What are you going to do!!!

We live in a crazy busy society and the Christian often neglects to maintain discipline in studying and praying.  This short video of D.A. Carson is a good reminder for us all.

Churches are not always the best at marketing themselves to people.  I am not a big fan or marketing gimmicks for the church, but everything we do markets the church to those we are trying to reach.  There are several things that make people uncomfortable when attending a church for the first time.  The video covers them well, but I will expand on just a few of them.  I grew up at a church where the pastor and executive staff had the prime parking spots.  They were marked just like in the video below.  I know several people who were turned off by this.  I did understand why the pastor needed the spot he used.  He had many threats against his life.  It made since to me.  People do not know this when they drive by and see a Senior Pastor sign on the parking spot.  They should have used a more discrete way of marking the spot of the pastor.

Often times churches either have no way of greeting guest, no greeters, no booths, lazy greeters, etc..  The opposite is true as well, churches have obnoxious greeters, people who go out of their way to make you feel as if you are a guest.  They tag you for all people to know.  This makes the guest feel uncomfortable and the likelihood of them returning goes down dramatically.  This also happens in the worship service when pastors make guest stand up or somehow present themselves to the church.  In our culture anonymity rules.  We are private until we want to come out.  There needs to be a better way to have these people present themselves without making them uncomfortable.  Many times people will not make themselves known until the forth or fifth time they come to church.  These are people who want to be contacted and want more information on the the church.

I think one of the things I plan on studying in the next several months is how to reach the people who come our way.  The church should try to make people feel comfortable when they walk in the door.  Church is still a time for Christians to come worship God and receive instruction from his word.  That is the main purpose of our meeting on Sunday, but the unbelievers still come to church on Sunday and we should not loose them when they walk in the door.

Jenny and I attend the Heights Baptist Church in Richardson, Texas.  We absolutely love it there.  If you would push me on what I would look for in a church, I do not think the Heights would exactly match that church.  We originally went there because two of Jenny and my youth pastors were there.  When we arrived there we noticed how well the church was shepherded by the Pastoral staff.  I am so glad that ended up there.

One of the biggest bonuses for me is that the church is highly engaged in local and international missions.  Last weekend the entire church met at 8:30 for one church service and then went out into the community to serve.  Jenny and I went to a home used to house handicapped people in order to give them some sort of normal life.  Jenny painted and I did landscape work with 40 other people.  I think the church sent out 1500-2000 people last Sunday.  It was awesome.  This matches my ministry philosophy of Ministry Evangelism.

Ministry Evangelism is the idea that you serve people before you share the gospel with them.  People are more inclined to listen to the gospel message when they are served first.  I think I have known about this for a long time, but the idea was advanced in a missions class when I attend Southern Seminary.  Meeting Needs, Sharing Christ was a book covered in the class.  It is the story of Charles Roesel who is a pastor in Florida.  He ran into a woman who needed help, and through his meeting with her, he found out the necessity of meeting somebody’s needs before he shared the gospel.  It is like Jesus’ meeting with the women at the well.

John 4:1-30 – Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria.  So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.  Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her,“Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)  The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?  Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”  Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”  Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”  Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”  So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people,  “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”  They went out of the town and were coming to him.

The Woman had a need to be shown kindness and to be respected.  Jesus showed this women the kindness and respect that she needed.  I think we should follow Jesus example.

Seminary head calls for Great Commission resurgence, streamlining denomination Posted on Apr 16, 2009 | by Jason Hall WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP)–The lordship of Christ and the centrality of the Gospel in Christian ministry must be the foundation of a Great Commission resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention, Daniel Akin declared April 16 in a chapel message at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. Akin, the seminary’s president, has been spearheading a movement for several months that he hopes will lead to a “Great Commission Resurgence” in the SBC to follow the “Conservative Resurgence” of the 1980s and 1990s. Akin has said the natural outcome of a return to the authority and inerrancy of Scripture in churches should be a renewed commitment to local and world evangelism that leads to partnership in ministry. Akin opened his message with a reference to Acts 1, when the disciples asked Christ when he would restore the kingdom to Israel. This question, he said, was interesting; but Christ’s answer indicated that it was not the important issue of the time. “Like the disciples, Southern Baptists today run the risk of being distracted from the main thing,” Akin said. “Many of the issues we are emphasizing and debating are interesting things, but they are not the most important things. They don’t line up well with the priorities we find revealed in Holy Scripture. The result is that we are fractured and factionalizing. We are confused, having lost our spiritual compass.” Akin continued by noting that his agenda for a “Great Commission Resurgence” is positive and forward-looking, emphasizing the key doctrines of the faith that will call SBC churches to radical obedience. Akin then outlined 12 “axioms of a “Great Commission Resurgence.”

