LORD, GET ME OUTTA HERE!

Have you ever prayed that after a long and difficult Sunday or deacon’s meeting? I think most have. We long for a situation we think describes the New Testament Church. Of course, we see that as the ideal NT church and not the really messy ones described in the NT. Was the NT church all that different from many we see today?

The first church (Acts 5) contained a wealthy family whose spirituality was so hypocritical God judged them with death. The Galatian church was legalistic regarding the very essence of faith, the Gospel. The Ephesians continually had issues with governance, leadership (read Paul’s instructions to Timothy), a lack of unity, and worst of all, they left their first love. The Colossian church was filled with the wisdom of this world. The Church at Rome needed a strong foundation. Shall we really discuss the issues at Corinth? And then there are those others in Revelation 2-3.

It seems only two, Smyrna (Rev. 2:8-11) and Philadelphia (Rev.3:7-13), were complimented by the Lord. I find it interesting that Smyrna was a persecuted and suffering church. Philadelphia kept the Word of God in obedience and persevered through a time of  persecution.

So really, is it any different? Maybe, then again maybe not. There are great churches and great places of service that are life-giving in many ways. Then there are those that are life-draining. It was true then, it is true today.

Most of us abhor slavery. Our own nation experiences today the effects of having enslaved a race of people. It is tragic beyond description. And wrong.

Yet Paul’s favorite term for himself in his relationship to Jesus was “bond slave”. He saw himself indentured to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

How do we respond when we want to pray, “Lord get me outta here!”?

I recently had conversation with someone who conveyed a story of their church during a very, very difficult period of time. As I recall there was a guest worship leader and sometime during the music portion of the worship service the leader began to softly sing “Tell It To Jesus”. Spontaneously people got up out of their seats and came to the altar to pray. The Spirit of God seemed to hover over that congregation. Today, they have rebounded from those days and it is a thriving congregation once more.

We (myself and colleagues at the SBTC) visit with many pastors. Some are rejoicing in great victories. Others are navigating difficult issues. Two admonitions stick in my mind, both from great men of God.

The first is a statement I heard from Jerry Vines during a SWBTS chapel several years ago. He said, “If you are in this (meaning “ministry”) for any other reason than Jesus, you are going to die a bitter old man.”

The second was in a message by Charles Stanley at the SBC Pastor’s Conference years ago. He said, “Have you ever considered that your green grass is somebody else’s brown grass”?

We must remember who we are in Christ, and whose we are. And yes, tell it to Jesus.

A SIGNIFICANT STEP…

A Significant Step in the Right Direction

Published on 11 March 2010 by Jim Richards in GCR Blogs

Dr. Jim Richards Executive Director of Southern Baptists of Texas Convention

The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force released a progress report last month in Nashville. It is my privilege to serve with these godly men and women. I watched the members struggle with the complexities of bettering our Convention’s Great Commission ministries while moving forward together. Unity of vision and heart was accomplished on the Task Force. I pray Southern Baptists will catch the vision and be of one heart as well.

If I were the author of the documents, I might have chosen different words at times. If I had my way on every issue, the report would look different (and no doubt not as good). Some may feel certain areas of Southern Baptist work did not get enough attention. Our major focus was reaching the nations and our nation. I am convinced the Task Force progress report is a significant step in the right direction. All of us are being challenged. It will be difficult, but anything worthwhile always calls for sacrifice.

The Cooperative Program definition remains unchanged and uncompromised. It is still the preferred channel of giving. Some state conventions introduced a “designated” Cooperative Program in the early 1990s. It is a failed concept. The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention was founded with a strong commitment to keep CP an undesignated giving channel for missions and ministry. The SBTC has recognized designated gifts from churches from the beginning. In the future Southern Baptists may call those types of gifts “Designated Great Commission Giving”. The Cooperative Program will remain the preferred way of Great Commission Giving.

I will not comment on all the components of GCR progress report in this article. There is one of the components very close to my heart, reaching North America with the gospel.

I am a traditional Southern Baptist. My comfort zone is with traditional ministries found in many our churches located in the Deep South or similar rural settings. But much of the world I grew up in is gone. Some of that culture was good, some of it was bad. We can’t pine for the good ole’ days or the way it used to be. Decisions can’t be based on my preferences; it has to be about Jesus’ passion. His passion was to seek and to save those who are lost.

Our nation is becoming less evangelized every year. Southern Baptists work hard. We will not get the job done by working harder. We have to work smarter.  By approaching our nation as the world, we can have a better handle on the getting the gospel to the burgeoning people groups and diverse culture of the United States. We must find a way to move personnel and finances outside of our strongest areas and redirect them to the places of greatest lostness.

Is the GCR plan perfect? No. Is there time to improve it? Yes. I encourage you to offer positive suggestions. Help us find a way to move in the most aggressive way possible with the gospel toward lostness in America. It is my desire for God to use Southern Baptists as a tool of national spiritual awakening. It can be a spiritual morning in America. It will take a Joel chapter two experience. It also requires us to get outside the box to see what God would have us do differently.

