Archive for May, 2015
What’s On My Heart About Our Upcoming Southern Baptist Convention
For eleven months, I have had one of the greatest privileges ever given to me by the Lord. Serving as President of the Southern Baptist Convention is one of the most humbling and overwhelming experiences in life and leadership.
With each day, while my burden deepens, my hope exceedingly rises. What an incredible moment God has given to each of us to live at this time in human history. In light of that, I want to share a few things on my heart about our upcoming Southern Baptist Convention.
1. Coming together.
Yes, coming together is on my heart. I pray we will come together in Columbus, Ohio, on June 16-17.
I pray we will come together in unity. While our uniqueness and various perspectives express themselves at times, we do need to resolve: We will come together, stay together, and leave together as followers of our Lord in our Southern Baptist family.
I pray we will come together in Columbus with great expectation. This expectation does not need to be in men or programs, but in the Lord Himself. He is doing some mighty things among us and I pray when we are together, He will do some mighty things in us. Come expecting God to meet with us powerfully and send us out extraordinarily.
2. Loving one another.
Loving one another is on my heart. As a people who love the Bible so much, we also need to love one another. I have attended at least thirty-one of our last thirty-five national Southern Baptist Conventions. At times, loving one another did not always seem to exist.
Now in the day of endless blogs, articles, emails, and interviews, the tendency is to criticize more than love and to create suspicion more than trust.
We need to fall in love with Jesus again. When we do, we will love one another.
Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35) Jesus said it is love that sets us apart from others. May this be said about us.
3. Celebrating together.
God is doing some wonderful things through our churches in the work we do together as Southern Baptists. We need to celebrate together what the Lord is doing.
Even in this critical time in our nation, more than ever, we need the joy of the Lord to be our strength. While sin is abounding in our nation, grace abounds even more. Yes, we need to celebrate together the great grace of our Lord.
Our sessions will be filled with some defining moments. Yet, God alone will create these moments we will never forget. These are moments that deserve our highest celebration together, offered to our Lord Jesus Christ.
I love and appreciate you. Pray for Columbus.
Yours for the Great Commission,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Senior Pastor, Cross Church
President, Southern Baptist Convention
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Dr. Ronnie Floyd is currently serving as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest Protestant denomination with more than 15.7 million members in over 46,000 churches nationwide.
To request an interview with Dr. Ronnie Floyd
contact Gayla Oldham at (479) 751-4523 or email gaylao@crosschurch.com.
Visit our website at http://ronniefloyd.com
Follow Dr. Floyd on Twitter and Instagram @ronniefloyd
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
This Week at Cross Church | New Series Kick-Off, New Goal for Each of Us, a New Challenge for All of Us
As we are on the brink of entering the summer season, it is a season of new things. Let me explain.
New Series Kick-Off
This past Sunday, we kicked off a new series at Cross Church. We are proclaiming a new series called, WE BELIEVE, What We Believe and Why We Believe It. In fact, if you missed the first message, you can catch up here.
Invite others to hear and grow through this series. Over 13 weeks, we are proclaiming this series unashamedly and clearly. Join us weekly.
New Goal for Each of Us
This Sunday, we kick off our new Summer Program of Giving. The financial goal for our church is $5.6 million over sixteen weeks from this Sunday through Labor Day Sunday.
A new goal for each of us is this one thing: Weekly, honor the Lord with at least the first tenth of all God has given us financially. Whatever our income is, we all have the same goal. It is NOT established by me, but by the Bible itself.
We can reach this goal personally and as a church collectively. It all begins this Sunday with you and with me. Let’s do it for God’s glory.
New Challenge for All of Us
The new challenge for all of us is to engage fully in some way with ministry this summer. The following is a list of mission trips, camps, and major opportunities for engagement in our church this summer.
- May 28 – June 11: New York City Mission Journey
- June 6 – June 13: Dominican Republic Mission Journey
- June 7 – June 10: Camp Dallas for 6th-7th grades
- June 8 – June 11: Kidz Camp at JBU for 2nd-5th grades
- June 10 – June 17: Columbus, Ohio Mission Journey
- June 21 – June 26: Beach Camp in Destin, FL for 8th-12th grades
- June 28: Summer Freedom Celebration and Fireworks at the Crosses
- July 6 – July 9: VBX – Back to the Basics
- July 12 – July 18: Annapolis, Maryland Mission Journey
- July 12 – July 19: Haiti Mission Journey
- July 19 – July 30: Malawi, Africa Mission Journey
- July 30 – August 4: Mexico City, Mexico Mission Journey
- August 2 – August 14: Malawi, Africa Mission Journey
- August 9: Cross Church at the AMP
- August 23: Fall Kick-Off Sunday
- August 23: Northwest Arkansas Women’s Conference
Find a way to engage and do what you can to ensure others are engaged as well.
I’ll see you on Sunday.
Your Pastor,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.