By Paul Baxley

Tomorrow has been designated a National Day of Mourning for President Jimmy Carter and our Fellowship is releasing several pieces to encourage our reflection on President Carter’s life and legacy above all else because he and Rosalynn were members of a CBF partner congregation and were personally involved in our Fellowship’s life.

A Memorial Service will be held at 10:00 AM ET at the National Cathedral, and I will have the profound honor of representing our CBF family by attending the service.

Though I will go as one person with my own personal remembrances and prayers of gratitude on my heart and mind, I will also be keenly aware that there are thousands of Cooperative Baptists not in that majestic cathedral but who are worshipping and giving thanks for President Carter’s life and witness.

With Baptists of many traditions, Christians of every denomination and people of goodwill across our country and the world, we thank God for Jimmy Carter. We can see all the ways President Carter’s life reflected the image of God. On this day, we can grieve with hope because of the promise of resurrection extended not only to President Carter but to all who follow Christ.

We will read and hear much about President Carter’s many accomplishments. As I have reflected on what I know of his life and leadership, I have certainly spent time considering many things that he did. But as today has drawn closer, I have found myself even more mindful of how President Carter led than of what he did. And I’ve been praying actively about the question: “Through the ways President Carter lived and led, what can congregations learn about ministry and Christians learn about leadership?”

A word frequently used to describe President Carter’s character is “humble.” People speak of the humility of his origins and the humble character of his personality. But his leadership was also marked by a remarkable kind of humility.

Historians have noted that on several critical occasions during his presidency, Carter intentionally chose a course of action that he believed was best for the country even if could be politically damaging in the short term. For example, as he considered options to deal with the inflation crisis that gripped the nation in the late 1970s, he had clear counsel that the approach he was considering most prominently would likely not show any clear signs of progress until after the 1980 presidential election. But because he believed the approach was best for the country’s long-term interests, he chose it anyway.

Moments like that call to mind the instructions Paul gave the Philippians in Philippians 2: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” President Carter practiced a leadership marked by a sacrificial humility in the moments he prioritized what he believed to be the common good over his own ambitions, and that posture was deeply formed by his living faith.

What would it mean for congregations within and beyond our Fellowship to adopt humility about our lives together? To make decisions not from a framework of institutional protection but the radical pursuit of the well-being of our communities?

How might we have opportunities to use our facilities, finances and other resources to seek healing, justice and transformation in a communal kind of humility that seeks the interests of others? And what would it mean for those of us who hold leadership positions in congregations, denominations, businesses and public spaces to lead with a humility that sacrificed personal gain for the common good?

Wouldn’t that be a genuinely Christian kind of leadership, shaped by the mind and character of Christ, who, as Philippians went on to say, “did not count equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself and took the form of a servant.”

Humility was an essential element of how President Carter lived and led. His life and leadership, within and beyond his presidency also bore witness to the power of convening. He had a remarkable capacity to bring people together to seek lasting peace, authentic racial justice, the advancement of human rights and improving access to physical and mental healthcare. The most well-documented example of this convening capacity came with the Camp David Accords that produced an unprecedented treaty between Israel and Egypt that has held until this day.

In his post-presidency, President Carter joined with his wife Rosalyn to establish the Carter Center, which to this day is involved in convening work all around the work around the world. Even in his Baptist Leadership, President Carter demonstrated his convening power in brokering the creation of The New Baptist Covenant, which was publicly announced in 2007 as a remarkable collaboration of many different Baptist denominations across racial lines to pursue the mission of Jesus as set forth in Luke 4.

Through his life and leadership, Jimmy Carter demonstrated the power of gathering people in ways that catalyze transformation. He brokered unlikely collaborations toward remarkable outcomes. We should not be surprised because cooperation is really a synonym for fellowship. The Greek word used by the Scripture that we translate “fellowship” is koinonia, the same word describes the relationship between the persons of the Trinity. God does God’s work in the world through eternal cooperation.

As I have visited many congregations associated with our CBF community, I have noticed that our congregations are naturally cooperative. They are often composed of as many members who did not grow up Baptist as who did. And if there are any collaborative efforts in a community toward the common good, one or several CBF related congregations are usually in the middle of those collaborations if not actively convening them.

But I’m not always sure we think proactively about the convening power of our congregations to broker those kinds of collaborations. How could we unleash that cooperative, convening impulse even more for the sake of the transformation Christ is making in the world?

Furthermore, all too often, we grow up with a vision of leadership defined by a power that dominates and gets its way no matter what. What if the most faithful kind of Christian leadership is one that does not dominate, but instead works with others toward the kinds of good that cannot be accomplished by any of us on our own? What if the art of convening collaboration is one of the highest forms of Christian leadership? How are we Christian leaders called to elevate this kind of convening?

President Carter’s way of leading and living was marked both by radical humility and convening collaboration. He also saw faith as a way of life and prioritized participation in congregations for his entire life. Whether in Plains at Maranatha Baptist Church, in Atlanta at Northside Drive Baptist Church or at The First Baptist Church of the City of Washington, D.C., he was an active church member deeply committed to congregational life. He taught Sunday School. He participated actively in worship. He supported the life of the congregation. That example is particularly powerful in a world where commitment to congregational life is declining in so many places.

But Jimmy Carter was a counter-cultural witness that faith is not just something we talk about for personal or political gain, it is rather a way of life and an allegiance that defines us, and one for which we need the support of being fully engaged in a congregation.

So I wonder, how might we be called to make a deeper commitment to our own congregations? How can denominational communities like the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship order our lives more toward the thriving of congregations and a more faithful participation in Christ’s mission? How can each of us strengthen our congregations by investing in them more deeply so that they can be more faithful and powerful convenors of the change God is making in the world?

Thursday is a day to remember with deep gratitude, to reflect intensely and personally and to wonder how the Holy Spirit is calling us to a life and a leadership more marked by humility, more demonstrative of transformative convening and even more invested in the well-being of congregations that are necessary for the strengthening of our faith and the healing of our communities.

Rev. Dr. Paul Baxley is Executive Coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.