We all want men, women, boys and girls to experience life in Christ. Business as usual will not get it done. An undeniable decline in the number of baptisms to population growth has taken place for decades. After much prayer and study the Task Force has cast a vision. I believe God is giving us one more opportunity to put our money and personnel where we say our hearts are. Let’s go for it, together!

SHORT TERM WINS, LONG TERM LOSS

There is an expression, “win the battle, lose the war”, used to describe those who lose sight of the big picture and get short-term wins but the reality becomes a long-term loss. My question is, are we there?

My trek over the past years has brought me very close to the inside of several arenas. I have participated in and even spoken or facilitated group discussion at national and global conferences of Evangelicals (including Baptists) on evangelism and prayer. I know most of the early leaders in the Conservative Resurgence of the Southern Baptist Convention and have seen some of the Moderate Baptist movement.

Some of these Evangelicals seem to want everyone to come together for the purpose of fulfilling the Great Commission. But there are certain leaders that always have the “next big thing” and seem to pop in at just the right time to offer them. I left these kinds of gatherings because I felt used in the negative sense. These were para-church organizations needing money, data base, and volunteers to extend their ministries. Discretion keeps me from calling organizational names.

The Moderate Baptists of whom I am speaking have gone so far in a religious version of political correctness and tolerance that participation in worship events with various religions is practiced. One only has to roll back the calendar a few months to an interfaith (not inter-denominational, but inter-faith) meeting in a city in Texas that was held in a local Baptist church facility.

So what of us? How do we who have taken our stand for inerrancy as a descriptive of Scripture fare in all this? Are we known more for legalism and backward thinking or lovingly sharing the Gospel of Christ? I and most others who are conservative in theology would look at the Conservative Resurgence as necessary in the life of the Southern Baptist Convention. I will not re-visit all the reasons nor will I affirm everything and every word spoken through-out those years. Movements often produce what the military calls “collateral damage”. Some of us have been there, done that, but didn’t get the t-shirt.

I want to affirm that I am deeply committed to a conservative theological path and to the inerrancy of Scripture. I am a complementarian, and was before I knew that was the word to describe my beliefs. But what has happened in our neck of the woods over the past years?

The Barna Group gave results of a year-end survey here based upon thousands of interviews during the year. They summarized their findings around four themes. You can read their commentary and explanation, but the major points of that survey were the four themes copied below.

Theme 1: Increasingly, Americans are more interested in faith and spirituality than in Christianity.

Theme 2: Faith in the American context is now individual and customized. Americans are comfortable with an altered spiritual experience as long as they can participate in the shaping of that faith experience.

Theme 3: Biblical literacy is neither a current reality nor a goal in the U.S.

Theme 4: Effective and periodic measurement of spirituality – conducted personally or through a church – is not common at this time and it is not likely to become common in the near future.

It is a cop-out for us to say these do not reflect some of the values of the people in our pews. I would agree these likely do not show the belief of the average Baptist church member who involved in the life of the church. However, what of the community in which you serve? And do we really know that “average” church member? Are we a shrinking minority in a sea of population seeking hope and moving toward some form of Universalism?

A pastor friend of mine (SBTC) told me a story of when he first arrived as the new pastor. One of the fine upstanding deacons in the church was taking him on a tour of the city. They were on one side of the town square when the deacon pointed out a man on the other side. He said to the pastor, “That is ______. He’s one of the finest Christian men in this town. Funny thing though. He’s never made a profession of faith.” Is there a dis-connect there somewhere?

I sat in on a Senior Adult Sunday School opening exercise a few years ago and heard the Dept. Director say “I believe that God looks at all of us and sees what we do. If we just do the best we can, I believe God will accept that.”

Perhaps we need to refresh our passion and church ministries to show an intentional focus on sharing the Gospel. Romans 1:16-17 reminds us “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” (NKJV)

One resource offered you is the annual SBTC Evangelism Conference February 15-17 at the Arlington, TX Convention Center. You may access information and schedule here. I urge you to attend and bring several influential leaders from your church.

Pray daily for the Great Commission Resurgence task force of the Southern Baptist Convention and for NAMB’s  GPS emphasis. I hope you will take part in it. And, wherever you find yourself in the landscape of North American Christians, return to your first love (Rev. 2:1-7) and use all of your influence in home, church, community, and workplace to speak and live the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is not too late to encourage your congregation to join you in reading the Bible through in 2010. There are some very good web sites that give various plans. You can access the best ones I know here, here, and here. I am using the Chronological reading from Back to the Bible as listed on the ESV site. I looked at some other sites and could not find Bible reading plans.

May God grant you your best year in 2010.

AFTERGLOW

I hope many of you were able to attend the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s annual meeting in Lubbock. It was a relational and spiritual blessing in our (my wife and myself) lives .

Allow me to use this post to tell give you some personal observations.  The next post will deal with some spiritual warfare issues related to this previous post.

I have attended conventions for years – state conventions, national conventions, and evangelism conferences. Some things never change. Most of those have been as an employee of a convention and as such I was assigned certain duties that did not allow much time for being in the convention meeting hall itself. Thus, from my assigned booth I have observed many, in the words of the King James, “going to and fro”.

