As Ed Litton talked to church planters at the Plant Alabama gathering Nov. 14, he spoke about another church planter — Paul.
“He was a catalyst, a mobilizer, a strategist,” said Ed Litton, pastor of Redemption Church in Saraland and president of the Southern Baptist Convention, explaining that the adversity Paul faced served to move the gospel forward.
Preaching from Philippians 1, he challenged church planters to keep Jesus at the center as Paul urged. When Jesus is the center, “Three surprising things take place,” Ed Litton said — problems become platforms, opposition becomes opportunity and death becomes defeated.
When Paul was imprisoned, his suffering became a platform for the gospel and emboldened others to share. The same goes for church planters, Ed Litton said.
“Everything you go through in life is for Christ,” he said. “Your mountaintop experiences are for Christ. Your deep valleys are for Christ.”
Opposition from others is also an occasion to demonstrate the gospel, he said. If others start “preaching out of envy and rivalry” as Paul mentioned, the gospel still goes out, and it’s also an opportunity to pray for them and love them.
“We’re on a mission together,” he said. “It’s not about you getting this and me getting that — it’s about honoring the reality that God has brought us together. We just need to preach Jesus and love each other.”
Death is also ultimately defeated as church planters stay faithful through suffering, he said. “I don’t know what sort of ash heap you’re sitting on right now but I’m here to tell you He alone will make your ashes into a crown of beauty. That’s the God we serve.”
‘Loving people and growing churches’
About 70 attended the planter network gathering, held at House of Hope and Restoration Church in Huntsville. Brian Harper, lead church planting strategist for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, said the purpose of the network and the gathering is “loving people and growing churches.”
During the event, Litton’s wife, Kathy — director of planter spouse development for the North American Mission Board’s Send Network — also encouraged planters’ wives.
She shared about the sacred influence wives have over their church planter spouse, noting that “influence is kind of hard to see.”
Whether disastrous or glorious, “Our influence really comes out in life-on-life situations,” she said.
During the last couple of years with COVID-19 and all the adjustments pastors and church staffs have had to make, people have experienced some very real emotions, Kathy Litton said. But a close walk with Jesus helps keep those emotions in check.
“We don’t need to let our feelings guide our life,” she said. “True contentment is when we continue on faithfully and joyfully from the heart independent of the circumstance by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
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