Pastors and churches must humble themselves and pursue a closer walk with God if they want to experience His peace, joy and purpose, speakers said at the 2015 Southern Baptist Pastors Conference on June 14–15.
Twelve pastors — including five with Alabama ties — preached on the conference theme “He Must Increase” from John the Baptist’s statement in John 3:30.
David Platt, International Mission Board president and former pastor of The Church at Brook Hills, Birmingham, headlined the conference.
Speaking from Revelation 1, Platt said, “John gives us what is quite possibly the most majestic portrait of Jesus ever penned on paper. It’s as if the Holy Spirit was saying to a struggling church in the first century, ‘Look to Christ. Just look to Christ.’ … I’m assuming that some — maybe many — of the pastors and wives in this room are discouraged or disheartened, struggling in some way in your life or in your family or in your church, and I’m convinced the Holy Spirit is saying to us all across this room: ‘Look to Christ. Just look — look to Christ.’
“As long as this Christ is in the middle of His people then nothing, no matter how fierce, can or ever will destroy them,” Platt said. “No matter how great the struggle or how glaring the weakness; no matter how rough the road or how profound the pain; no matter how serious the threat or steep the trial; no matter what this world and all the spiritual forces of evil in it throw at you, know this: Jesus Christ on high has got your back.”
Clint Pressley, pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church, Charlotte, North Carolina, and former pastor of Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile, preached from Ezekiel 37:1–10 and encouraged pastors to not be fearful of desperate situations.
“Don’t be afraid, brothers and sisters, if God calls you into the valley of the dry bones,” Pressley said. “You stand there with the Word of God; you preach the Word of God and beg the Spirit to come give life.
“Don’t be afraid to walk into something that doesn’t make sense to anybody but you and the Lord.”
Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church, Cordova, Tennessee, and former pastor of Gardendale First Baptist Church, said pastors must pray with fervency, faith and forgiveness if their ministry is to follow the model for biblical revival.
“The difference between us and the early Church is that we don’t pray like they prayed,” Gaines said.
Preaching from Mark 11:22–25 when Jesus told His disciples how to move mountains through prayer, Gaines lamented how some movements like Word of Faith have abused this passage with a “name it and claim it” mantra. Instead, Gaines said, pastors should follow the example of men like 16th-century Scottish minister John Knox and risk their lives to pray for revival.
“If we want God to birth a revival, we must labor in fervent prayer,” Gaines said.
Faith and forgiveness
In addition to fervency, Gaines said pastors should learn to pray with faith and forgiveness. Faith, Gaines said, is placing trust and dependency in God and His promises. And prayer will not be effective unless believers first forgive those who have wronged them, he said. Closing with the “Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor,” Gaines encouraged participants to seek out those who have hurt them and forgive them in Jesus’ name.
Pisgah native Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church, Pensacola, Florida, said he believes the Southern Baptist Convention is living in “a day of broken favor and broken union,” similar to the two staffs called “Favor” and “Union” cut by the Old Testament prophet Zechariah (Zech. 11).
“We lose favor when our lives are for sale at any price,” Traylor said. “A people who understand that their sins have been paid in full are not for sale at any price, but I’m fearful some of us as pastors … may sell out.”
Vance Pitman, pastor of Hope Church, Las Vegas, Nevada, and son of Alabama Baptist evangelist Bob Pitman, said Christ’s increase in a minister’s life means that they are called not only to a church, but also to a city. Ministers who gain a heart for the city “develop a passion to multiply the church” and “a passion for multicultural expressions of the gospel,” he said, which in turn connect the pastor with God’s global Kingdom work.
John Meador, pastor of First Baptist Church, Euless, Texas, was elected president of the 2016 Pastors Conference. Willy Rice, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Clearwater, Florida, served as president this year.
(BP, TAB)
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