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Great Commission focus of many conference messages
11/14/2010
Kevin Smith, president of the 2010 Kentucky Baptist Pastors' Conference. Click here to download this photo.
Click here to view a slideshow of images from the conference.
LEXINGTON – The Kentucky Baptist Pastors’ Conference was held Nov. 15 at Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington with several speakers referencing Kentucky and Southern Baptists’ need to recommit themselves to sharing the Gospel with the world.
Speakers included Floyd Paris, Adam Dooley and Frank Page in the afternoon session. Danny Akin, Johnny Hunt and Alistair Begg spoke in the evening session.
In the opening sermon Floyd Paris, pastor of Unity Baptist Church in Ashland, urged Kentucky Baptist pastors to focus on preaching the strong and simple message of the Gospel to their congregations and communities.
"We spend far too much time and far too many resources on things that don’t matter," Paris said, explaining that churches and leaders allow themselves to be distracted by music preferences, carpet color and other trivial matters.
To be distracted from preaching the Gospel—the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—is a catastrophic failing, he added.
"The greatest sin a preacher can commit is to have a person come to his church spiritually hungry and leave without being fed," Paris said. "Do not squander your opportunity by preaching what does not matter."
Referencing the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians, Adam Dooley, pastor of Dauphin Way Baptist Church in Mobile, Ala., encouraged pastors to "reach Christ and Him crucified."
"We don’t need gimmicks; we have the Bible," said Dooley, former pastor of Red House Baptist Church in Richmond. "And if you just preach the Bible, then you get around to preaching Christ crucified."
Dooley said that preaching Christ crucified requires pastors to talk about death in their pulpits and consider their own mortality.
"I want us to think about the end of life’s highway in the context of Christian ministry, because one day we will stand before God, and God’s judgment of our lives, as believers, is not merely reserved for those that we lead, but God will require of us to give account for our ministries."
Frank Page, the newly-elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, noted that one of the saddest phrases recorded in Scripture is found in 1 Samuel 3:1: "The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions."
"We should be repenting of our sins today because the word of the Lord is rare," said Page, adding that God’s call is best perceived by hearts that are prepared to hear. God calls Christians to be saved, to offer His loving care, and to serve.
"Is your heart prepared to hear?" Page asked. "If so, revival would already have swept this land."
Using Romans 15:14-24 as his text, Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., talked about the four marks of Great Commission people.
People devoted to sharing Christ with the world are "focused on the nations," said Akin, who served on the national Great Commission Resurgence Task Force.
He said believers should focus less on the fact that spiritually lost people are everywhere and instead ask themselves "is there a gospel witness everywhere."
Akin said an estimated "3.4 billion, almost half the world, has either never heard the gospel or has very limited access to it."
Great Commission people also are Christ centered. By "truly knowing God, we will think differently, act differently …maybe even die differently," he said.
Such believers must be "gospel-saturated in all that we do," Akin said, noting that in today’s churches, "some of our people are really confused about what is the gospel."
Johnny Hunt, immediate past president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., preached from the book of James which "warns us against living apart from God."
Hunt said too many individuals and churches have an attitude of "we’re in charge" and "we know exactly what’s going to happen," not realizing that such a mindset is sinful.
"Practical atheism is planning without God being taken into account," Hunt explained.
In his epistle, James instructs that the "opposite of presumption is recognizing the sovereignty of God governing our lives," Hunt said.
In Southern Baptist life today, "It’s not so much what we’re doing wrong, it’s just what we’re not doing," Hunt said. "Have you ever thought what you might miss if you ignore the will of God?"
Alistair Begg, pastor of Parkside Church near Cleveland, Ohio, who hosts the daily radio program, "Truth For Life," preached from Acts 4 which records the imprisonment of John and Peter after the healing of crippled man in Jerusalem.
Begg noted that when speaking before church leaders, Peter "is not dealing in some abstract proposition. His evangelistic preaching is essentially a logical deduction from certain historical events. He is in this position on this day because Jesus is alive."
That clarity of doctrine and purpose is "imperative if we are going to reach the coming generation with the gospel," Begg said. Peter’s unapologetic statement "stands in marked contrast to a lot of the stuff that is burbling out of contemporary pulpits in America."
The native Scotsman and Edinburgh pastor said he sometimes feels like "an old man watching the circus pass through town" when observing some contemporary worship services.
"I am committed to being a hip pastor," he said, explaining that in his context "hip" meant serving with "humility, integrity and purity."
Begg posed and then answered the question: "If American Christianity is not to collapse and dissolve in a morass of religious relativism, what is required?"
Believers must confess their departure from the clear message of the gospel, he said. Conviction to doctrinal truth, and the acceptance of persecution from the world also is required. Finally, the church must demonstrate compassion to others.
"People know they’re messed up," Begg said. "It is the work of the Spirit of God to convict of sin, not you. But when those people are confronted by the depth of that, do they find mercy? Do they find compassion? Do they find guidance (from the church)?"
Kevin Smith, pastor of Watson Memorial Baptist Church in Louisville, was president of this year’s conference. Fair Haven Quartet from Laurel County, the praise team of Porter Memorial Baptist Church in Lexington, and the choir from Consolidated Baptist Church in Lexington, led Kentucky Baptist pastors and guests in worship.
Pastors elected Jeff Noffsinger, pastor of Dripping Springs Baptist Church in Olmstead, president-elect of the conference. Noffsinger will preside over the 2012 session. Next year’s president is Chad Fugitt, pastor of First Baptist Church of Monticello.
The Kentucky Baptist Convention is a cooperative missions and ministry organization made up of nearly 2.400 autonomous Baptist churches in Kentucky. A variety of state and worldwide ministries are coordinated through its administrative offices in Louisville, including: missions work, disaster relief, ministry training and support, church development, evangelism and more. For more, find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
