One myth about evangelism is that they say people won’t come to an evangelism conference anymore,” said Sammy Gilbreath, director of the office of evangelism for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM). “Thank you, Alabama Baptists, for proving that myth wrong.”
More than 1,150 state Baptists turned out for the two-day Alabama Baptist State Evangelism Conference Jan. 23–24 at Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile. Speakers sang sermons, acted out sermons and prodded those present to reach “more than ever before” for Christ in 2006.
Traditionally Mobile and Huntsville have been lower-attendance conference locations because of the inconvenience the drive may pose to Baptists at the other end of the state, Gilbreath said. But this year’s conference shaped up to be what he said might be the strongest in his 10 years of hosting the annual event.
“It was wonderful — the people showed up and God showed up,” Gilbreath said. “It’s been a great two days.”
Baptist leaders, pastors and laypeople from across the state made new commitments to share their faith, celebrated with 15 new believers through baptism and committed to yearlong ministry prayer partners.
“More Than Ever Before was our theme for this year’s conference, and we do need more than ever before — more churches, more Cooperative Program giving, more evangelism,” Gilbreath said.
Closing out the Tuesday-night session, Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church, Pensacola, Fla., said churches definitely need more soul winners whose eyes are fixed on Christ.
“I’m so tired of hearing about only 5 percent of our people soul-winning,” he said. “Faith is not faith until it’s volition. We believe we’re going to heaven, but we don’t believe Christ will take us across the street.”
According to Traylor, in order to reach the culture around us, we must:
• Be absolutely submissive, as Christ was. “We must come to the place where we die to our personal agenda and appetite,” he said.
• Renounce our total ability. “Jesus said He could do nothing in His own initiative,” Traylor said. “If Jesus said that, oh my soul, who are we to think we can touch our culture? We can’t touch America again unless we have an invasion from elsewhere.”
• Be men and women of faith. “Until you’ve stepped out, you’ve not believed. We give Peter a hard time for sinking, but hey — when are you going to get out of the boat?”
Faith and obedience are inseparably intertwined, said Robert Smith, professor of Christian preaching at Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham.
“If you want to be an evangelistic church, start preaching and acting like you are one now,” he said. “The will of God will never lead us where the grace of God will not keep us.”
Abraham didn’t know there was a Hebrews 11 when in Genesis 22, he took Isaac to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him to the Lord, Smith said. “Abraham had to trust the God of the promise.”
Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga., said this trust in Christ makes people bold and able to share their faith, as they are empowered by the Holy Spirit.
“You are not bold when you have job security or because you are a pastor. You are bold when you believe you really belong to God,” said Hunt, who closed out the Monday-night session. “When you’re drunk, you’re bold and you say all sorts of things. But when you’re bold in Christ, you say what the Holy Spirit wants you to say without fear.”
Preaching from Acts 13, Hunt said Paul and Barnabas were chastised by some unbelieving Jews for preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. The Jews’ jealousy and discomfort, he said, was because the Gentiles were a different people, because the message was a different one from what they had heard before and because Paul and Barnabas were teaching that the Messiah accepted everyone on an equal basis.
“Thank God for the inclusiveness of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Hunt said. “Oftentimes the gospel alienates those under the same roof, but don’t ever feel intimidated when a lost man feels condemned under the gospel, for until he feels condemned he cannot turn to Christ.”
Darrell Robinson, an evangelist from Kennesaw, Ga., said as witnesses, Alabama Baptists should not let the culture of America intimidate them and determine what they do or don’t do for Christ.
“We don’t go because they’ve called for us; we go because He’s sent us. Contrary to what multitudes think, they really do want to hear,” Robinson said.
The Acts 1:8 plan is very simple, he said — reach Jerusalem, then Judea and then Samaria.
“There are many Southern Baptists who would be great witnesses in South America or over in Africa, but they won’t lift a finger to win people to Christ at work or in their neighborhood,” Robinson said.
People cannot be neutral about Jesus, he added, offering steps to win people to Christ:
• Identify your Jerusalem. Decide how far you will go to claim it for Christ.
• Saturate that area with the message of Christ. “Sow the field with the seed of the gospel — you’ll never meet a person for whom Christ didn’t die,” Robinson said.
Biblically those in the Mobile area are responsible for the salvation of every one in their neighborhood and Mobile County, he added.
Thomas Wright, director of missions for Mobile Baptist Association, welcomed those in attendance and encouraged them to evangelize in their own part of the state as well as lend a hand in winning a Mobile County still recovering from several rounds of hurricane damage.
“We are recognizing that He is coming soon and we have the answer our street, nation, neighborhood requires,” he said. “We need to get the word out.”
Gilbreath said state Baptists made leaps and bounds in preparing to spread the word during the evangelism-conference sessions.
“The preaching was almost surgical. Every speaker has taken God’s Word — sharper than a two-edged sword — and used it not as a weapon but a means to encourage and challenge for spiritual depth,” he said.
Hundreds also gained strategies for outreach and discipleship from the Great Commission Ministries (GCM) Track that ran breakout sessions simultaneously with the morning and afternoon evangelism sessions.
The crowd split nearly 50–50 between the preaching and breakout sessions, Gilbreath said, adding that many commented to him that this year’s new GCM track was useful and met ministry needs from assimilation to biblical ways to respond to “The Da Vinci Code.”
Richard Brent, librarian and faculty adviser for the Fellowship of Christian Students (FCS) at J.U. Blacksher High School in Uriah, brought 10 FCS juniors and seniors to the conference to help them learn about evangelism.
“I thought this would be good for my leaders because we’re the Christian group in the school,” Brent said. “Evangelism is all about going out and talking to people about the Lord, and this will help them (the students) with that.”
On the weekend prior to the conference, four Crossover-like block-party events took place in locations scattered across the Mobile area — a first for the conference.
“Five hundred people attended the block parties, and 30 made professions of faith,” said Teman Knight, SBOM evangelism associate. “We felt like it was a very positive first year for that effort.”
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