Recently, leaders from Baptist conventions and fellowships numbering some 20 million members announced a new, cooperative initative. Participants include the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the National Baptist Convention, the Progressive Baptist Convention, American Baptist Churches USA plus several other bodies. A gathering of interested Baptists has been scheduled for January 30-February 1, 2008 at the World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia. If all goes as planned, up to 20,000 interested Baptists will attend.

The goals are interesting: to celebrate that which unifies Baptists, to focus on what we are for rather than what we are against, to combine our strengths in meaningful ways to address limited and specific goals. If I understand the agenda correctly, the group intends to focus on how to build genuine unity in the context of legitimate diversity, bring good news to the poor, welcome the "stranger," and promote healing for the broken hearted.

Isn't that what churches (at their best) do? I believe so. I also suspect many Baptists long for the creation of a nation-wide means to engage in such work with a wide variety of other Baptist churches. In the 21st century, many of us wish to move beyond doctrinal and political conflict to refocus on sharing the gospel in word and deed. Perhaps the "Celebration for a New Baptist Covenant" will pave the way for such a development.

I like to imagine a world in which we Baptists conduct ourselves in such a way that the lost, poor, hurting and marginalized might come to say of us: "Those Baptist are good people; we're glad when they come among us." I intend to do what I can to make such a dream into an ongoing reality.