The close to 1,500 people attending the 2001 Alabama Baptist State Evangelism Conference heard a word from several featured speakers including Southern Baptist Convention President James Merritt. And the speakers heard back from an enthusiastic crowd as they often responded with clapping and words of affirmation.
Along with the slate of preachers on the Jan. 29–30 program at the Church at Brook Hills, a variety of music also filled the gap between speakers (see story, page 4).
Sammy Gilbreath, director of evangelism for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, said, “We hit a homerun.”
One of the conference’s speakes, James Merritt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Snellville Baptist Church near Atlanta, used the example of a “perfect storm” to illustrate his sermon.
Merritt began by giving statistics of Grace, a vicious hurricane known as the “perfect storm” because of 10-story high waves and winds up to 120 miles an hour.
“2000 years ago the first perfect storm occurred in the sea of Galilee,” he said, describing the story in the fourth chapter of Mark when Jesus and his apostles encountered a raging storm they experienced on the sea.
Merritt’s first sermon point was, “remember the promises of Jesus.”
He explained that Jesus told His disciples to get into the boat and cross to the other side. “At that moment there wasn’t a chance that they wouldn’t make it. If they had not made it, then Jesus would have been a liar.”
His second sermon point was “rest in the presence of Jesus.”
“Mark mentions that there were other small boats on the sea that day and the only difference between those boats and their boat was the presence of Jesus,” Merritt said.
“Jesus knew something they didn’t know and He saw something they couldn’t see,” he said. “When He took them onto the boat He knew the storm was coming. This meant that He led them into the storm.”
Merritt pointed out that Jesus slept while the disciples were panicked. “Jesus remembered He was right where God wanted Him,” Merritt explained. “The disciples forgot that God was beside them. There was no need for them to fear when God was beside them. Safety is not the absence of problems — it is the presence of Jesus.”
Merritt’s third sermon point was to “remember to rely on the presence of Jesus.”
He said Jesus did not guarantee smooth sailing, but a safe landing. Merritt said the story is a lesson in faith.
“We all have to face a problem with fear or with faith,” he said. “Fear looks at the storm — faith looks at the sea. Are you looking at the wind or the One who controls the wind?
“You may not need this message today but you will need it tomorrow,” he said. “You either are in a storm, have just gotten out of one or are heading into one.”
While Merritt illustrated his points with a storm, Voddie Baucham used an earthquake to depict his sermon.
Baucham, associate teaching pastor at Sagemont Baptist Church in Houston, shared how he grew up in California and was used to earthquakes. He equated earthquakes with the world today.
Baucham said the earthquakes he experienced as a youth were the result of small slippages that became large slippages.
“I say that we have some San Andreas faults in the spiritual life,” he said, referring to California’s earthquake fault line.
Baucham cited politicians who are held unaccountable for their conduct, arguing their behavior has nothing to do with the positions they hold.
“That has been the theme that we’ve heard for years,” he said.
“I just want you to see that the San Andreas fault line that has become an earthquake in our culture,” Baucham said. “The small shifts have become an incredible eruption and now things are beginning to shake and people are saying, ‘What happened?’”
Baucham said what has happened were small slippages that began with issues like religious relevance.
He said the fault line is the belief there are no absolute truths.
“We are to be tolerant of one another and ‘realize that all religions, basically, contain the same truth’ and we just need to dig a little deeper until they uncover the ‘commonalities’ that they share,” he said. “It just sounds good, until you think about it a little more closely.”
Baucham also spoke during the conference’s closing session, expressing his belief that many pastors think corporate worship is merely something to warm people up to hear them preach.
But he asserted pastors are missing something when they adopt that attitude.
“And that is that there is a biblical theology of worship,” Baucham said. “The Bible is not silent on the issue; the Bible speaks volumes about worship and I say to you that nowhere is it seen as filler until somebody gets up and talks.”
Baucham said worship will always be fresh when congregations worship God corporately. But he emphasized worship should not avoid making people feel uneasy.
“Lost people should not feel comfortable during worship,” he said.
Likewise, he believes worship should also speak to those who are already saved.
“Authentic worship ought to bring us to that place where we say, ‘Lord, I know there’s something more you want me to do,’” Baucham said.
Fred Luter could have answered that question when he said, “There is an answer and it is that people need the Lord.”
Speaking during the conference’s opening session, Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, addressed reaching everyone for Christ as he preached about “Saving the Lost at Any Cost.”
“Whatever it takes, you’ve got to bring the lost to Jesus Christ,” Luter said.
He said there are several ways to accomplish that goal. The first is that people have to know Christians really care. The second is that churches have to adapt.
He said churches must do whatever it takes to reach their communities through efforts such as praise teams, alternative services and drama.
Christians must also be bold in sharing what God has done in their lives, he said.
Luter also spoke Monday night, focusing on the importance of building a solid church foundation. He used the nursery rhyme of the three little pigs to illustrate the importance of building a strong church.
The pastor said “there is a big bad wolf named Satan who is trying to blow down churches and ministries in Alabama and he is using every trick in the trade to do this.”
Three things must happen for a church to stand strong against the tricks of the devil, he said: Jesus must be the foundation of the church, the church must be victorious in spiritual warfare and the church must have the right keys to open the right doors.
Jerry Passmore, director of evangelism for the Florida Baptist Convention, stressed reaching the world for Christ through children’s evangelism.
Passmore said it is easier to win a child to Christ. “The older people get, the less receptive they are to the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said.
Children who learn the consequences of sin early, he said, will have longer lives in which they can spend serving the Lord.
But for those who do not follow the path to righteousness early, Christians need to be prepared to share the gospel, said Hershael York, associate dean of the school of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
York emphasized the importance of being prepared to do God’s work by being willing to suffer reproach and remembering we are to make God happy by sharing the gospel.
Speaking a second time, Passmore addressed sharing the gospel with everyone in Alabama.
“It is every Christian’s job to be a soul winner. Most Christians do not realize that,” he said. “It is your responsibility that when talking to anyone about the Lord to give them a clear presentation of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
“That is what you have to do. When you do this the Holy Spirit will take over and do the job. When we understand that we have to be obedient to this then God will honor our efforts,” he said. Passmore said that people are afraid of rejection and this keeps them from wanting to witness to others.
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