The Baptist concept of Church Freedom also means that the ministry of the church is open to all classes of people and specific mission strategies. Although the Southern Baptist Convention derided and misunderstood the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers in official convention action in 1988, Southern Baptists, as all other Baptists, have historically stood solidly for the concept that the ministry belongs to the laity of the church. Every believer is on equal footing with every other believer in the local Baptist church. No pastor has official or constituted authority to "rule over" anybody in a Baptist congregation. Why? Because all Christians are priests before God. As such, all Christians have the freedom and the responsibility to minister in the name of Christ.

Likewise, believers in a local Baptist church are saddled with the freedom and responsibility of deciding how the church will witness for Christ in their local community. Baptist Church Freedom was never intended as an exercise in selfishness. Early Baptists did not insist on freedom just so their faith could be a private possession. Either the gospel drives us outside ourselves and outside the fellowship of the church into a world God loves or else the gospel has not captured our lives. Christians are not catch basins but conduits of God’s grace and compassion. God is interested in more than our personal salvation or the growth of our local churches. God is interested in shaping people’s lives through God’s people.

The mission of the church has been interpreted in various ways in Baptist history. William Carey aroused Baptists to world missions in 1792. Luther Rice and Adoniram Judson, inspired by Carey, did the same thing for Baptists in America. Missionary outreach has been part of the heartbeat of Baptists since Carey’s time. Billy Graham, more than any other one person, has embodied the Baptist interest in personal evangelism during the last half of the twentieth century.

While missions and evangelism have been a major part of the Baptist mission, Baptists have not been without a witness in issues of social justice. John Clifford and Walter Rauschenbusch, both individualistic Baptists, saw the relationship of a personal gospel to the issues of society. Martin Luther King, Jr. saw the mission of Baptist churches, indeed of all churches, to be cheerleaders for justice and equality. Much of the best and most creative work of the Baptist World Alliance has been in the area of world hunger and related social areas.

Baptists believe in "gathered" churches. At their best Baptists have also been "going" and "caring" churches. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran who died as a martyr under Hitler, has inspired many contemporary Baptists. Eberhard Bethge, a close friend of Bonhoeffer, wrote the standard biography of Bonhoeffer. In an interview Bethge was asked what he thought Bonhoeffer would be saying to the church today. Bethge answered: "At the end Bonhoeffer saw in his experience...that the church, with its dominating statue in the Western world, must now step down below" (as cited in Hunter and Johnson, 141).

Of Jesus it was said, "He ...emptied himself, taking the form of a slave" (Phil 2:7). "The church...must now step down below." How does the church become a servant? That is the question Baptists have insisted that the church must be free to ask and answer.

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