Leader's Insight: Adrian Rogers on Commitment

Adrian Rogers was a highly respected preacher and leader in his church and denomination. As pastor of the mammoth Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, Rogers was also a force behind the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. He died on November 15, 2005, at the age of 74.

In ministry today, we are hearing the argument for raising the expectations for church membership and participation. In 1989, Rogers participated in a Leadership roundtable discussion with Maxie Dunnam, Don Finto and Duane Litfin. Here are some of Rogers’s comments on the topic of commitment: How much is enough?

The full article is posted at www.LeadershipJournal.net.

Leadership: When you think of committed people in your church, who comes to mind?

Adrian Rogers: A man I greatly admire, Marvin Nelli. He operates a service station. He’s not a gifted speaker, but Marvin is perhaps the best personal witness I’ve ever met. He gets off work and visits in the hospitals, listening and sharing. Hardly a Sunday goes by that he doesn’t come forward with somebody he has led to a commitment to Christ. Sometimes it will be a whole family. His commitment is not so much to the infrastructure as to what the organization is there to produce.

Leadership: The rub comes, though, because not everyone is this committed. What’s the “minimum weekly requirement” for the average member? Do people know these expectations when they join?

Rogers: The only thing I look for when a person comes to join our church is commitment to Christ. Romans 14:1 says, “He who is weak in the faith, receive.” A newcomer is a babe, and I think every family needs a lot of babysitters. You can’t say to a baby, “We’ll let you into the family if you do the dishes, make the beds, mop the floors, bring in income.” He’s not equipped. He has to be nurtured and trained. So we keep a low threshold for new members.

Leadership: If you keep entrance requirements at the infant level, what prevents you later from having spiritual teenagers who refuse to do any chores?

Rogers: The difference is between what we desire and what we require. You can’t require dedication, anyway. You can require some forms of legalism, but they won’t be a reality in people’s lives.

I believe you have to keep the theological standard high; the Lord said, “Be perfect,” and the leaders have to be striving for that standard with all there is in them. They are the spiritual fathers, John says. But always there are the “little children” John refers to. They ought to grow rapidly, but you don’t screen them out on the front end. A church is an incubator, a nursery, a grade school. You start where people are and move them to where they need to be.

Leadership: When new people come, is it better to get them serving right away, so they don’t get programmed for inactivity? Or is it better to get them grounded in the Word and worship first?

Rogers: To me it depends on what you get them to do. When I meet with our new members, I tell them, “Every person has a gift, and our job is to help you discover, develop, and deploy that gift. There’s no clique to break into, but we feel it’s better for you to settle in and get acclimated. Don’t wait to serve, however, until you’re given an official position of service. If you’re the last one out of the room, turn out the lights. If you walk across the church grounds and see a piece of paper, pick it up and throw it away. Smile at the first person you meet in the hallway. That’s service to Jesus …

So they begin to serve immediately. But again, we’re not going to give anybody a major responsibility unless he or she meets the criteria for leadership. You let a child carry out a wastebasket, but you don’t let him drive the car until he’s old enough and mature enough. And carrying out the wastebasket gets him ready to drive the car.

Leadership: Is it your role to increase people’s level of commitment to Christ? To the church? Both?

Rogers: When the church is mentioned in Scripture, the great preponderance of times it refers to the local fellowship. When a person is committed to Christ, he needs to come under the authority of a pastor and be part of a church body. Like a newborn child, he is part of a family …

The problem is that in the minds of many people, committed to the church means committed to the meetings of the church. If we say commitment to the church is the same as commitment to God, then these people think they have to attend meetings in order to be committed to God.

… I’ve never tried to get people committed to leadership or even committed to the church, per se. To go after church commitment is a mistake. It is a commitment to Christ that you want. People will do for Jesus what they’ll never do for you.

Leadership: What do you know now about calling people to commitment that you wish you’d known starting out?

Rogers: The thing I’m still learning is that God has called every member to minister. The pastor is not the hired gun. I’ve gotten so bold as to tell my people they don’t pay my salary; they give the money to God, and God pays my salary. Now I say that with a smile. But I tell them, “You don’t pay me to do your ministry. My duty is to equip you for ministry.”

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