Being missions-minded isn’t enough to win Alabama for Christ, Traylor tells state Baptists

So your church is missions-minded. That’s great — but it isn’t enough, according to Alabama-native Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church, Pensacola, Fla.
   
Traylor told the crowd at the Nov. 14 evening session of the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting that it’s time for churches to move past being simply missions-minded and become missional.
   
“It’s not enough to pray for missionaries. It’s not,” he said. “Praying for missionaries is great, but if you’re just missions-minded and praying for someone else but you’re supposed to go yourself, you’re not being missional. It’s not a great thing to send people if God’s told you to go.”
   
Traylor pointed to the testimonies of several bikers who had shared just before his message how members of Cottage Hill Baptist Church, Mobile, had gone outside the walls of the church to reach out to them and bring them to Christ.
   
“They weren’t coming to Cottage Hill (on their own) — they just weren’t coming,” he said. “Somebody had to get intentional like a laser beam to go reach them for Christ. It’s more than your pocketbook and your prayers. You’ve got to go. You’ve got to find a biker and tell him about the Lord.”
   
But Traylor said Intentional Evangelism is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach. “It’s not just for bikers — there are lawyers in Birmingham who need it, too. Every member of your church ought to be a missionary.”
   
Preaching from Isaiah 42:5–9, he noted three things necessary for a Christian or church to nail down to become missional.
   
1. We will be missional when the Lordship of Jesus is settled.
    “In this passage, God says, ‘I will not give My glory to another.’ He’s the boss, we’re the servants — He gives the commands and we do as we are told,” Traylor said.
    When God told Jonah to go to the Ninevites with intentionality, Jonah said no. “He did not like the Ninevites and didn’t want them to get right with God,” Traylor said. “We have to be willing to go wherever God says.”
   
2. We will be missional when the commission of Jesus is taken seriously.
    “The problem at Olive Baptist Church is that many people don’t really believe that half of our town is dying and going to hell,” he said. “One out of every two people are lost in Alabama. We as Baptists are not missional because we don’t really believe that.”
   
3. We will be missional when we understand the power of Jesus is sufficient.
    The same God who created the universe holds our hand, Traylor said. “So why are we scared? Why are we fearful? Our God is sufficient. I’m going to tell you something — He can save anybody … to the uttermost.”
   
Traylor then challenged churches to take action where the rubber meets the road.
   
“If you become missional, you will become connected to your sister churches in a fashion of cooperative fellowship,” he said.
    Churches can also take on projects such as:
    • food or clothing distribution ministries,
    • adopting a local school,
    • doing disaster relief-type work locally during the off-season and
    • targeting a specific group, such as single mothers.
    “You’ve got to have some tact to connect — that’s the way Jesus did it,” Traylor said. “If His heart is in our chest, it will say ‘missional … missional … missional’ when it beats. 
   
“Does your heart beat for souls? Does the heart of the Son beat in you?”