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Archives For November 30, 1999

The Briefing: Halloween is focus of new study, The Wall St. Journal on the IMB

Lisa Misner —  October 27, 2015

LifeWay Research studies views on HalloweenHalloween: ‘All in good fun’?

Most Americans don’t have a problem celebrating Halloween, a new study shows. Although 3 in 5 Americans told LifeWay Research that Halloween is “all in good fun,” 21 percent avoid the holiday completely and another 14 percent avoid the pagan elements.

The Wall St. Journal looks at the International Mission Board

The Wall Street Journal has taken notice of the International Mission Board’s budget woes. In the Oct. 25 article, “Cash-Strapped Missionaries Get a New Calling: Home,” the newspaper gives readers (and Southern Baptists) an opportunity to view the staff reduction from outside the denomination’s news agencies.

IBSA Disaster Relief volunteers head to SC

Three disaster relief teams from Illinois will each serve in South Carolina where severe flooding destroyed homes, businesses, and infrastructure in early October. The mudout teams will minister over three concurrent weeks beginning November 7. They will join the work of Southern Baptist Disaster relief volunteers from 15 other states.

Football coach can’t pray on field

In Washington State, Bremerton High School Coach Joe Kennedy has been told he’ll be fired if he continues to pray from the 50-yard line before each game. In a letter, Superintendent Aaron Leavell forbade him from “bowing his head, taking a knee or doing anything that might remotely be construed as religious.” The school district offered to provide him a place to pray that is “not observable to students or the public.” Coach Kennedy said he will continue to pray.

Sources: Baptist Press, Fox New, The Wall Street Journal

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IBSA Annual Meeting: Evangelism that grows churches

Lisa Misner —  October 19, 2015

These 5 commitments will change your church—and Illinois

“Build your kingdom here,” pleads the writer of the popular song by the Christian group Rend Collective. With phrases such as “heal our streets and lands” and “set your church on fire,” the chorus captures the desire for IBSA churches in the year ahead. And for those who will attend the 2015 IBSA Annual Meeting, the anthem is a follow-up to last year’s Concert of Prayer for spiritual awakening in Illinois and revival in our churches.

“I like the song for several reasons, but I think above all it’s the way the song lets me boldly ask God for things that I think are on His heart as well,” said IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams. “This song gives me a bold, evangelistic prayer that challenges me to ask God for what He wants.”

And it’s a good summary of the prayers at the upcoming Annual Meeting. “We will be asking God together to move mightily through our churches, yes for our own revival, but beyond that to draw lost people to Christ,” said Adams.

IBSA Annual MeetingThe Annual Meeting, set for Nov. 11-12 at First Baptist Church of Marion, focuses on evangelism and key commitments churches can make to reach lost people in their communities.

“When the dust settled at the end of 2014, IBSA churches reported over 500 fewer baptisms than in 2013,” Adams said. “That breaks my heart!”

One focus of last year’s Concert of Prayer was the growing number of non-Christian religions in our state, where more than 8 million of Illinois’ 13 million residents do not know Jesus Christ.

“There are now more Muslims in Illinois than Southern Baptists,” Adams points out, a fact he finds disturbing. “I know we cannot ‘manufacture’ spiritual results. But even as we beg God to “Build Your Kingdom Here,” we want to challenge churches to commit themselves to the kinds of simple, evangelistic activities that have proven year after year to be most effective in drawing lost people to Christ.”

Mark Emerson and the Church Resources Team have led the way in development of these commitments. “Our thinking in the development of the five commitments came from two ideas. We realized that 342 IBSA churches reported no baptisms last year, and another 100 report one baptism each.

“Then I heard the statement from LifeWay’s Jerry Wooley at the VBS preview event that 25% of all baptisms are directly related to Vacation Bible School. According to the 2014 Annual Church Profile data we had 432 IBSA churches that didn’t record a VBS.”

The two concepts came together for Emerson and his team. “I started thinking, if I was the new pastor in a church that hadn’t baptized anyone, what would I do in my first year that would lead to more baptisms?”

