Mark Clifton, senior director of replanting at the North American Mission Board, said he knows those moments are going to come.
“We all have those times, those seasons, when we question everything,” Clifton said to those at the Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network luncheon held June 15 in conjunction with the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Anaheim.
“One of the strongest things we can do for one another is just encourage each other not to tap out, not to quit, not to give up,” he said.
In the face of unrealized expectations, disappointment or depression, “look to the cross,” Clifton advised. “Don’t look to a denomination. Don’t look to your strength. Don’t look to anything other than the resurrected Christ.”
Willie McLaurin, interim president of the SBC Executive Committee, echoed Clifton’s point of the importance of encouragement, adding that church leaders who want to see growth must get outside the walls of the church and into their zip codes.
‘Move beyond the walls’
Every pastor, “whether he is bivocational, trivocational or quadrovocational … is called and commanded to move beyond the walls of the church,” McLaurin said, urging leaders to serve the community where God has put them regardless of the circumstances.
Outside the walls of the church “there’s a teenage girl who is pregnant and she’s thinking about aborting that baby, he said. [There’s] somebody who is addicted to drugs and thinking about taking their own life, a couple who is struggling and talking about divorce.”
“We are called to take the gospel to the nations and to our neighborhoods,” he said. “If we don’t, we will become keepers of the aquarium rather than fishers of men.”
Joe Wright, BSCLN executive director, called the speakers “the best of the best” for a group that represents a large percentage of Southern Baptist pastors.
The BSCLN does not require membership dues and is an auxiliary of the SBC. In a brief business session, the group affirmed three new board members. Wright noted the organization’s website has many free resources for all leaders.
For more information or resources, visit bscln.net.
For more stories from the 2022 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting, visit thebaptistpaper.org/sbc2022.
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