"It’s always time for evangelism,” said Sammy Gilbreath, director of evangelism for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
Launching the Feb. 2–3 Alabama Baptist State Evangelism Conference off with a story of how he helped lead a young man to Christ earlier that day, Gilbreath said, “God will put people in your path.”
During the two-day event, Alabama Baptists had opportunity to attend two rallies (see pages 4–5) and participate in three tracks.
About 700 people attended the traditional track, while more than 150 people could be found in the contemporary track and about 60 people in the women’s track. While some people stuck strictly to one track, many people bounced between all three.
In the traditional track, Herbert Brown, pastor of Southside Baptist Church, Greenville, preached on The Big Game from 1 Chronicles 12:8–15.
“The real true big game is the game you and I are in every day of our lives — the game of life.”
In the true game there is the one who plans the game — Jesus Christ — and those who play the game — Christians, Brown said.
Brown noted four things needed by the ones on the team to accomplish “the greatest victory of all — seeing men and women come to life in Jesus Christ.”
They are to be separated, strong, serious and satisfied.
Randall Jones, South Carolina Baptist Convention president, said, “Everything we are about should be to … win the world to Jesus.”
Preaching from Revelation 19, Jones said the exclamations “Hallelujah!” and “Amen!” should be at home in every church service.
Bob Pitman, pastor of Kirby Woods Baptist Church, Memphis, Tenn., used the story of Jesus anointing a sinful woman in Luke 7:36–50 to encourage those attending the conference to share the gospel.
Paige Patterson, president of Southeastern Seminary, Wake Forest, N.C., said his text, Romans 1:18–32, “is not politically correct” and “it is offensive to most of the world,” dealing with the sinfulness of man, including homosexuality. But he added, “Unless we recover the why of evangelism … we will never be motivated to share the gospel with our neighbor.
“The ultimate form of idolatry is when we make human beings our god as homosexuals do and focus on the creation instead of the Creator.”
Patterson said homosexuality is not the worst sin. “Murder is certainly worse.” But he said homosexuality does represent “the ultimate in human confusion. They have not only confused eternal issues, they have also confused biological issues.”
But Patterson noted the Bible also offers hope: “We all stand guilty before a God of wrath, but He is also merciful and loving.”
He pointed out that Romans 3:26 says God is both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. “God has already judged sin in the person of His Son. He has paid the price already.”
Also preaching in the traditional track was Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas, and president of the Southern Baptist Convention and Frederick Haynes, pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas.
Haynes, who also preached during the closing rally Feb. 3 (see story, page 5), developed his Monday afternoon sermon, “Don’t be upset, you are part of a setup,” from Ephesians 3:1, 13. “Everyone of us sometimes wonder if God knows what He is doing,” Haynes said. “Every now and then there are some questions we dare to ask God.
“But don’t be upset, you and I are part of a major setup,” Haynes said. “God is up to something. What God is up to, I promise you, is a lot greater than what you are going to.”
Those attending the contemporary worship track learned that evangelism in the 21st century calls for building relationships.
Speakers Will McRaney, Ike Reighard and Rick Ousley challenged pastors, church leaders and lay people to focus on lost people as individuals rather than numbers to add to the church roll.
McRaney, associate professor of evangelism at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, said he has found that lost people today, who he calls post-modernists, do what makes sense to them. So the church’s task is to make the gospel make sense. Christians can do this is by living their faith and forming relationships with people, he said.
Currently churches are using evangelism strategies that target a mass number of people. These include using media, such as the Internet or television, projection strategies, which includes programs like FAITH, CWT, and other ministries outside the church walls, and attraction strategies such as special programs, state-of-the-art facilities, and services designed to make attendees feel accepted and comfortable.
But McRaney said the questions that lost people today ask as they search for God are questions that cannot be answered by these blanket approaches.
“People today are much farther away from church, much farther away from God and much farther away from you, and we cannot put on a good enough show to get them to come [to church] based on that alone,” McRaney said.
He suggested using an interview or survey approach as a way to open the lines of communication.
Reighard, who serves as founding pastor of North Star Baptist Church in Kennesaw, Ga., shared how North Star reaches out its community.
“When we began, we decided we would be a ‘Why not?’ church,” he said. “Why not be the church that reaches a city, not plants a church?”
Using Habakkuk 2:1–3, Reighard encouraged churches to first look for God’s vision for them, once found, inscribe it on the hearts of the church members through vision and purpose statements and then set about fulfilling it according to God’s will.
North Star is the church the community turns to either for help in times of trouble, volunteers for community events or for partnerships with businesses, he said.
In this way, the church shows the community a welcoming, compassionate church that wants to help them and make a difference in their lives.
“Why not be known for what we’re for?” Reighard asked. “How did we [the church] become known for what we’re against?”
He added that the ultimate goal of the church is to reach the people around it, not exclusively help the members who are already in it.
Ousley, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, said the key to Christians’ making a difference is to make sure the difference is made in their own hearts.
“Who you serve has an influence on how you serve,” Ousley said. “Our mission and our goal has to point to ‘Love God, love people.’”
When churches serve God, they become passion-driven by their love for God, purpose-defined by serving others and people-directed by going and seeking out those who need God. When Christians use their gifts to reach people, they should do so with a servant’s heart, out of love rather than personal gain.
In the women’s track, Mamie McCollough of Dallas, Texas, used humor to convince her audience of women how valuable they are and inspire them to affirm the worth of others.
Also speaking were: Linda Preskitt, who heads FAITH for Vaughn Forest Baptist Church of Montgomery; Jane Derrick, Bible teacher and workshop leader at The Cove, Billy Graham Training Center in Asheville, N.C.; and Brenda See, wife of Supreme Court Justice Harold See. (TAB staff)
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