Axiom 1: Churches must be committed to the lordship of Jesus Christ in every area. To overlook this, he said, is to miss the point entirely. “When the world thinks of us, they should think first, ‘those are the folks in love with Jesus. They are the people obsessed with Jesus. Those people talk and act and serve and love like Jesus.’ Southern Baptists are Jesus people!”

Axiom 2: Gospel-centeredness controls every aspect of any endeavor, for the glory of God. Being Gospel-centered, Akin said, means being grace-centered, loving those who are scorned and rejected by others. It also means that everything Southern Baptists do should proclaim the substitutionary death of Christ and his victorious resurrection. “Too many of our pulpits have jettisoned the proclamation of the Gospel,” he said. “Too many of our people have lost the meaning and therefore the wonder of the Gospel. We must get it right once again if we are to experience a Great Commission Resurgence. No Gospel, no Great Commission Resurgence. It really is that simple.”

Axiom 3: Southern Baptists must continue to stand on the firm foundation of the inerrant and infallible Word of God, affirming its sufficiency in all matters. “Wonderful men of God like Jimmy Draper, Paige Patterson, Paul Pressler, Adrian Rogers and Jerry Vines spilt their blood and put their ministries on the line because they saw what the poison of liberalism was doing to our Convention and its institution. These men are heroes of the faith and what they did must be honored and never forgotten,” he said. “A younger generation of Southern Baptists will eventually face this challenge, and you must not squander away precious theological ground that is absolutely essential to a Great Commission Resurgence.”

Axiom 4: The pursuit of the Great Commission must be done in the context of the great commandments of Matthew 22. “The ultimate motivation for the Great Commission is love of God and a passion to be on mission with him,” Akin said. “But flowing out of love for God also will be a genuine love for people, something too many of us have lost somewhere along the way. The results have devastated our witness.” Among other things, the implications of this axiom are that a “Great Commission Resurgence” does not depend on political activism. “Governmental legislation will not stop the moral plunge of our nation and the world, but the Gospel will,” Akin said. “Our hope is not in Republicans or Democrats, Congress or Capitol Hill. Our hope, the world’s hope, is in Calvary’s hill and a crucified and risen Savior named King Jesus. Love for God and love for our neighbor demands that we not get sidetracked by political machinations.”

Axiom 5: Affirmation of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as a healthy and sufficient guide for building a theological consensus for partnership in the Gospel, and a refusal to be sidetracked by theological agendas that distract churches from the Great Commission. This means celebrating the many areas of agreement, he said. But it also means that issues like the precise constitution of the human person, the exact nature of congregational church governance, the timing of the rapture and the number of tenets of Calvinism one claims, should not lead Southern Baptists to splinter. “Our agreement on The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 is an asset, not a weakness,” Akin said. “It is a plus and not a minus. If I were to pen my own confession it would not look exactly like the BF&M 2000. But then I do not want nor do I need people exactly like me in order to work together for the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the building of his church.”

Axiom 6: A passionate pursuit of the Great Commission’s command to go to the United States and all nations, to disciple, baptize and teach. Starting at home, this means racial reconciliation in every Southern Baptist church and a commitment to reach those of every race and social class in their own communities and elsewhere. “We must pursue a vision for our churches that looks like heaven,” Akin said. “Yes, we must go around the world to reach Asians and Europeans, the Africans and the South Americans. But we must also go across the street, down the road and into every corner of our local mission field where God, in grace, has brought the nations to us. “This means planting authentically Bible/Baptist churches and filling them with authentic followers of Jesus, irrespective of nationality, race, economic or social status. Genuine discipleship is not negotiable.”