One obvious answer: take fuller advantage of Southern Baptists’ best evangelism opportunity.

“We are committed to helping these churches that haven’t held VBS recently plan one for 2016,” Emerson. “We believe if they will make VBS a priority it will yield baptisms.”

IBSA Annual MeetingAnd that commitment led to the full slate of five:

• Evangelistic prayer

• Witness training

• Expanded VBS

• New groups

• Outreach events

“David Francis, LifeWay’s Sunday School Director, shares that a new unit will bring (on average) 10 new people to a church in its first year,” Emerson said. “When the new unit keeps an evangelistic focus, a portion of these new attenders will make professions of faith and follow Christ in baptism.”

Adams, Emerson, and the Church Resources Team will present all five commitments in the Wednesday evening session at this year’s Annual Meeting.

The chapel area at FBC Marion will be set up as a resource room with large displays of “Building Blocks.” Look for the Lego-style blocks representing each of the five commitments.

How to prepare

“IBSA staff and resources are committed to coming alongside churches that make those commitments to help them in all five of those areas, and to link them to nearby churches that make those same pledges to renewed, zealous evangelism,” Adams said.

“I would invite those preparing to come to the Annual Meeting to simply ask God, ‘Who is within reach of our church that doesn’t know Christ yet?’ and ‘What could our church do to help them meet Jesus?’

“We can all grow complacent just going through the motions of our church routines week after week. I would hope that people would come to the Annual Meeting longing for God to turn them inside out into their communities. And I would hope they would leave the Annual Meeting on fire to join Jesus in seeking and saving the lost.”

Heading south

After three years in Springfield, the Annual Meeting is on the road again. “This will be the first time in several years that the IBSA Annual Meeting has been as far south as Marion,” Adams said. “I’m hoping that will make it more accessible to many churches in that region, before we stretch north to Chicagoland the following year. And Marion First Baptist hosting the meeting during their 150th anniversary year makes it even more special.”

FBC Marion is one of four IBSA churches celebrating their founding in 1865. While at the church, look for their historical display just inside the entryway.

Get the Annual Meeting and Pastors’ Conference schedules, hotel information, and more at www.IBSA.org/IBSA2015.

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Prayer: Keep it going

Meredith Flynn —  July 27, 2015
Chicago leaders convened a one-day prayer meeting and equipping conference in January at Lighthouse Fellowship Baptist Church in Franklin.

Chicago leaders convened a one-day prayer meeting and equipping conference in January at Lighthouse Fellowship Baptist Church in Franklin.

HEARTLAND | Phil Miglioratti

God is moving, and his Spirit is stirring people in Illinois to pray. Since the Concert of Prayer at the IBSA Annual Meeting last November, we have heard reports from many places about prayer events. To all these reports I say, keep it going.

Chicago Metro, Gateway and Lake County Associations all held prayer concerts this spring. Three Rivers Association held three concerts in a single month. And many churches have reported giving whole worship services over to prayer.

“The concert of prayer during the IBSA meeting was an inspirational, powerful worship experience and served as a catalyst to do something similar in our local church context,” said Kevin Carrothers, pastor of Rochester FBC.

“The need to see people actively engaged in the worship and prayer experience rather than being a spectator was also a compelling factor in the concert of prayer,” he said.

Some churches have used the cycle of prayer IBSA developed from Isaiah 6: lament, repent, intercede, and commit. It is a mix of Scripture, prayer, and songs in equal measure. It’s easy to adapt an existing format or to select some Scripture and let the passage guide the movements in prayer. My approach is to develop a service that is

• Spirit-led: It’s not a performance.

• Worship-bred: Every aspect of the experience is born out of worship, especially the songs and hymns

• Scripture-fed: Even without a sermon, Scripture is foundational.

• Corporate-said: Attenders are participants, not an audience.

• Global-spread: Our prayers are for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done rather than the usual prayer list items.

After I led a prayer concert at First Baptist Church of Winthrop Harbor, deacon Kenneth Anthony commented that, of the four phases in prayer, it was the time of confession that most affected him.

