The summer of 2024 felt like a season on a precipice. I hesitate to call it “unprecedented” or “unique,” because so much of the last decade has been described that way. But, it really did feel like there was a massive fork in the road ahead and we were getting closer and closer.
It was that summer when I had the chance to meet Amanda Tyler for the first time. I knew of her and had seen her speak at different banquets and events, but I had not personally met her until that causeway at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) General Assembly.
We began chatting around the BJC booth in the Gathering Place, and Amanda mentioned the Learning Lab she would be leading the next day, titled “Being Baptist in an Election Year.” This was during a time in the election season when I felt a sense of hope and I was unsure whether it was due to education, ill-founded or naive. I still don’t know.
But in that conversation, I was struck by how much attention and preparation went into Amanda’s Learning Lab. She mentioned that to prepare for her presentation, she had taught for a few weeks in her Sunday School class. This style of preparation especially piqued my interest.
I work at the Baugh Center for Baptist Leadership at Mercer University, where we work to equip and train lay leaders in churches. I spend a lot of time thinking about not only the folks sitting in Sunday School classrooms, but also the people teaching those classes.
I think about the people who have been teaching Sunday School for decades and those who are on the verge of teaching for the first time. I think of the folks who have a background in education and those who have their first teaching experience in a small carpeted room in the church they grew up in.
In this space, so much is possible. Outside of Sunday School, class members occupy different social circles and strata. They hold or wield power in their jobs, their homes, and in our shared society.
But in that classroom, they are students and the teacher could be anyone. That is the beauty of lay leadership and the beauty of the Baptist belief in the autonomy of each believer.
So yes, Amanda’s mention of a Sunday School class got me interested—partly because of my work, and partly because I wish I could have been in that class she taught. I enjoy learning from folks at events like the CBF General Assembly, but what I love even more is being in a classroom with people and sharing as we learn.
I asked Amanda if she would be willing to teach that class again. I imagined her presenting her lesson similarly to how she had done it in preparation for her Learning Lab, but this time in front of a camera. Then, I could take those videos through my work at the Baugh Center and we could make them available to learning communities all over. And that is exactly what we did.
In January 2025, Amanda and I spent two days planning, filming and dialoguing to create the resource, Being Baptist in a Democracy. The resource includes four videos—three presentations from Amanda and a dialogue between her and me. We also include a discussion guide for classes.
The goal of the resource is to give people an idea and inspiration for what it truly means to be Baptist in a democracy. How does scripture, our shared Baptist identity and history, and the guard rails of our society spur us to action and engagement?
My favorite part of the project is that, rather than landing at a place of prescription or demand, Amanda offers an invitation to discernment. Rather than declaring how a church should or must act as Baptists in a democracy, she lays out the tools and parameters of how a Baptist identity leads to democratic engagement. She then hands the reins to the local church.
How else could a resource on Baptist identity end but with the autonomy of the local church?
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Rev. Harrison Litzell is the Program Coordinator at the Baugh Center for Baptist Leadership at Mercer University.
