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  • November 30, 1999

Archives For November 30, 1999

Southern Baptist Convention

Southern Baptists stop to pray in Baltimore

Meredith Flynn —  June 11, 2014
Christopher and Annette Robinson (right) pray alongside Linda Woods-Smith and Inez Parker at the Southern Baptist Convention in Baltimore. All four are Broadview Missionary Baptist Church.

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.

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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.”

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Luter: ‘Lord send revival! Let it begin with me!’

Meredith Flynn —  June 10, 2014

Fred_Luter_preach_2Baltimore | 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

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Matt Chandler on pastoral care for same-sex attraction

Meredith Flynn —  June 10, 2014
Matt Chandler (center) joined Danny Akin, David Platt, Thom Rainer, and Al Mohler on the Baptist 21 panel discussion in Baltimore.

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

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Floyd issues ‘Call to Columbus’ for 2015

Meredith Flynn —  June 10, 2014

Ronnie_Floyd_pressBaltimore | 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.”

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Floyd edges past two others for SBC pres, no run-off

Lisa Misner —  June 10, 2014

Ronnie_Floyd_PCBaltimore | 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.

 

In Baltimore 2014, SBC, Southern Baptist Convention
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Rick Warren on religious liberty panel

Meredith Flynn —  June 10, 2014

Rick_Warren“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.”

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Luter calls to order SBC meeting in Baltimore

Meredith Flynn —  June 10, 2014

Luter_gavelPresident Fred Luter gaveled into session the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention this morning.

As of 8:05 a.m., there are 4,310 registered messengers at the meeting. Attendance is typically sparse in the first session, but four Illinois Baptists are seated in the first three rows: Cliff and Lisa Woodman from Emmanuel Baptist in Carlinville, and Jack and Wilma Booth from Calvary Baptist in Elgin.

Luter’s successor will be elected this morning from a field of three candidates: Ronnie Floyd, Cross Church in northwest Arkansas; Dennis Kim, Global Mission Church of Greater Washington; and Jared Moore, New Salem Baptist Church in Hustonville, Ky.

As for the current president, Luter opened the session with his trademark humor: “Even though I have enjoyed the crab cakes here, I’d rather the beignets and coffee in N’Awlins.”

Check back here and at Facebook.com/IllinoisBaptist and Twitter.com/IllinoisBaptist for updates throughout the day.

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Chan’s plea at Pastors’ Conference: Less ritual, more passion for the lost

Meredith Flynn —  June 10, 2014

Francis Chan told the crowd he has sat in worship services before and thought, "‘There’s more! There’s something in me that’s just dying to get out. I read what happened in the Word and I know that there’s more, and I’ve got to pursue it.”

Francis Chan told the crowd he has sat in church services before and thought, “‘There’s more! There’s something in me that’s just dying to get out. I read what happened in the Word and I know that there’s more, and I’ve got to pursue it.”


Baltimore | In an impassioned message at the SBC Pastors’ Conference Monday night, Francis Chan begged attenders to consider how much they long for God and care about people who are dying without hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Chan, the author of “Crazy Love” and “Forgotten God,” spoke for several minutes before confessing he sensed something “just not flowing” during his message at the Pastors’ Conference. “And honestly, the last time I felt this was the last time I spoke at the Southern Baptist Convention.”

His words were obviously impromptu, and Chan stumbled over them a little as he stressed he didn’t want to offend or be judgmental. But, he continued, there are patterns and rituals and things that were learned and passed down, “and sometimes, I can see like an emptiness in the eyes.” Even as the actions are there, he added.

Pastors' Conference President Bruce Frank urged attenders not to leave before they got on their knees and prayed about what Chan said.

Pastors’ Conference President Bruce Frank urged attenders not to leave before they got on their knees and prayed about what Chan said.

“I see a lot of ritual, a lot of…faithfulness over the years, but I’m concerned that there’s not this desperate cry for God.”

“I just had to say something, and I don’t know it that resonates with some of you,” Chan said as applause in the room grew louder.

“I remember sometimes I’d sit in a church service and everything inside of me just wants to scream, ‘There’s more! There’s something in me that’s just dying to get out. I read what happened in the Word and I know that there’s more, and I’ve got to pursue it.”

Chan spoke to those at the Pastors’ Conference who have felt the same disconnect:

“I believe that that burning in you is from the Holy Spirit, and that’s it not OK to just be fine with the unreached people groups out there and people going to hell.

“It’s not OK to just sing another song and finish out the service and tie it up right, and to have another year of services. But that we would just say: ‘No, God, I gotta have you. I gotta have you. I gotta experience what I read about in this book.’”

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Meet ‘Miss Annie’ in Baltimore

Meredith Flynn —  June 9, 2014

Annie_ArmstrongTwelve charter buses of women toured Annie Armstrong’s Baltimore today, stopping at churches she attended or influenced, visiting her grave site, and praying over her city. The tour was part of the WMU Missions Celebration and Annual Meeting.

Some of the women even met Annie in person, or at least someone very much like her. At Woodbrook Baptist Church, formerly Eutaw Place Baptist, “Miss Annie” sat at an antique secretary once owned by Armstrong herself. She answered questions about her life, her work, and her possible meeting with fellow famed missionary Lottie Moon. (We’re not completely sure, but they might have met at a missionary commissioning service for Lottie’s sister, Edmonia.)

Others on the tour sat in chairs Miss Annie might also have sat in at Jesus Our Redeemer Church in Federal Hill, which was established as Lee Street Baptist in 1855. Each bus visited Federal Hill Park, where women prayer walked and looked over a formerly poor part of Baltimore that’s now home to the city’s rich and famous.

Becky Arnett, Janet Craynon and Evelyn Tully sit where Annie Armstrong could have sat, at Jesus the Redeemer Church in Baltimore.

Becky Arnett, Janet Craynon and Evelyn Tully sit where Annie Armstrong could have sat, at Jesus the Redeemer Church in Baltimore.

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Panel discusses CP giving

Lisa Misner —  June 9, 2014

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IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams appeared on a panel discussing Cooperative Program giving, just ahead of the start of the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Baltimore.

“I think one of the greatest needs we’re facing is education for a new generation.  Mission education channels that were there 20 or 30 years ago are not as prevalent as they once were, and so the places where young people and young pastors learned about the Cooperative Program, how it works, and how effective it is, are different today,” Adams said.

“One of the challenges is every state convention is different… We’re trying to step up and educate people in our state about how Cooperative Program works specifically in Illinois, as well as some broad strokes about how it works everywhere.”

SEBTS president Danny Akin added, “You’ve got to beat that drum again, and again, and again, and again, and again– because generations come and go more rapidly than they used to, things change more rapidly than they used to. You can’t assume that if we did this really well–getting the message out ten years ago or five years ago–that’s it’s sufficient for today. Oh, no, it’s not.”

(Pictured from left to right – Jon Akin, pastor, Fairview Church, Lebanon, Tenn.; Paul Chitwood, Executive Director, Kentucky Baptist Convention; Nate Adams; Jimmy Scroggins, lead pastor, FBC West Palm Beach, Fla.; Ronnie Floyd, senior pastor, Cross Church, northwest Arkansas; and Danny Akin, president, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary).

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