“We seldom stop and actually think about our own sin,” he said. “Our church, our community, our nation needs real revival and the only way to begin it is for the people of God to admit where we are at fault. If we don’t confess our sins and return to
God, the nation never will.”

Phil Miglioratti is IBSA’s prayer coordinator.

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Cultures in conflict are key topic at Southern Baptist Convention in Columbus

Meredith Flynn —  July 2, 2015

Columbus_SBC_blogNEWS | Lisa Sergent

The signs up at the Greater Columbus Convention Center read, “Welcome Southern Baptist Convention,” while banners on the lampposts declared “Gay Pride Festival.” With only a day separating these gatherings, their juxtaposition—and shared subject matter—was especially noticeable.

Awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, the case that will likely determine whether same-sex marriage is legal in all 50 states, SBC leaders and messengers talked marriage and a host of other issues that threaten to isolate the gospel from the people who need it.

Columbus_blog“Whatever happens in the culture around us,” Russell Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, reminded attenders at the Pastors’ Conference, “it does not take one bit more gospel to save the people protesting us than it took to save us, the people who were once protesting God.”

But there weren’t a lot of people protesting Southern Baptists in Columbus. In fact, for several years now, the controversial conversation has been inside the hall rather than parading the sidewalks outside, with messengers taking up issues—such as same-sex marriage and ministry to transgender people—that would not have been handled so candidly a decade or two ago.

“For most of this last century Southern Baptists have been comfortable in the culture in their soft cocoon,” Moore said in his convention report. “Some said that the Southern Baptist Zion was below the Mason-Dixon Line. Those days are gone, and not a moment too soon. Those days are over, thankfully.”

Southern Baptists are taking on hard issues.

Firm positions, softer hearts
“The mission of the church isn’t to un-gay people. The mission of the church is to win people to Christ,” Houston pastor Nathan Lino said at a breakfast hosted by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He challenged churches, asking why they try to “run off” homosexuals and transgendered people. “Do you realize that it’s a miracle they are there? It’s because of God and it’s glorious.”

Former lesbian, now pastor’s wife Rosaria Butterfield agreed that salvation comes first. “I was not converted out of homosexuality, I was converted out of unbelief and then God went to work.” She spoke as part of a panel called “The Supreme Court and Same-Sex Marriage: Preparing Our Churches for the Future.” The panel was the first of its kind staged during a convention business meeting. Some panelists reinforced a fortress mentality for churches. Others introduced a new kind of missionary to the culture. Moore observed that Butterfield is probably the “Lottie Moon of the 21st century mission field, a Presbyterian ex-lesbian sitting right here.”

SBC President Ronnie Floyd framed the field this way: “The Southern Baptist Convention has not moved, the culture has moved. We stand on the Word of God that abides forever, always has been, and will forever be.”

‘Bonhoeffer moment’
On the final day of the convention, Floyd and eight past SBC presidents held a press conference stating their commitment to biblical marriage. The statement, endorsed by Floyd and 16 living past convention presidents, served notice to the nation and to the Supreme Court that they “will not recognize same-sex ‘marriages,’ our churches will not host same-sex ceremonies, and we will not perform such ceremonies.”

The presidents also stressed the need for churches to be prepared by having clear bylaws and constitutions that say what it means to be married in their churches.

Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, urged Christian colleges, universities, and seminaries to do the same. He said he could see a time when accreditation would be withheld from Christian educational institutions that do not approve of same-sex marriage or transgenderism.

Patterson said what concerns him most are the churches “that have never thought through their bylaws and constitutions. Challenges will probably come to those small churches that are ill-prepared.”

At the same press conference, Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, concurred: “We want to challenge pastors and church members. This is coming and it’s coming now. The trajectory is on breakneck speed…We encourage Christian leaders everywhere to make some noise and to be a voice.”

Other threats to religious liberty were also highlighted at the convention:
Former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran spoke at the Pastors’ Conference. Cochran was fired from his position for stating on one page of his 160-page book, “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” that homosexuality is sinful. “There are self-inflicted sufferings and the ones God allows,” Cochran said. “What I’m experiencing is a God-allowed suffering that has nothing to do with me, but that God is using in and through me.”

