A Southern Baptist panel released on Monday the final draft of a report that is expected to set the nation’s largest Protestant denomination on a new course.

With the denomination in decline, the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force is challenging the Southern Baptist Convention to adopt a new compelling vision for the sake of its future and the billions of lost people in the world.

“I hope that you will hear our heart cry that we have seen this lostness and we’re pleading for us to get on our knees together and refocus,” said Al Gilbert, senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., and a member of the task force. “It will take time but at least we can say we need to do better.”

Delegates of the 16 million-member convention will consider the report and a set of recommendations made by the task force in June. The upcoming vote is viewed as a significant one that could steer the denomination toward radical change.

“What are we voting on? The future of the Southern Baptist Convention, whether or not the Great Commission really matters, whether the Southern Baptist Convention is willing to have a climate for change,” said Dr. Ronnie Floyd, chairman of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, in a recent panel discussion at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Floyd believes the number one thing lacking in the SBC is a compelling vision and what the task force is presenting is just that.

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