The 2003 Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference kicked off the day-long preaching marathon Nov. 17 with 300 to 400 people at the first session. As the crowds increased throughout the day at First Baptist Church, North Mobile, in Saraland, so did the intensity of the worship and sermons.
New Orleans’ Fred Luter Jr. and Georgia’s Johnny Hunt captured the heaviest response with nearly 1,400 people filing into the 1,500-seat auditorium at First, North Mobile, for the evening service.
The final service also spotlighted children being baptized by their fathers, a common occurrence at First, North Mobile.
And when Starla Harbin, a popular singer out of First Baptist Church, Snellville, Ga. — combined with the First, North Mobile, choir and praise and worship team, under the direction of Jason Breland — took the floor for the evening session few in attendance could sit still.
Ed Litton, pastor of First, North Mobile, had the unique privilege of hosting the conference as well as serving as president. “I love my church. They understand the need for and authority of a pastor,” he explained. “They were excited and are willing to serve if it is going to impact the Kingdom.”
The lineup of eight speakers indicated a concern for encouraging pastors as they wrapped their sermons around the conference’s theme, “Highly Esteemed.”
Mark Foley, president of the University of Mobile, bore a knapsack of bricks to the podium to symbolize the expectations pastors carry. The load he illustrated can lead to weariness in ministry and life, he said.
“There are the expectations in the traditions we inherit in our work, of our peers, of wanting to serve God and of the constituencies we serve,” he said, kneeling and removing bricks one by one from the knapsack. “The expectation of a spiritualized pride, of being husbands and fathers to take care of our families, of our wives to be there when they need us.
“The expectations just keep on coming so we put these on our backs and we carry them wherever we go,” he said.
“The weight is never a weight that God intended, but it’s a weight that is real. Every now and then we stop and invite someone to put another brick in the sack,” he said.
The weight of the load sometimes outweighs a pastor’s ability, hope, faith and even dependence on God, Foley explained.
Pastors carrying loads should hear three questions from Jesus, Foley said: “What are you doing here?” “Do you love me more than these things?” and “I am — do you believe?”
Challenging pastors not to let the load defeat them, Foley said, “Get back to your jobs – your assignments are not yet complete.”
Gary Enfinger, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Thomasville, reminded pastors that discouragement affects everyone, even ministry leaders.
“The call to ministry does not insulate or isolate from trouble,” he said, citing several biblical examples. Elijah had a spiritual mountaintop experience on Mount Carmel when he called down fire from heaven.
“But just a chapter later you read about the discouraged prophet sitting under a juniper tree so discouraged that he is contemplating taking his life.”
Discouragement hit Samson, Noah, David and Simon Peter, Enfinger noted.
He said when the children of Israel were discouraged at Marah (Ex. 15), their better days were only five miles away in Elim. Marah was a place of bitter, possibly poisonous, water. Elim was the place rich with good water.
“Are you giving up?” Enfinger asked. “How far away is your Elim?”
Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, humored Alabama Baptist pastors as he preached on a familiar biblical truth — “your work is not in vain.”
After a nearly half-hour sermon introduction where Patterson laced biblical truths with his Texan humor, he said his main point comes from 1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”
James Merritt, senior pastor of Cross Pointe, the Church at Gwinnett Center in Duluth, Ga., preached from Nehemiah 4. Focused on “finishing the drill,” Merritt said the best way for a Christian to achieve inner peace is to always finish what he or she starts. How a person finishes is what really counts, he said.
Merritt pointed out that handling criticism and opposition tests one’s leadership.
A Christian has to either react or respond to criticism, Merritt said. Nehemiah chose to respond, which is the best choice, Merritt noted.
Merritt offered three ways to handle criticism:
- Be prayerful. “When Nehemiah faced his criticism, he took it to God and gave Him praise for it,” Merritt said. “The real danger is that it can take a person’s focus off God and onto the critic.”
- Be prepared. In Nehemiah 4:9, Nehemiah was practical in guarding the city, Merritt said. He posted watch all over, even grouping families together to protect themselves. “During times of trouble, especially in today’s world, the family of God needs to stick together,” he said.
- Be persistent. Pastors are never defeated until they give up, he said.
Along with encouraging pastors in their journey, several speakers also presented challenges.
Luter, senior pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans, La., launched a “cry for revival” that reverberated throughout the sanctuary of First, North Mobile. His passionate level gripped the crowd for more than an hour. Luter contrasted Psalm 23 and Psalm 143 — David was so intimate with God in one and so distant in the other.
He liken some of David’s expression of his deep anguish as “God, I’m feeling so bad I’d like to cuss somebody out, but I’m writing it all down instead,” Luter said. “Oh God, my spirit is failing,” Luter said, continuing David’s lament.
Pointing out David’s four phases with God in Psalm 143, Luter noted these are the same four things Baptists need for revival.
- Prayer
- Predicament
- Plea
- Proposition
“We all need another chance,” he shouted.
Luter stressed that David realized his dryness and his brokenness and he earnestly cried out to God — “not the preacher, not the bishop, not the elder, but to God.”
Preaching from verses in Philippians and John, Mac Brunson hammered the fact that Jesus Christ is God and that He cared more for mankind than Himself.
“Somewhere in eternity past Jesus was willing not to grasp at the position that He held in order to come down, down, down to save you,” said Brunson, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas. “What are we holding onto that we think we can’t give up? What are you reaching out for?” he asked.
“If He was willing and He would not clutch that position, why are you spending your life grabbing for something?” Brunson asked.
Hunt, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga., preached from 1 Thessalonians 1:5 about “Confidence in Our Message.”
As he developed six points on preaching the straightforward gospel, Hunt conjured up a variety of emotions from the near capacity crowd. Laughter rang out frequently while shouts of amen and other affirmations surfaced sporadically. Ending his sermon with an invitation, more than 50 Alabama Baptists spent time at the altar praying following Hunt’s challenge to point people to the gospel.
To be passionate about the gospel, Hunt said one must understand the gospel’s connection. Hunt said this means one must have possession of the gospel, give priority to the gospel and understand the personality of the gospel, he explained. “The gospel came to you.”
“I believe the only hope for America is the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Hunt said.
Voddie Baucham of Voddie Baucham Ministries in Spring, Texas, agreed. He used the book of Jude to explain why “Christianity is not allowed in today’s society.”
The first reason, the idea of naturalistic materialism, stresses that nature is a closed system. “This theory explains why both creation and evolution are not taught in schools. Some can’t even allow the belief of creation to be taught.”
The second reason, religious relativism, is the belief that all religions have the same god.
The third reason is a new definition of tolerance. “People have adopted the belief that they are not allowed to disagree with something, but they have to embrace what other people believe, even if it’s not right,” he said.
The fourth reason, philosophical pluralism, refers to the belief that what is true for one society isn’t necessarily true in another.
Baucham encouraged Christians to “agonize greatly and contend earnestly” because salvation is an essential issue. “If we don’t there are those who will come and turn grace into lawlessness and try to redefine the essence of Christianity.
“There is a war being waged,” he said. “We as Christians have to figure out what God says and communicate it to the people.”
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