Hundreds gather for annual Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference

The more than 1,200 pastors and laypeople who gathered at Hunter Street Baptist Church, Hoover, Nov. 18 for the Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference heard messages focused around the theme Vessels for Honor.
   
Glenn Graham, pastor of East Memorial Baptist Church in Prattville and this year’s Pastors Conference president, developed the theme based on 2 Timothy 2:20–21.
   
While the speaker lineup brought national figures as well as local Baptists to the pulpit, Alabama’s well-loved evangelist Junior Hill captured the headliner slot during the evening session.
Hill warned pastors about Satan’s strategy for preventing the spread of the gospel.
   
From the message text, Luke 8, the parable of the sower, Hill outlined the divisions of the parable — the seed, the sower, the soil, the salvation and the strategy. From the fifth division, the strategy, Hill warned, “There is an all-out brazen assault upon men and women of God which is unparalleled in the Christian faith.” The enemy is trying to snatch the seeds away from the men and women of God who would scatter them among the lost.
   
Hill offered four strategies the enemy uses in his attack: intimidation, alteration, generation and germination.
   
First, Satan will use intimidation to keep pastors from spreading the seeds. Hill cited the recent church growth movement as a source of intimidation for some pastors. He explained that many pastors of small churches or pastors of churches that are not experiencing rapid growth feel discouraged. Hill reminded those pastors that if they are in the pulpit spreading the seeds of the gospel, they are accomplishing their God-given responsibilities as pastors.
   
Second, Satan will use alteration to stifle the spread of God’s Word. “If he (Satan) can’t intimidate you and keep you from sowing, he’ll try to have you deliver an altered message,” Hill said. The dissemination of an altered message is evident in today’s church in unbiblical views held by many church members about the church, God and Jesus.
   
A third strategy employed by Satan is generation, that is the false belief that the gospel cannot reach today’s generation. However, Hill refuted this belief proclaiming the universal appeal of the gospel. Hill used a recent personal experience to convey the point. After delivering a simple sermon on salvation, people from all age groups, races and gender responded to the altar call and accepted Christ as their Savior.
   
Satan’s fourth strategy is germination. The enemy will try to discourage pastors when they do not see immediate results. However, Hill reminded pastors that it is their responsibility to sow the seeds regardless of the outcome. The germination and harvest are up to the Lord.
   
Also preaching during the evening session was James Merritt, immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
   
Merritt, pastor of First Baptist Church, Snellville, Ga., said, “Whether you pastor a big church or a small church, a country church or a city church, a rich church or a poor church, every pastor needs encouragement. I want to be an encouragement tonight.”
   
In his message, “Focus on the Finish,” Merritt cited Hebrews 12, which instructs Christians to run with endurance the race set before them — not always an easy task.
   
“The Christian life calls for the discipline of an athlete, the endurance of a marathon runner and the determination of a champion,” Merritt said. “God isn’t just looking for runners in the race. God is looking for winners in the race.”
   
Merritt reminded the pastors of the hope and encouragement offered by the Old Testament. The stories of Job, Joseph and David teach about God’s faithfulness, God’s goodness and God’s power.
   
Merritt provided three strategies for winning the race: lay aside whatever weighs you down, leave behind whatever ties you down and look beyond to the One who picks you up.
   
“We don’t know where our finish line is going to be,” he said. “All you have to do is look, listen, trust, obey and follow Him. If you keep your eyes on Jesus, you will win your race.”
   
And while in the race, keep preaching the written Word of God and focusing on the Living Word, said Paige Patterson, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, N.C.
   
Using Hebrews 1, real-life narratives and humor, Patterson illustrated the oneness and completeness of the written Word of God.
   
“If you follow a Jesus other than the Jesus explicitly revealed on the pages of holy Scripture then the Jesus you’re following is a Jesus made in your own image rather than making yourself in the image of Jesus Christ,” Patterson said. He added that although they are both totally true the Living Word is greater than the written Word. “The Bible makes us wise unto salvation — tells us how to be saved,” he said. “But the Living Word is the One that does the saving.”
   
