One of my favorite questions to ask Baptist people is: "If you left the Baptists, what denomination would you join?" While it is not an infallible indicator, the question is helpful to ask also of Christian denominations: "When people leave this denomination, where do they go?" The answer to that question often suggests what is missing in the denominations life as far as those leaving are concerned. What about you? Where would you go if you left Baptists? Where are your hungers driving you? Where are you headed spiritually? I have been observing this issue for a while, and here is a preliminary, completely unverifiable, and visceral report on where contemporary ex-Baptists go to feed their souls.

Ex-Baptists, I suggest, go in two directions. A good case can be made that many, maybe most Baptists, go toward "simplicity." You know, the megachurches with authoritative talking heads or the Willow Creeks with a laid-back style. I would also include the Baptist move to Jehovahs Witnesses as a move toward simplicity. A good wager is that there are more ex-Baptists among the Jehovahs Witnesses than any other denomination.

But I suggest that a number of Baptists are also moving toward "mystery." Many Baptists have "a mystery hunger" in their lives. Interestingly, this "mystery hunger" crisscrosses theological, liturgical, and social lines. Baptists of all stripes are saying in radically different ways, "We have heard enough words. We have listened to enough explanations. We have heard enough Scripture quoted." Like old nickels with the buffaloes and Indian heads worn off, Baptist worship services, so saturated with words, have worn thin.