Axiom 7: A covenant among families to build Gospel-centered homes that see children as a gift from God and as parents’ first and primary mission field. Southern Baptists, he said, have bought into cultural lies about the nature of motherhood, the role of fathers and the blessings of children. “Will you pray for God to call your children and grandchildren into vocational ministry?” Akin asked. “To go to the nations far away and to the hard places as an international missionary? Will you get a Godward perspective for life, for marriage, for family?”

Axiom 8: The need to rethink convention structure and identity to maximize energy and resources for the fulfilling of the Great Commission. Akin recognized that this point may generate some controversy, but he noted that it remains essential. “We have become bloated and bureaucratic,” he said. “It is easier to move some things through the federal government than the Southern Baptist Convention. Overlap and duplication in our associations, state and national conventions is strangling us. We waste time and resources and many are fed up. “The rally cry of the Conservative Resurgence was, ‘We will not give our monies to liberal institutions.’ Now the cry of the Great Commission Resurgence is, ‘We will not give our money to bloated bureaucracies.’” Akin called on Southern Baptist leaders to rethink everything they do — boards, organizations, agencies, structures — in light of a Great Commission agenda that maximizes cooperation and minimizes bureaucracy in planting churches and getting the Gospel to all people, everywhere.

Axiom 9: The necessity for pastors to be faithful Bible preachers who teach both the content of the Scriptures and the theology embedded in the Scriptures. “Today I sense a real hunger in a younger generation for strong Bible teaching and Christian theology,” Akin said. “That is a wonderfully positive sign. With the waning of a cultural Christianity that cannot survey the attacks of a sophisticated and growing secularism, only faithful teaching of the Bible will equip 21st century believers to stand strong as defenders of the faith once for all delivered to the saints.”

Axiom 10: The need to encourage pastors to see themselves as the head of a Gospel missions agency who will lead the way in calling out the called for international assignments and also equip and train all their people to see themselves as missionaries for Jesus regardless of where they live. “Our churches do not exist to serve the Southern Baptist Convention,” Akin said. “The Southern Baptist Convention at all levels exists to serve the churches, end of discussion. The local church is to be ground zero for the mission of God. Here is the ‘spiritual outpost’ for the invasion of enemy territory as we reclaim lost ground for its rightful owner, King Jesus. A new vision that I pray will grip the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention is, “every church a church planting church.’”

Axiom 11: A renewed cooperation that is Gospel-centered and built around a biblical and theological core and not methodological consensus or agreement. Among other things, this recognizes the need for different methods and strategies in different contexts. “Cultivating the mind of a missionary we will ask, ‘What is the best way to reach with the Gospel the people I live amongst?’” Akin said. “Waycross, Georgia, will look different than Las Vegas, Nevada. Montgomery, Alabama will look different than Portland, Oregon. Boston will be different than Dallas. Memphis will have a different strategy than Miami. Various ethnic believers and social/cultural tribes will worship the same God, adore the same Jesus, believe the same Bible and preach the same Gospel. However, they may meet in different kinds of structure, wear different kinds of clothes, sing different kinds of songs and engage in different kinds of ministries.”

Axiom 12: The need for churches and believers in those churches to “accept our constant need to humble ourselves and repent of pride, arrogance, jealousy, hatred, contentions, lying, selfish ambitions, laziness, complacency, idolatries and other sins of the flesh; pleading with our Lord to do what only He can do in us and through us and all for his glory.” Akin said this means those younger leaders need to repent of their pride and refusal to learn from an older and wiser generation. Seasoned veterans of the faith, likewise, need to repent of their arrogance in refusing to let younger men speak and lead in a meaningful way. “I would submit that there is plenty of sin for all of us to repent of,” Akin said. Akin concluded by noting that God is about to do a mighty work through Southern Baptists in the 21st century. “We desperately need the heart of Jesus,” he said. “We need the eyes of Jesus.