And Barronelle Stutzman, the Washington state florist who was sued for not providing flowers for a same-sex wedding, made an appearance during the ERLC report. She lost her case and is in danger of losing her home and business. After Moore shared her story, she came to the stage for prayer.

“This is a Bonhoeffer moment for every pastor in the United States,” Floyd warned in a sermon citing the example of pastor and Nazi-fighter Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “We will not bow down nor will we be silent. We will hold up and lift up God’s authoritative truth on marriage. While we affirm our love for all people, we cannot deviate from God’s Word.”

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Columbus Discoveries: The best is yet to come

Meredith Flynn —  June 24, 2015
IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams (left) interviews former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran at the Southern Baptist Convention in Columbus.

IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams (left) interviews former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran at the 2015 Southern Baptist Convention.

Columbus, Ohio | Lisa Sergent

I’ve been reflecting on the 2015 Southern Baptist Convention, now that it and Columbus, Ohio, are in my rearview mirror.

The city and the Convention were a study in contrasts. While we were there, the city was issuing proclamations welcoming the LGBT community and celebrating the upcoming Gay Pride Week. The Convention featured panel discussions, sermons and press conferences emphasizing biblical marriage.

An article in the Columbus Dispatch newspaper celebrated that Jim Obergefell, the Cincinnati man at the center of the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges, was in Columbus to lead the gay pride parade the Saturday following the convention. Meanwhile, discussions at the Convention expressed concern that the case, which could cause the legalization of same-sex marriage in all 50 states, will lead to further encroachment on religious freedoms in the U.S.

That concern is very real.

Former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran spoke at the SBC Pastors’ Conference held just prior to the Convention. Cochran was fired from his position for stating on one page of his 160-page book, “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” that homosexuality is sinful.

Barronelle Stutzman, the Washington state florist who was sued for not providing flowers for a same-sex wedding, made an appearance during the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s report. She lost her case and is in danger of losing her home and business. After ERLC President Russell Moore shared her story, she came to the stage for prayer.

As International Mission Board President David Platt noted at the Pastors’ Conference, “There is no question we live in a culture increasingly hostile to Christ. We cannot pick and choose what issues we will preach and which issues we will ignore.”

In his report, Moore said, “For most of this last century Southern Baptists have been comfortable in the culture in their soft cocoon…Some said that the Southern Baptist Zion was below the Mason-Dixon Line. Those days are gone and not a moment too soon; those days are over thankfully.”

Much of the time devoted to discussing issues affecting our SBC churches was made possible by a new Convention schedule and format. Much of the business took place on Tuesday afternoon, which allowed time for the Wednesday afternoon panel discussion on the Supreme Court and same-sex marriage.

One of my favorite parts of the Convention has always been the SBC Pastors’ Conference which precedes it. But this year, with SBC President Ronnie Floyd and others following God’s leading, the Convention itself was a must see and hear. The best was yet to come.

I think the same is true for the Southern Baptists and evangelicals. While I do believe our freedom of speech and right to freely practice our religion are going be infringed upon to an even greater extent, I do know God will honor those who stand firm and follow His Word. For this we shall grow closer to Him and find strength. And that is truly the best to come.

Lisa Sergent is contributing editor of the Illinois Baptist newspaper and director of communications for the Illinois Baptist State Association.

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Baptists hold national prayer meeting for our Convention and the world

Meredith Flynn —  June 22, 2015
Prayer takes center stage (and all available floor space) as Marvin Parker, pastor of Broadview Missionary Baptist Church in Metro Chicago, and his wife, Inez, join with others in Columbus to pray for racial reconciliation.

Prayer takes center stage (and all available floor space) as Marvin Parker, pastor of Broadview Missionary Baptist Church in Metro Chicago, and his wife, Inez, join with others in Columbus to pray for racial reconciliation.

Columbus, Ohio | For one whole year leading up to the 2015 Southern Baptist Convention, the meeting’s main issue was made crystal clear. It wouldn’t be theological differences or other debates. Not even denominational decline or cultural change.