Referencing Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi in Philippians 4:6, Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, unfolded a reminder that Christians are to lay all their worries at the feet of Jesus.
   
“It is a difficult day to be a pastor,” Kelley said, but “God has called you to a great and significant ministry. For the rest of your life it is going to be difficult.”
   
Reminding the pastors they are not alone, Kelley encouraged pastors to face the stress in their lives with the discipline of prayer.
   
“The word from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to Paul and us today … is stop being anxious.
   
“You can be pulled apart or you can pray,” Kelley noted. “Let your request be made known unto God. … You can be a man of stress and anxiety or a man of prayer.”
   
Kelley added that being a “man of prayer” is not praying as a pastor from the pulpit but rather as a child. “We tend to pray what we think God expects and what our people expect,” he explained.
   
“God knows the difference between the language of the mouth and the language of the heart. God wants to get the language of your heart so that you understand yourself what is going on in your life,” Kelley said. “As difficult as it gets, God knows it too.”
  
Kelley said prayer has no boundaries and explained that God wants to know just like parents want their children to share everything with them. “There is not anything in your … life that is inappropriate for prayer.
   
“Pray like you really feel, not like you think you ought to pray,” he said. “Be honest with God. … Bring everything that is a concern to you before your heavenly Father.”
   
Another representative of New Orleans Seminary, Jim Shaddix, further developed Kelley’s focus on prayer.
   
An associate professor of preaching and dean of the chapel at New Orleans Seminary, Shaddix was a surprise guest in the afternoon session. He filled in for Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga., who was hospitalized for tests after suffering chest pains Nov. 14.
   
Shaddix, a former staff member of Alexandria Baptist Church in Calhoun Association, developed his message on “God has no second-teamers” with the acrostic PLAY.
   
Prayer — “The application is for us to simply understand that it is a prayer,” Shaddix said. “It is going to be an activity that depends on your needs.”
   
Learn to know Him intimately — “We need to plead to Him to draw us to Him.”
   
Acknowledge His investment in you — “It is the simple awareness … that He has invested …  His Son … His love … and His power in you,” Shaddix said.
   
Yield to His power — “The same power it took to raise Jesus from the dead … is the same power He has invested in your life.”
   
Joe Godfrey, pastor of Taylor Road Baptist Church, Montgomery, noted four points necessary in order to be useful to God.
   
First, be on guard. “Tie up your mind so that you are able to run for the Lord.”
   
Second, be on target. As Christians “we ought to live our lives fixing our hope on the fact that something better is coming.”
    
Third, be on “your best behavior, not conforming to the things of this world.”
   
Fourth, be on God’s side “both by what we say and what we do.”
   
Fred Wolfe of the Barnabas traveling ministry of encouragement in Mobile suggested listeners to depend on God when the way is not clear.
Using Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20 as an example of seeking God, Wolfe said to “deliberately set your face to seek the Lord.”
   
Wolfe also pointed out methods to stay encouraged in the ministry:
   
–“Do not give up when people disappoint and discourage you.”
   
–Remember whose battle it is.
   
–Worship God in the middle of the battle.
   
–Remember that God often gives the victory in unexpected ways so only He will get the glory.
Sammy Gilbreath, director of evangelism for Alabama Baptists, said there are three things that need to happen “if we are going to be vessels worthy of honor.”
   
1. Rediscover a passion in the pulpit. 2. “We need to redefine the purpose for our people.” 3. “We need to recommit to purity in the parsonage.”
   
Music was provided by the Celebration Choir of East Memorial Baptist Church, Prattville, and music associate Michael Wilson. Also Rob Britton, minister of music at Blackshear Place Baptist Church, Flowery Branch, Ga., led praise and worship.