If we can get to that, we will have what we need to move forward as a mighty Great Commission army going forth to do battle for the captain of our salvation and the Savior of souls. If not, we will find ourselves on the sidelines playing silly and meaningless games while God’s mighty army moves on without us. Brothers and sisters, I have found the army I want to fight with. It’s called the church. I have found the Commander-in-Chief I want to serve. His name is Jesus. I have found the enemy I want to destroy. It is Satan, sin, death and hell. Will you join me? There is victory for the taking!”

Malcolm Gladwell wrote the book The Tipping Point to examine how seemingly unremarkable events cause a “tip” leading to rapid change in a brief amount of time. We have seen such tipping points in church history. Luther did not know at the time that his nailing of the 95 Theses would create such a tipping point. Edwards simply sought to be a faithful pastor when a tipping point was reached and an awakening came to Northampton. Samuel Mills and his friends witnessed a tipping point in missions in 1806 under a haystack.
For some time in the 1960s and 70s a growing dissatisfaction with rising liberal views in the SBC swelled until a tipping point came with the election of Adrian Rogers. Well, some would argue the tip came in Dallas in 85, or another event, but tip we did, and change came. Today the SBC is a very different convention than where she was heading back then.
But that was then.
This is now.
We have become by all statistical measurements a giant movement in genuine decline. Signs indicate a growing tide of dissatisfaction with ineffectiveness in ministry. Marked mostly by the response of younger adults in the SBC, it has been growing as well in people my age (I’m turning 50 this week!) and older. Over the past few months I have had more conversations than I can count with leaders in the SBC in state conventions, great churches, schools, etc. There has been a growing weariness of where we are, and it seems the tsunami has just crested.
I believe we have reached a tipping point in the SBC.
I believe we can not go back from here.
I could be wrong. But after serving as a home missionary, living in and out of the south, preaching in over 1700 SBC churches, ministering in over 40 states, speaking at evangelism conferences, preaching in everything from church plants to megachurches, and listening to a generation of students, I am convinced in my heart that we simply will not go back from this point. There is a deep hunger for a Great Commission Resurgence, a Missional Reformation, or whatever you want to call it (some just say a genuine revival).
We have tipped.
It is time to change.
Here are just a few areas where I believe we have tipped:
Relationships–the Cooperative Program still matters. But simply giving because one is “supposed to” has passed. Momentum is gaining for real accountability and much more effective stewardship. I meet no one who wants to take away from the support of missionaries or the training of ministers. But I meet plenty who say something like these words from one of the brightest young men I know: “In the Conservative Resurgence, many pastors and churches expressed frustration when their giving supported liberal professors in our schools. Now, many I know have the same frustration over giving to a bureaucracy that wastes precious money that could be more focused on the gospel.” I remember as a young minister thinking that if the average person in the pew knew some things being taught in our colleges and seminaries, they would want a revolution. Recently, one of the most recognized leaders of our time commented that if the average Southern Baptist knew how every penny of their money was being spent, they too would want a revolution. The category has changed, but the sentiment of dissent is the same.
Relating to Culture–while some have criticized those who affiliate with brothers who differ from us on some issues, we have been more than open to invite those we consider frontline soldiers of the culture wars to our conventions and our to our side almost without discretion. We must be involved in the government (I have former students fighting for the unborn in state houses), but we who are ministers of the gospel ought not drape the gospel in the American flag or imply that the only hope for the future lies in an elephant’s party. Our hope is in the gospel, and our commission is to take the gospel to the nations and to our neighbors. Too many today have decided to put their efforts in engaging the culture with the gospel rather than waging war with it.
DA Carson said it well: “There are lots of ways of getting rid of pornography. For instance, one does not find much smut in Saudi Arabia. But one doesn’t find much of the gospel there, either.” We have reached the point where standing together in gospel work must be more than a slogan; it must be our passion.
The Future–most I meet remain part of the SBC for three main reasons. First, they are debtors. They have been trained in SBC schools and mentored by SBC ministers. They have been taught to love and share God’s Word from Baptists. Second, no one else has created the matrix of ministry like we have. When you add all the components: international and North American missions, disaster relief, help for pastors through seminary training, insurance and methodological tools, resources for churches, etc, no one has what we have. Third, we share key doctrines. There has been a core of conviction about Scripture, the gospel, ecclesiology, and other matters that has to this point been a compelling reason to stay in.
