Although I don’t play very often, I enjoy the board game, Risk. The object is for players to win the world. They start at rough parity in terms of the geography over which they have influence and in the course of the game either grow stronger or decline until they are eliminated.

Risk is primarily a game of strategy but gets its name because there are key times when players have to make decisions about how bold they should be in pressing forward. The player that makes the best decisions in positioning his resources and pacing his advance is the one who ultimately wins the game.

There are two very common strategic blunders that are made in this game. One, often made by new players, is to try to do too much when there aren’t enough resources available to be successful. These players try to put their pieces into as many countries as possible as soon as possible. For a short time they look like they control a substantial portion of the world map. But because they don’t have the necessary strength to hold these territories and have no significant home territory from which to draw greater strength, they quickly succumb to the pressures of the game.

The other common blunder, which may very well be made even by experienced players who have been successful in previous games, is to try to play the game too safe. These players recognize the importance of having a strong home base. They work to control a continent that is easily defended against the other players. They slowly build strength in numbers in their base territory and only advance when it feels safe.

These players tend to stay in the game longer than those who spread themselves too thin. But ultimately they also go down to defeat because there comes a point when a competitor has to be willing to push forward and take some real chances. Players can’t wait until everything is perfect because the other players are also seeking to make their moves. If a player delays too long, he ends up on the defensive and battling against diminishing returns.

I can’t help but see comparisons with the game of Risk and the current Great Commission Resurgence discussion. It’s way too simplistic to say that there are only two positions on the GCR but I think the game’s common blunders do illustrate the dangers in the two most extreme positions in the conversation.

On one extreme is the thinking that Southern Baptists should throw all of our resources into the world as forcefully and quickly as possible. The argument goes that in a world of 6.7 billion people, most are lost and have never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel. We should therefore stop spending cooperative missions dollars in the Southern United States and put all of our denominational resources into reaching the world. The job of reaching our home areas can be left solely to the local churches.

On the other extreme is the belief that no change is needed. The thought is that we are nowhere close to winning our home territories for Christ, have many established ministries in these areas that need continued support, and that there must be spiritual revival among Southern Baptists before we can hope to be successful in winning the world. Expanding the missionary force is important but we should recognize that even if we spent every penny that Southern Baptists give on international missions, it would still only amount to a few cents per person when divided among the world’s population.

The first strategy loses because it assumes that there’s no need for cooperative ministry at home. It also undervalues the need for developing those churches that will provide the funds and manpower for future missions endeavors. The Southern Baptist Convention is a convention of small churches. While there may be some large churches that can easily access all they need for growing their congregations and reaching their communities, most small churches depend on the leverage that cooperation provides. Working together through their associations and state conventions enables them be healthy and active Acts 1:8 participants in sharing the gospel. At the same time, these small churches in the traditional Southern Baptist strongholds provide the majority of missionaries and vocational Christian workers for service around the world. As in Risk, a strategy that neglects the home base is likely to lead to rapid burnout.

However, the other extreme position is just as dangerous. The impact will just be felt more slowly. With this strategy, Southern Baptists will wither because the denomination never really take any risks. Churches, conventions and denominational entities can continue to do good things in the same ways they have always done them. But we will continue to lose ground because some of the old tactics don’t work so well in a post-Christian culture. Our dwindling numbers may lead us to begin to isolate ourselves from the world like the Amish and to die out like the Shakers. Meanwhile, the Convention’s risk-takers — often found among the much-needed younger generations — will grow impatient with the denominational lethargy and bolt to pursue other strategies.

It is so easy for us to keep doing what we are doing and not move forward. It is also easy to take the position that nothing that worked in the past is of value now and set about the process of reinventing the wheel. In truth, there is merit in what both extremes in this discussion are saying. Wise Baptists will not take sides but will listen and learn from what those on both ends of the spectrum are saying in arriving at a course of action somewhere in the middle.

So what’s the takeaway from this? Let me suggest three things we can learn from this comparison with a board game:

First, we must be wise in allocating resources. It is important to keep enough resources at home to help strengthen churches and reach out to the lost in our home states but we need to stay as lean as possible. We, as Southern Baptists have a tendency toward overeating at the dinner table, and we probably do the same at times with our ministry dollars. Each national Southern Baptist body (including the two mission boards, each seminary and the Executive Committee), state convention, state convention ministry, association, and church, must redouble efforts to cut any fat so that we can be the muscle behind the punch that we send into the world.

Second, we need to recognize the importance of being willing and able to move quickly. The successful Risk player is the one who is both careful in managing resources from a stronghold but is also nimble enough to take and press the advantage when the opportunity arises. Our cooperative system is a good one but can also be cumbersome at times. This is where good leadership plays such a vital role. Having leaders at the heads of our various Baptist organizations who truly believe in cooperation and are willing to engage each other in a spirit of partnership rather than competition can do so much to move Southern Baptists forward quickly in a unified way.

Finally, we need to trust the Lord to guide us into His will as Southern Baptists. In the game of Risk, there’s an element of chance involved because even with wise planning and the proper mixture of daring, there are aspects of the game that are outside of the player’s control. We can be grateful that we don’t have to deal with that in terms of the Great Commission. We’ve already read the end of the Book and know that the Lord wins. We don’t have to have all of the answers right now. We just have to be willing to let God lead us. If we do, he will allow us as Southern Baptists to be a part of what He will do for His Glory in ensuring His gospel is preached in every nation and every tongue.

–Robert Reeves