THE HALL FELLOWSHIP

I have learned that one does not have to have an ‘assignment’ to miss what is happening in the convention meeting! For some, it is like the morning walks at the local mall – they go round and round! It reminds me of Billy Preston’s “Will It Go Round in Circles.” Billy Preston was an entertainer raised in part in Houston, TX and at age 12 was leading a choir of 100 in his father’s church. He later chose a secular route to exhibit his many musical talents. You may listen to it on You Tube here, and get an added bonus of Eric Clapton’s guitar. And, understand this is a bit ‘tongue-in-cheek’. The value of a convention for many is to fellowship with old friends. We Baptists love to fellowship and it is an important part of what happens.

The Eating Meetings

“I see you found the food” was one comment. Yep. We Baptists not only like to fellowship, we like to eat. And some are willing to provide a meal for a nominal cost in order to share their ministry with those attending. Great fellowship around the table and an affinity ministry or one’s Alma Mater. Alma Mater is Latin for “nourishing mother”, so it is appropriate.

The Convention Meeting

Lots of paper went to recycle. Ballots were likely unused. The unity of the meeting was such that even when issues were discussed people were not unkind. The Spirit of the Lord was obvious in the meeting.

So What Set This One Apart?

God met with us in Lubbock. It is that simple. Lubbock is not a strong area for the SBTC in terms of number of churches. There are fewer churches there than in other places. Yet one could not have hoped for a more friendly and cooperative environment. The Lubbock Baptist Association led by their fine Director of Missions, Larry Jones, and the SBTC congregations were excellent hosts.

On the last night of the annual meeting, there were two evangelistic events. The last number of recorded decisions I have is 726. I personally helped three people – a man, a woman, and her ten-year old son. They were coming “to have a new beginning”. I went over the gospel to make as certain as is humanly possible they understood and were committing their lives to Christ. They themselves checked the “profession of faith” box on their decision card. When I looked at the cards they filled out to see if we had follow-up information, I saw that all three had different last names. A blended family with a new beginning in Christ.

The next morning in the Executive Board meeting Jack Harris gave a report on Crossover. When completed, the chairman of the board asked one of the pastors to lead in a prayer of gratitude to God. Some in the room were in tears. The pastor prayed, said “A-men”, then gently broke into “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow”. Everyone was moved with gratitude to God. It wasn’t what “we” had done, nor what the “SBTC” had done. It was a God thing and everybody knew it. Yes, we worked and prayed. But God is glorified.

You may read more of the convention reports in the on-line version of the TEXAN here.

The difference? I’ve been to many meetings. In this one, there was an obvious awareness that God had met with us and answered the prayers and efforts of so many. Indeed, To God Be The Glory, Great Things He Hath Done!!

WHY CONFLICT IN CHURCHES?

Perhaps one of the greatest disconnects in the Body of Christ is the amount of conflict experienced in the local church. This conflict often results in forced termination of pastor and/or staff. For purposes of this post, I am speaking of conflict that results in the forced termination of pastor and/or staff.

Mike Smith, Director of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Minister-Church Relations Dept. will be leading a brief “Whiteboard” workshop at the annual meeting in Lubbock, TX at 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at the Church Ministries booth. Mike will expand on the following information which is used here courtesy of Mike Smith.

Since 1984 Southern Baptist Directors of Mission (DOMs) have sought to understand the causes of this conflict. To be sure, there are some valid reasons for forced terminations. According to Mike Smith, the past ten years have basically been the same although there is some movement among the top 8 reasons. However, 9 and 10 are there for the first time. What are the reasons and their order?

1. Control Issues – who is going to run the church?

2. Poor people skills on the part of the pastor

3. Church’s resistance to change

4. Pastor’s leadership style is too strong

5. Church was already conflicted when the pastor arrived

6. Decline in attendance

7. Pastor’s leadership style is too weak

8. Administrative incompetence on the part of the Pastor

9. Sexual misconduct

10. Disagreement over doctrine

Here is reality in the Southern Baptist Convention. In 2008 181 bi-vocational pastors were terminated, 343 full-time pastors, and 211 staff. That is 735 for the year; 61 per month; 14 per week; and 2 per day.

Mike will expand upon these by offering some solutions during the Whiteboard workshop SBTC’s annual meeting in Lubbock.

We know there are reasons in the “natural” and there are steps that can be taken to help both staff and congregations. Many preventatives are learned skills.  But there are also reasons in the “spiritual” that are spiritual conflict issues. We will address solutions to some of those in a future post.

However, it would be disastrous to ignore the reality of the human, or ‘natural’ causes and lump them all in the category of spiritual conflict. We must be responsible to present ourselves to the Lord and His people with excellence and not hide behind attitudes such as “well, it’s just the old devil”. Sometimes we present the old devil some pretty good clubs.

I encourage you to hear Mike and let the SBTC help you and your congregation. You might even find the old expression, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” to be valuable in preventing and navigating church conflict.