Pastors need conviction, courage

In a matter of moments the altar of Whitesburg Baptist Church, Huntsville, was crowded with scores of Baptist ministers as they knelt in response to the Monday evening invitation given by Stephen Olford at the Pastors Conference.
    
“Only those who mean business with God need come forward,” he warned the audience, as more and more pastors, some accompanied by their wives, reverently surrounded the pulpit with their heads bowed.
   
Affectionately referred to as the “pastors’ pastor,” Olford, 83, is founder of Olford Ministries International, Memphis, Tenn.
   
Delivering a two-part address, the British evangelical preacher focused the first part of his message on the importance of preaching God’s Word. The second session dealt with allowing the Holy Spirit to breathe life into the pastors’ sermons.
   
Olford used 2 Timothy as his text. He said three demands were spelled out by Paul that all pastors should heed. “You must preach with a dynamic commitment. Never has this been more relevant than at this moment. People must hear the words of conviction,” he declared.
   
Olford said the second demand is for the Word to be preached with a prophetic discernment. “Do not hesitate to do this,” he advised. “Stay away from shallowness in your sermons. Preach healthy gospel,” he said, using the analogy of food and the importance of ‘feeding’ a healthy message to the congregation. “We are what we eat,” he reminded them.
   
“Preach with a specific assignment and fulfill your ministry,” Olford said. Olford told his audience that the third demand is to “fulfill your mission.”
   
“Nothing presses on my heart more than getting man back to the Word,” he said as he shook his finger in the air for emphasis. Olford shared that he received a call from his mother shortly before he was to preach to a large crowd in an English city in 1962. She called to notify him that his father had died. “Shortly before he died he commissioned my mother to, ‘tell the lad to preach the Word.’ I’m 83 years old and I’m still preaching the Word,” he concluded.