When I talk to men about the future, however, almost without exception the tone of the conversation changes. From gratitude and fortitude the attitude moves to skepticism and frustration, often anger. At best most are pretty apathetic. There is no sense of momentum regarding the future. There is a great concern about the waning effectiveness of our systems. And there seems to be a lack of hope that the ship can be turned. Many are concerned that the center of the SBC has moved from a theological core to a methodological consensus, and that consensus has collapsed. More look to a theological center for the future.
More and more say that in 10-15 years the SBC is going to look very different. Either we will make dramatic changes that will lead to effectiveness in taking the gospel to our neighbors and the nations, or so many will leave because we will have become a shell of who we were and will be forced to make the changes due to economic reasons rather than from a biblical center. And by then, it will be too late.
I am no alarmist.
But neither am I an ostrich.
The issue, and it is by no means only a younger generation issue, is how do we bring about change in our churches and convention that will make us more effective (we largely are not) in the world in which we find ourselves without unnecessarily jettisoning unchanging truth and the best of our heritage?
We must answer this question, and soon.
But other questions loom as well.
If we are so committed to the Word of God and the gospel, why are we so ineffective at living and preaching it? Why are there so few great expositors?
Why is there so much redundancy in ministry from evangelism training to church planting to Sunday school training from the local church, association, state and national agencies? Is this good stewardship?
Why do so many seem intent on isolating and vilifying the 5 percent of secondary issues where we may disagree while not coming together for the sake of the gospel? Are we so theologically inept that we cannot even prioritize the eternal from the temporal, and our preferences from truth?
Why are so many obsessed with the institutionalism of the church while ignoring its mission? Why do we still seem ignorant of the fact that we must engage lostness in the culture rather than in our buildings?
Why will we not admit that many, not just a few, SBC churches make virtually no impact in their communities for the gospel, and many seem not to care? I would argue, however, that most people in our churches really do want to honor their Lord if someone would show them how. That is why I teach at a seminary.
Why do some put more emphasis on having Baptist in the name of the church (which has not always been the practice of Baptists historically) than on living out our faith in our communities?
Why have some of our most gifted leaders been ostracized from key leadership for cutting out Sunday night services (typically to enable believers to interact more with lost neighbors), changing the music in the service, or removing a tie from around their neck? Or, why do we strain at a gnat and swallow a camel?
Why are some so concerned about our desire to learn from others who may not be SBC? We can end parochialism without embracing ecumenism.
But one thing I hear more than anything else. And this one thing I believe has become the critical issue of our time:
Enough talk about change.
The time has come to change.
I believe it is time for a new resurgence, one focused on the Great Commission, founded on unchanging Scripture. Yes, there are those more interested in an antinomian faith than a bloody cross. There are also many, far too many, who confuse the customs of our churches with the truth of God’s Word.
If God would raise up a leader or leaders to take the flag of the gospel forward with an understanding of how to engage the culture missionally, we would be amazed at how many would follow.
Across the nation people are ready for change. Young men and women are fed up. Leaders know the future is not bright if we keep doing what we are doing. Veteran ministers long to see God move in our land. A sleeping giant has been awakened. And the future will be shaped by how we respond.
These are critical times.
At the time of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto reportedly observed: “I’m afraid all we’ve done is awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.” Indeed his words rang true as the United States of America responded to the Japanese with resolve the likes of which the world has not seen.
The giant has been awakened. The giant of a multitude of SBC believers who, like Wesley and Whitefield in their day, and Adrian Rogers, Paige Patterson, Jerry Vines, and others in ours, saw the need for fundamental change. Let us come together and learn from each other how to navigate these waters for the glory of God and the sake of the gospel!
I urge all who read this to come to the SBC in Louisville this summer. I changed my schedule to be there. I believe God has raised up men like Johnny Hunt, who loved younger ministers before it was cool, for such a time as this. If I am right, and we have reached a tipping point, we will know soon enough.