OF COOPERATIVE BAPTIST FELLOWSHIP
fellowship!
CBF
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 4
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2014
EXECUTIVE COORDINATOR Suzii Paynter ASSOCIATE COORDINATOR, FELLOWSHIP ADVANCEMENT Jeff Huett EDITOR Aaron Weaver GRAPHIC DESIGNER Travis Peterson ASSOCIATE EDITOR Emily Holladay ASSISTANT EDITOR Candice Young PHONE (770) 220-1600 E-MAIL fellowship@thefellowship.info WEBSITE www.thefellowship.info fellowship! is published 6 times a year in Feb./March, April/May, June/July, Aug./Sept., Oct./Nov., Dec./Jan. by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Inc., 160 Clairemont Avenue, Suite 500, Decatur, GA 30030. Periodicals postage paid at Decatur, GA, and additional offices. USPS #015-625. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to fellowship! Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, 160 Clairemont Avenue, Suite 500, Decatur, GA 30030.
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and the dominance of the win attributed to humble, relentless, elegant teamwork. In a league where everyone focuses on the “stars,” the Spurs are living proof that “We” is greater than “Me.” Teamwork — that is the prevailing wish expressed in the “what if ” questions that guided our 2012 Task Force. What if we could develop a seamless cooperative community made up of a national organization, state/regional organizations and all our partners? What if we could share resources throughout the system to help one another? What if we could think about the abundance of resources instead of the scarcity? What if this seamless community could find a way to put more funds on the mission field? And what if we were known and loved far and wide for being the presence of Christ? The 2012 Task Force Report is a blueprint for identity, missions and ministry. The beginning section asks these “what if ” questions — those are questions of wishes and dreams. When I read them it sounds like we’re seeking a utopian and unattainable community. Hey, I know you and we are no utopian group! However, the difference between a wish and a dream is the power of forming something together — collaboration, cooperation, co-creating in the Spirit; humble, relentless, elegant teamwork. What we too easily describe in ethereal theologies as mystical union in Christ or the gift of the Holy Spirit, Wendell Berry, our farmer, novelist and creator of the Port William community, renders narratively as a community woven together by the earthly realities of kinship, friendship, history, memory, kindness, work and affection. Fellowship, we belong to God. In his reminder that we are woven into this belonging that precedes and grounds us, Berry is inviting us to embrace and to enact a knowing participation in a “kindness so comprehensive.” The first
lesson from Berry’s Port William is to rejoice in and sing with our given membership with everything in God’s redeeming, enduring love. Fellowship, we are one part “what if ” dream and one part Port William community. My elevator word, not elevator speech, is that CBF is a “denomi-network.” We are not a denomination. We are interconnected. We are woven together. In a world of religious institutional and denominational decline, we are vital, we are alive, and it is not accidental. The Fellowship is faithful and intentional and we are developing. To connect in this Fellowship is to connect with the larger body of Christ. Your membership is not toward CBF, but by forming together with others in CBF, we are becoming the body of Christ. We have lived and developed a different way of being a Christian network — big tent, federated, cooperative, diverse opinions but generous to one another. We are church and missions (not issue) centered and not constituent limited. We have created and connected with existing networks of missions and ministry, and we seek a balanced expression with work in states and regions as well as globally. So, what is the clearest way to articulate the identity of CBF as we look to the future? A keystone quality of the Fellowship is hospitality. There is no living Fellowship without a culture of hospitality. We have created an environment of hospitality and teamwork for us as a Fellowship by moving to new offices in Decatur. Putting hospitality into practice means creating more access, more doors into the Fellowship, more ways to connect and participate. Did you know that the Fellowship hosts more than 500 nights of hotel rooms each year for field personnel, Governing Board and council members, state and regional coordinators, seekers to join missions,