We asked our boss to send a selfie or two from Baltimore. He and his wife, Beth, are good sports. Just ask Bob and Larry.
Archives For May 31, 2014
Running 45 minutes ahead of schedule on the second day, those keeping the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting on track didn’t do the usual thing – advancing the schedule to allow more time for business (or lunch).
Instead, they got down to the serious business of prayer.
Clustered in small groups across the convention hall, Baptists prayed for personal and national revival, and for spiritual awakening in churches and in a denomination “that often seems to have lost its first love,” said Frank Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee.
It wasn’t the only time messengers were called to prayer and repentance during the Baltimore gathering. A powerful message by Francis Chan had resulted in a similar prayer moment a few days before.
“We need the next great spiritual awakening,” said new Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd, who succeeds New Orleans pastor Fred Luter. Floyd, pastor of Cross Church in northwest Arkansas, received 51.62% of the vote in a three-candidate race with Maryland pastor Dennis Kim, who leads a large, mostly Korean congregation and Jared Moore of Kentucky, who ran on a “small church” platform.
Little debate: The Baltimore meeting was relatively quiet, with less than usual debate over reports by the SBC Resolutions Committee and Committee on Order of Business, which handles motions submitted by messengers. Of the 17 motions brought to the committee, six were referred to convention entities for further study and 10 were ruled out of order. Only one – a motion to pray for the persecuted church – was acted upon on the convention floor. It was adopted by unanimous consent, and Committee Chairman David Smith led the convention in a prayer for the Nigerian girls kidnapped by a terrorist group in their own country.
Sexual issues: The Resolutions Committee proposed nine measures to messengers. Each was adopted without much discussion, including a resolution on transgender identity that affirms “gender identity is determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception.”
The Convention took no action on a California church whose pastor announced he is attempting to find “a third way” to deal with members who are avowed homosexuals, neither affirming nor condemning their lifestyle. A motion to discipline New Heart Community Church of La Mirada was ruled out of order, because it would direct officers of the SBC to act outside the scope of their duties as defined in the constitution and bylaws.
Young, but sparse attendance: Like at the last few annual meetings, younger Baptists were more visible again in Baltimore. But they seemed to congregate at meetings hosted by equipping ministries like Baptist21 and 9Marks, rather than in the main convention hall.
The Baltimore meeting had 5,294 registered messengers. Next year’s meeting in Columbus, Ohio, – a second consecutive convention in a non-Southern city – could mean similarly low attendance, but Floyd said he will issue a “Call to Columbus” to bring Baptists to Ohio for the purpose of praying together.
Baltimore | The Southern Baptist Convention’s 2014 annual meeting ended this afternoon as Fred Luter handed off the gavel to new President Ronnie Floyd. The pastor of Cross Church in northwest Arkansas, said, “Boom!” as the gavel met the podium to officially close the meeting. And Luter threw his arms in the air with a big grin.
Check back later for more images from the Convention and Pastors’ Conference, and our list of takeaways from this week in Baltimore. Thank you always for following the news with us!
Naghmeh Abedini receives a standing ovation after accepting the Richard Land Award for Distinguished Service from the ERLC on behalf of her imprisoned husband, Saeed.
Baltimore | During the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission presentation, President Russell Moore presented awards to a woman whose husband is a pastor imprisoned for his Christian faith in Iran.
Saeed Abedini received the Richard Land Award for Distinguished Service for “faithfully serving the Lord Jesus Christ … despite the risk that was involved.” His wife Naghmeh accepted the award on his behalf and received a standing ovation from messengers.
“If Saeed Abedini can proclaim good news in the darkest Iran prison, surely American churches can mobilize for the nations,” Moore said.
Abedini was converted to Christianity from Islam and led house churches in Iran before moving to the United States. During a trip to Iran in 2012, he was arrested and sentenced to prison, subject to beatings and solitary confinement.
Later in his report, Moore drew attention to the ever changing American culture in which Southern Baptists are living. “Most basic principles of Christianity are going to sound increasingly strange and freakish to the culture around us,” said Moore.
He shared that the ERLC is working in government to defend Christian moral standards on issues like marriage and abortion. But “the primary vehicle for hope” is local churches who “seek the Kingdom in such a time as this,” Moore said, noting that churches should teach the culture how to think biblically about every issue. As they engage the culture though, churches should also issue a Gospel invitation to “whosoever will believe,” Moore said.
Moore also presented another award, the John Leland Award for Religious Liberty to the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby stores.
The Green family is fighting in court the Obama administration’s abortion/contraception mandate requiring employers to provide health insurance covering medical technologies that can cause the death of an unborn child. The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on their case later this month.
