Archive for the 'Pastors' Category
AWAKE: A CALL TO A RENEWED LIFE | A Six-Week Experience For Every Small Group and Church
Every pastor and staff member is always looking for a study that will help their church come alive and experience a renewed life. I believe we have the very thing.
Leading as President and General Editor
After I was elected President of the Southern Baptist Convention in June 2014, I sensed deeply from God that I needed to focus on the theme: Great Awakening: Clear Agreement, Visible Union, Extraordinary Prayer.
As General Editor of the Bible Studies For Life curriculum series, I appealed to the leadership of LifeWay to offer a study that would undergird the theme for spiritual renewal. They immediately readjusted their plans and we created this six-week study for small groups.
It is called AWAKE: THE CALL TO A RENEWED LIFE. In this study, Christ-followers will be called to return to God, their first love, prayer, God’s Word, unity with other Christians, and the task of fulfilling the Great Commission personally and as a church. This is a call to experience revival and awakening personally and in our churches.
This six-week study can be done at any time, even though thousands of churches will experience it this summer. I do not want you to miss the opportunity. This study can occur during any part of your church year, and is for men, women, and students.
What These Six Weeks Will Look Like
Don’t sleep through your spiritual life. Wake up! Nothing refreshes like a good’s night’s sleep. And who doesn’t enjoy the occasional afternoon nap? But when we are spiritually asleep, it is dangerous. It’s time to wake up! It’s time for our churches to wake up!
Since our greatest need is to experience spiritual renewal from God, this study will help anyone do just that. Please consider taking your people through this study. This is what they will experience each session:
Session 1: Return to God
Session 2: Return to Your First Love
Session 3: Return to Prayer
Session 4: Return to God’s Word
Session 5: Return to Unity
Session 6: Return to the Task
Encourage your staff team and leadership to go through this study this summer or as soon as possible.
Join Me in This Journey and Movement
When people have turned back to God throughout history, He has done extraordinary things and sparked great movements. Wouldn’t you like to see God do so again? Join me on the journey of asking God to bring about the next great movement of renewal and turning the nations back to Him.
As a pastor, you could even teach these topics as your people walk through this journey personally. It could be life-changing for many and influence churches dramatically.
For more information or to learn how to secure this study, please go here.
Yours for the Great Commission,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Senior Pastor, Cross Church
General Editor, Bible Studies for Life
President, Southern Baptist Convention
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
Take 10 Minutes for Marriage This Sunday
Next Tuesday, April 28, the United States Supreme Court will begin hearing oral arguments for and against redefining marriage in America. Marriage between a man and a woman is a God-ordained institution; therefore, the courts in our land do not need to attempt to redefine what God Himself has already defined clearly.
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberties Commission has long championed the sanctity of marriage publicly and privately, as well as with the court. Read more from Dr. Russell Moore here.
Religious Liberty and Marriage
If the United States Supreme Court rules to redefine marriage, the continual attack that is already taking place on religious liberty will be escalated. Businesses, schools, churches, leaders, pastors, and all Bible-believing Christ-followers may begin to be called upon to compromise their religious convictions. This would be a sad day in America.
If we lose the freedom of religion, then all the freedoms we have today will begin to diminish.
Take 10 Minutes for Marriage This Sunday
I want to join with many other Christian leaders across America to call upon our churches to do these three things on Sunday, April 26:
1. Pray for the United States Supreme Court, the attorneys who will present their arguments, and ultimately for the truth to prevail, upholding marriage as we believe it biblically and have practiced it traditionally since the beginning of time. For more details on ways to pray, see Dr. Russell Moore’s article here.
2. Pray for God to sustain each of us and prepare us to live humbly before Him and others regardless of the decision released this summer.
3. Show this video or at least a portion of it to our churches this Sunday before we pray. Dr. Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, gives us a challenging word in the video, and it can help us know how to pray more effectively.
Surely, on this pivotal Sunday, every evangelical church can at least pray for marriage to be upheld in this country.
If it is too late to for your church to allocate a ten-minute section for a portion of this video to be shown and for prayer to occur, at least look at points 1 and 2 above and use them to take time to pray for marriage in our land. Thank you for considering this important and urgent request.
Take 10 Minutes for Marriage This Sunday,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.