If Alabama Baptists are going to make this next decade a decade of difference and if GPS (God’s Plan for Sharing) is going to be a strategy and not just a slogan, we need to adjust our focus.”
This was the challenge that Danny Wood, pastor of Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, gave to messengers during the Wednesday morning session of the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting.
Preaching from John 4:31–38, Wood said Jesus got the disciples mobilized by changing their focus, pointing out to them the fields of people that were white unto harvest.
Believers oftentimes get bogged down in mundane logistics rather than focusing on relationships, Wood said.
“We need to see people rather than projects,” he explained. “Jesus’ concern was seeking people. How many times are we more concerned that we dot the ‘Is’ and cross the ‘Ts’ … then (later) the question comes: Were any lives changed?”
Believers should concentrate on the possibilities and not worry about the problems, Wood said. Oftentimes that shift in thought will happen naturally if Alabama Baptists will just go participate in missions, he added.
“You get on that plane and go to Africa … and come back to Alabama, and you walk back into your church, which is nicer than anything you’ve seen over there, and you look at things differently,” Wood said.
It gives you a whole new perspective, he explained, and you start to take a second look at people, viewing each person as someone who can be reached with and changed by the gospel.
And then you start to sow.
“If you sow the seed, you may not be the one who harvests,” Wood said.
He recounted the story of a missions trip he went on with a team from his church to Venezuela. On one flight, he got to chatting with the woman seated beside him and found out she had attended Idlewild Baptist Church in Florida and was impressed with the church’s emphasis on building relationships.
“Jesus wants to have a relationship with you — did you know that?” Wood asked her.
She said no. Over the course of their flight, he shared the gospel with her and she came to know the Lord.
“That’s the way the Kingdom works — one sows and another reaps.”
This point in Scripture shows that there’s a continual exchange, Wood said. “That says that we are on mission every day. Every day you are sowing, watering or harvesting.”
So it’s important to seize opportunities, he said. “Folks — go, pray, share. If we’re going to make a difference, if we’re going to see this place change, we have got to go.”
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