Prayer.

Extraordinary, unified, visible, repentant, collective prayer.

Ronnie Floyd, elected to his first term as SBC President at last year’s meeting in Baltimore, immediately issued a “Call to Columbus,” rallying Baptists to come to the Midwest to cry out to God for the next great awakening.

On a Tuesday night in Ohio, they did. Nearly 7,000 people praying on their knees, on their faces, in small groups, and in quiet solitude. (More than 8,000 people joined them online.)

“Tonight is a moment that we pray you won’t forget for the rest of your life,” Floyd said at the beginning of the National Call to Prayer. “We hope it’s a moment in this generation.”

In Baltimore last year, an early end to a morning business session resulted in an impromptu prayer gathering. But many messengers had already left the convention hall. That wasn’t the case in Columbus, where Baptists prayed together for two hours on topics including racial reconciliation, spiritual awakening, and the persecuted church.

“Awesome and humbling service and God’s presence was obvious!” former Illinois director of missions J. E. Hail posted on Facebook after the Call to Prayer. “May God answer our prayers for revival and awakening!” – even if we’ve never actually seen it before.

Las Vegas pastor Vance Pittman’s voice broke when he said he’d heard and read about revivals of the past. “But I have never experienced that kind of an awakening where I live,” he said from the platform.

“And I don’t know where you are tonight, but I am hungry to not just read about it, and not just hear about it, but to experience a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God on our nation like we have never witnessed before.”

Don’t wish for Mayberry
Throughout the 2015 meeting, leaders outlined one big reason to pray: our swiftly changing culture. Similar to the last few Conventions, the Columbus gathering included several between-session presentations on how churches can meet sweeping social change with love from a firm, biblical foundation.

Perhaps because churches are facing ever more specific issues related to sexuality and gender, the meetings in Columbus offered practical advice on how to deal with a same-sex couple that comes to faith in Christ, or a transgender teen in the youth group.

Cultural change shouldn’t cause churches to panic, leaders said again and again. Instead, Christians should cling even more closely to the saving power of the gospel, which pulled them out of their own sin.

“We can’t be, as our mission field changes around us, pining for some day in the past when everything was easier,” said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, during his message at the Pastors’ Conference. “Mayberry leads to hell just like Gomorrah does.

“The message that we have is not, ‘Let’s get back to when everybody was better behaved.’ The message that we have is, ‘You must be born again.’”

The next challenge
SBC Executive Committee President Frank Page focused on another cause to pray in his report: fewer people coming to Christ through the ministries of SBC churches.

“We need to increase our evangelism like we never have before,” Page said. “Oh God, help us to be soul winners…”
Recent numbers from the Annual Church Profile (see page 5) paint a bleak picture: SBC churches lost more than 200,000 members last year, and baptisms fell below the level they were in 1948, Page reported.

“We’ve adopted society’s lie that people won’t talk to you about Christ anymore,” he said.

To jump start evangelism, Page introduced “Great Commission Advance,” a campaign to begin this year and run through 2025—the 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptists’ chief method of supporting missions. Baptist Press reported the plan includes a 1% challenge in baptisms and in stewardship, similar to the challenge Page issued to churches in 2013 to increase giving by 1% of their undesignated offerings.

One big, redeemed family
Prior to this year’s meeting, many figured Columbus to be a hard sell for Baptists in the South and other regions. Would messengers really turn out for a Convention in a Midwestern city not known for its theme parks and family attractions? The final report on registered messengers Wednesday afternoon was 5,407, slightly above last year’s total in Baltimore.

While the focus on prayer seemed integrated into every part of the meeting, the business sessions were relatively quiet:

• All five SBC officers were elected unopposed: Ronnie Floyd, pastor of Cross Church in northwest Arkansas, president; Steve Dighton, senior pastoral advisor at Lenexa Baptist Church in Lenexa, Kansas, first vice president; Chad Keck, pastor of First Baptist Church in Kettering, Ohio; second vice president; John Yeats, executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention, recording secretary; and Jim Wells, strategic partners team leader for the Missouri Baptist Convention, registration secretary.