With additional reporting from Baptist Press
Christopher and Annette Robinson (right) pray alongside Linda Woods-Smith and Inez Parker at the Southern Baptist Convention in Baltimore. All four are members of Broadview Missionary Baptist Church.
Baltimore | Southern Baptist leaders called an impromptu prayer meeting this morning, asking messengers to gather in small groups and pray for four things: personal revival, revival in our churches, revival in the Southern Baptist Convention, and national revival.
SBC Executive Committee President Frank Page leads in prayer for revival in the Southern Baptist Convention.
“I am a crier. I admit that,” SBC Executive Committee President Frank Page said during the prayer time. “Anyone who knows me knows that I cry easily… sometimes I ought to weep and I don’t.
“I don’t see a lot of weeping for lost people, or for our nation. I don’t see a lot of weeping in the church for anything other than when the service goes too long.
“I’m not going to ask you manufacturer tears…But I am asking that our hearts will be so sensitized for lost people that we have tears.
“May we have tears of regret, of repentance, but also tears of concerned for the lost.
“‘Where are the tears?’ is my question…For lost people, for our nation, for a convention that often seems to have lost its first love.”
Baltimore | Southern Baptist Convention President Fred Luter brought messengers to their feet preaching Tuesday night from Psalm 80:18-19, calling on Southern Baptists to repent and call on God for revival.
“It’s a challenging time in the life of America, because just like Israel in Psalm 80, America has sinned against God,” shared Luter. “America is rapidly turning into a pagan nation. We’ve lowered our morals. We’ve lowered our standards.”
Luter said evidence of America’s depravity is seen in how the nation regards openly homosexual athletes as heroes rather than celebrating truly heroic people — like soldiers, EMTs, policemen and IMB missionaries. He boldly declared the celebration of homosexuality is just one of many manifestations of sin in America.
“I’m convinced if things are going to change in our nation there must be a spiritual revival in our nation there must be a spiritual awakening in America … There must be a spiritual revival that starts in the church. It must start with the people of God, it must start with prayer,” he said.
There is still hope. “We have a great and glorious opportunity to turn around America if we accept the challenge of the Great Commission,” he declared.
For God to send renewal and revival to our churches in America we must do three things, said Luter:
1. There must be repentance. We must ask God’s forgiveness for not making evangelism a priority.
“We have the answer,” Luter said. “We must share the Gospel of our savior Jesus Christ. Only the Gospel can transform lives…We’ve forgotten how much power there is in the Gospel to transform lives.”
“You and I were changed when we heard the Gospel of the Good News of Jesus Christ…That same Gospel can change the lives of the men, women, boys, and girls in our cities.”
He urged Southern Baptists to “stand flat-footed and preach the Word of God…Not any gimmicks, not any games…just give them the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
2. There must be remorse. We must tell everyone, it doesn’t matter who they are or what they look like, Luter said.
“If they are not coming to us we must go to them,” he challenged. “That’s what Jesus meant when He gave us the Great Commission…If you are born again. If you are cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, then you are qualified.”
His voice growing louder he cried, “Please forgive us for not sharing the Great Commission…O God we repent! O God we are remorseful!”
3. There will be revival. “If we repent, if we show remorse, there will be revival,” Luter said, just as God promised in Psalm 80.
“Brother and sisters of the SBC, we can longer ignore these reports [of declining baptisms]… Brothers and sisters, we are losing a generation. We can no longer be at ease while people around us are dying and going to hell!”
Luter shared his “heart’s desire these last two years [as SBC President] has been that God will bring revival and renew us.”
Messengers stood on their feet and shouted choruses of “Amen” as Luter proclaimed, “I’m going to tell it all around Jesus saves! Jesus saves!
“In the name of Jesus we have the victory. In the name of Jesus — Satan you have to flee! Southern Baptists who can stand before us when we call on that great Name? That Name is Jesus!”
He asked messengers to cry out, “Lord send the revival! Lord send the revival! Lord send the revival!”
Then, he told them, “Now, point to yourself and say, ‘Let it begin with me! Let it begin with me! Let it begin with me!’”
The messengers responded standing and shouting, “Let it begin with me,” as Luter finished his last message as President of the Southern Baptist Convention.
By Lisa Sergent, director of communications for the Illinois Baptist State Association
Matt Chandler (center) joined Danny Akin, David Platt, Thom Rainer, and Al Mohler on the Baptist 21 panel discussion in Baltimore.
Baltimore | “If you don’t think that there are people in your congregation that are struggling with this, you’re foolish and let your assistant pastor preach until you dial in a bit. Because they are out there, and when you talk condescendingly or ignorantly, or even lean in in a way that’s heavy and lacks compassion, you push people who struggle into themselves, so that they feel unsafe to confess, unsafe to seek out help, unsafe to be honest about, ‘This is a struggle. I know what the Word of God says. I’m struggling right now. Help me.’