• Nine resolutions were affirmed, including measures on marriage, sexual purity, and religious persecution (see page 10).

• An amendment to the SBC’s Constitution regarding qualifications for churches sending messengers to the annual meeting was approved on a required second vote. Cooperating churches may now automatically send two messengers to the Convention. Article III of the Constitution, written in 1888, previously allowed for one messenger per church, with additional messengers allowed for every $250 contributed to Convention causes.

Under the new guidelines, the amount for additional messengers is adjusted for inflation to $6,000. The maximum number of messengers per church also increased from 10 to 12, Baptist Press reported.

One particular order of business related directly to events of the past year, and a key part of the Call to Prayer Tuesday evening. Messenger Alan Cross from Alabama asked that the Executive Committee be commended for its report on racial diversity in the SBC since 1995 (the year the denomination apologized for past racism). Cross had made a motion the previous year asking for information on ethnic representation in SBC leadership. This year, the Executive Committee said much progress has been made but “more can and needs to be done.” Messengers approved Cross’ commendation.

During the National Call to Prayer, Floyd called on Baptists to repent of racism and prejudice, bringing to the stage leaders of different ethnicities to pray for racial reconciliation.

Around the convention hall, people gathered in small groups, standing shoulder-to-shoulder or hand-in-hand as they prayed for unity. The leaders then worshiped together on the stage, as the band led those in the packed auditorium to sing, “I am redeemed. You set me free.”

“Tonight in Jesus’ name, we come together as one family,” Floyd said, “and we do it because of the blood of the Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world.”

Read more of the Illinois Baptist team’s coverage from Columbus in our June 29 issue, arriving online this week.

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Sending Celebration commissions missionaries, churches

Meredith Flynn —  June 17, 2015
Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board

Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board

Columbus | Missionaries aren’t sent out on their own. Or even solely through the power of missions agencies like the North American and International Mission Boards. Churches–supporting, sending churches–are central to the process.

David Platt, president of the International Mission Board

David Platt, president of the International Mission Board

That was the main idea behind this morning’s Sending Celebration, hosted by Southern Baptists’ two mission agencies following brief reports by both. Instead of their traditional separate presentations highlighting missionaries, NAMB and IMB joined forces to celebrate people serving around the world, and the churches who have helped send them. In hopes that more will catch the vision for how they can be engaged with taking the gospel to the world.

Worship leaders Shane & Shane

Worship leaders Shane & Shane

“Churches almost unknowingly begin to farm out missions to missions organizations,” Platt said. “But this is not how God designed it.” You won’t see IMB or NAMB in the New Testament, he said. Instead, you see churches like the one at Antioch.

“We want to see 46,000-plus Antiochs,” Platt said at the beginning of the sending celebration.

As worship artists Shane & Shane led music from the stage, slides introduced church planters serving across North America and others working across the globe. As their slides showed on giant screens in the convention hall, many of the missionaries stood, illuminated only by simple, book-shaped lights fanned out in front of them.

At the end of the service, they stood again together, and people sitting around them stood and prayed over them as Platt and Ezell led from the stage.

“Not one of us is guaranteed today, much less tomorrow,” Platt had said during his final charge to those in the audience. “So, brothers and sisters, let’s make it count. Let’s make our lives and our churches and churches in this convention count.”

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Baptists pray for forgiveness, unity, revival

Meredith Flynn —  June 16, 2015

Prayer_kneeling_blogColumbus | Southern Baptists prayed together for two hours Tuesday evening, calling on God to bring spiritual awakening and revival in churches, communities, the United States, and the world. They started with personal repentance, kneeling across the convention center as leaders from around the country led in prayers of forgiveness for prayerlessness, lack of evangelism, division, abortion, sexual depravity, negligence of “the least of these,” and more.

Pastors of different ethnicities led in prayer for racial reconciliation, and people gathered in small groups, standing shoulder-to-shoulder or hand-in-hand as they prayed for true unity. The church leaders then worshiped together on the stage, as the band led those in the packed auditorium to sing, “I am redeemed. You set me free.”

“…Tonight in Jesus’ name, we come together as one family, and we do it because of the blood of the Lamb of God who died for the sins of the world,” said SBC President Ronnie Floyd.

The evening turned toward revival, with more church leaders praying brief prayers for pastors and their wives, students, families, women, men, churches, and Southern Baptist leaders and workers.

Las Vegas pastor Vance Pittman said he had heard about revival, and read about it too. “But I have never experienced that kind of an awakening where I live,” he said, his voice breaking. “And I don’t know where you are tonight, but I am hungry to not just read about it, and not just hear about it, but to experience a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God on our nation like we have never witnessed before.”

After they prayed for spiritual awakening, Floyd led the congregation in prayer for the persecuted church. As the worship team and choir started singing, the crowd stood, many lifting their hands.

“Thou, O Lord, are a shield for me. My glory and the lifter of my head.”

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SBC Annual Meeting kicks off in Columbus

Meredith Flynn —  June 16, 2015

Floyd_gavel

Update: 4,870 messengers are now registered at the SBC Annual Meeting in Columbus.

Columbus | Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd gavelled in the 2015 Annual Meeting this morning, starting a day in which messengers will complete much of the business scheduled for this week’s meeting. This morning: a 50th anniversary tribute to veterans of the Vietnam War, Floyd’s president’s message, and reports from the SBC’s six seminaries.

Afternoon business includes election of officers, committee reports, introduction of new motions, and the report of the SBC Executive Committee. As of Tuesday morning, 4,482 messengers are registered here in Columbus.

Julia_Arriola

Julio Arriola (center) is the first Mexican-American to serve in the role of Convention music director, Ronnie Floyd said in introducing him this morning. Arriola is global worship pastor at Cross Church in Springdale, Arkansas.

Tuesday culminates with tonight’s Call to Prayer, streamed live on sbcannualmeeting.net and broadcast this evening on Daystar Television Network. Check back here for updates throughout the day!Choir_SBC

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‘Fear not, little flock.’ And pray.

Meredith Flynn —  June 15, 2015
Mark Dever and Russell Moore (center) answered questions from 9Marks' Jonathan Leeman (left) and Phillip Bethancourt of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (right).

Mark Dever and Russell Moore (center) answered questions from 9Marks’ Jonathan Leeman (left) and Phillip Bethancourt of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (right).

Columbus | The culture has changed and is continuing to change–there’s no mistaking it. But Christians don’t have to live in fear, leaders said Monday night at a post-Pastors’ Conference gathering.

When asked what he would tell churches in the face of sweeping cultural change, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission President Russell Moore quoted Luke 12:32: “Fear not, little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.”

“The main thing that I would say,” Moore said at the meeting hosted by the 9Marks ministry, “is let us be joyful, hopeful, convictional people who are not panicked, who are not distressed, and who are not tossed about by the wind.”

Moore echoed his Sunday evening Pastors’ Conference message, when he referred to the argument some have made about Christians being on the wrong side of history when it comes to cultural change.

“Brothers and sisters, we started on the wrong side of history. The right side of history was the Roman Empire. The wrong side of the history was a Roman cross. And the Roman Empire is dead, and Jesus is feeling fine.”

At the 9Marks meeting, Moore and Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., fielded questions submitted by the audience. The questions on current social issues covered a variety of topics, including homosexuality, transgenderism, and race. Dever, who also serves as president of 9Marks, urged pastors to pray with their congregations about pressing issues, and not just 3-minute prayers during transitions in the worship services. One of the main sources for his pastoral prayers, Dever said, is The Washington Post.

“…You need to pray for five or ten minutes; I mean, give some thought to your prayer.” When the Westminster Assembly of the 1640s would hold a day of prayer, they would pray as long as they would preach, Dever said. An hour-long sermon, followed by an hour-long prayer. “And the pastors would prepare their prayers every bit as much as they would work on preparing their sermons.”

Nearly 400 years later, maybe that’s an idea worth revisiting.

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