“If you create an environment where it’s not OK to say that, then you have created an environment in which the healing of people by the power of the Holy Spirit through the proclamation of the Word of God becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible.
“They will lose heart, they will feel judged, they will feel unsafe. And the Good News taking root in a heart and transforming it so that the narrative can change never takes place.”
-Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas
Baltimore | New Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd said the SBC is committed to its path to share the Gospel with the nations, but we must accelerate our pace.
Speaking to media representatives at a press conference this afternoon, Floyd said the greatest need in the convention, and in the world, is the need for a great spiritual awakening. It’s been more than 100 years since the last great American revival, Floyd said.
“We’re overdue, it’s past time, we must have that movement.”
Not just for Southern Baptists, he added, but “for the purpose of seeing the Great Commission escalated to its rightful priority in all that we do as the church, so that we might be able to see it accelerated to its completion in this generation.”
The key, Floyd said, is “extraordinary prayer.” He organized two recent national prayer gatherings for pastors, and told media he will issue a “Call to Columbus” for next year’s SBC Annual Meeting. Before he was elected, Floyd said, someone told him, “You know, if you win, you’ve got to go to Columbus? You think anybody will come?”
Conventions in non-Southern cities generally have fewer attenders, but Floyd wants to use the meeting to pray together for the next great awakening.
“I’m going to do everything I can to work with the Order of Business Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention, to try our very best to spend as much time together practicing extraordinary prayer for the next great awakening in next year’s convention,” Floyd told media.
“And over the next year, I will do everything I can everywhere I go, and I need your help, to help carry that message.”
He said, “It’s time to pray. Quite honestly, it’s past time to pray.”
Baltimore | Messengers to the SBC Annual Meeting have elected Dr. Ronnie Floyd to serve as President of the Southern Baptist Convention. He received 51.62% of the vote in a three candidate race.
Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY, nominated Floyd. Mohler said, “When Southern Baptists have needed Ronnie Floyd, he has always been there.”
Molher called Cross Church in northwest Arkansas, where Floyd is pastor, “evangelistic, faithful and innovative” and added that it is among the SBC’s top contributors to the Cooperative Program. Floyd has served in numerous SBC leadership posts, including chairman of the Great Commission Task Force, Mohler noted.
Floyd was one of the keynote speakers at the SBC Pastors’ Conference June 8-9 also at the Baltimore Convention Center. The only thing Southern Baptists should be known for is the “power and the glory of God,” Floyd said, urging preachers to make a commitment not to preach unless His glory is on them and they have heard from God.
In addition, he cautioned pastors about trying to be too “cool.” “Some of us have a heart to be so real with people that we just think if we’re cool enough, we’re going to get [the numbers],” he said. “We’re never going to be cool enough to win our towns, our rural settings, to win our cities, to win the nation, to win the world, to win the nations. We’re never going to be cool enough; the only thing that’s going to bring that is a binding movement of the spirit of God that comes only when we are going up to be with God.”
The two other candidates for SBC President, Dr. Dennis Kim and Pastor Jared Moore, received 40.70% and 5.91% each of the vote. 1.77% of the ballots were disallowed.
Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist in Arlington, TX, nominated Kim. “Could it be that God has sovereignly brought Dr. Kim into the life and legacy of the Southern Baptist Convention … for such a time as this?” McKissic asked. Global Mission Church in Silver Spring, MD., where Kim, a Korean American, is pastor, is thoroughly multicultural, McKissic said, adding that Kim would be the first SBC president not from the South. He called on messengers to vote for the candidate stating, “The election of Dr. Kim will signal our future.”
Bennie Smith, a deacon at New Salem Baptist in Hustonville, KY., where Moore is pastor, nominated Moore. “We are a small Baptist church, but I’m trying to speak for smaller churches,” Smith said. “The voice of an average person in our SBC would be valuable.”
Clint Pressley, pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist in Charlotte, NC, was elected first Vice President of the SBC by acclimation — there were no other nominees.
Pressley was nominated by Pastor Ted Traylor of Olive Baptist in Pensacola, FL who said he was a “team player.”
Traylor also called the younger man, Pressley a “weight-lifting, Bible-preaching, sharp-dressing Southern Baptist.”
Pressley is known to wear a seersucker suit on at least one day of the convention each year.
5,001 messengers were registered when the vote for president took place, but only 3,553 messengers voted.
With additional reporting from Baptist Press.
“I’m kind of glad that cultural Christianity is dying. If you know anything about history…the church is never strongest when it’s in the majority. Has never been, never, ever been. It is always when it is in the salt and light mode.”
Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Ca., joined Samuel Rodriguez, David Platt and Russell Moore in a panel discussion about “Hobby Lobby and the Future of Religious Liberty.”
iB2 News 