Archive for November, 2015
A Letter To Pastors
Dear Pastors,
I am one of you. For 39 years I have served as a pastor of a local church. The last 29 of these years I have served the same church. Even though I began when I was very young, God was and has been faithful to protect me all the way.
In the past few weeks, I have felt compelled to write you this letter. These are words that any local church pastor can identify with in life and ministry. Please consider these words, place them before the Lord, and then apply as needed or as He desires.
First, put Jesus first in your day. Start your day early with God and if early is not your deal, at least start your day with God first. Yes, first things first. If we do not begin our day with Jesus, then we forfeit the privilege to lead His people. Please begin your day with God; otherwise, defeat in life and ministry will become normal for you.
Second, renew your belief in the power of God. He can do anything, anytime, anywhere with anyone. He can do this with you and through your church. Refuse to dissect what He can and cannot do. Receive what He is able to do with you and through you. Begin to teach and preach about the power of God to your church. They need to begin to believe again.
Third, bring prayer back into the worship services of your church. Get beyond the, “Bless me prayers”, into appealing to the God of Heaven to manifest His presence to the people of God. Weekly, call out to God before your people. They need to hear you pray with both confidence and conviction. At times, move your people to pray together in groups around the room. At other times, call them to their knees in humility. Pray for revival to come to the people of God and for the next Great Awakening to occur in America. Prayer always precedes great works of God.
Fourth, prioritize evangelism again into the life of your church. Celebrate the reaching of the lost and the baptizing of new followers of Christ. Discover places in your community where the gospel has never been shared. Resolve to take the gospel into these places. Study the demographics of your city. Strategize how to win your city to Jesus Christ. Then, you will not cease evangelizing.
Fifth, call your people to support God’s work financially. Unashamedly, model and teach God’s people about giving the first ten percent of their entire income to their local church. Call them to give beyond this and challenge them to live life in the lane of generosity. Then, as a church, give to advance the gospel across the world exponentially. Give sacrificially and generously to forward the gospel throughout the entire world by planting gospel churches and supporting missionaries globally.
Sixth, stand upon the Word of God courageously. Our biblical Christian worldview is in constant conflict with the culture. Do not coward down to our culture nor cuddle with it. Stand strongly and courageously upon the Word of God. This will call you to be against some issues, when it does, communicate it in love.
Seventh, value each person in the world today. Stand for the dignity of each person and for the sanctity of life. Reject racism in any form. Renounce abortion in every way. Stand for the dignity and the sanctity of human life from the womb all the way to the tomb.
Eighth, learn from criticism. It will come. Count on it. Determine to outlive it. Refuse to become bitter toward any person being critical of you. Do not let anyone outside of your circle of love.
Ninth, lead cross-generationally. Do not be influential with just your generation; develop relationships with the generation before you and the generation behind you. Otherwise, your leadership will be limited and any potential legacy you may have will become short-lived. Invest in all generations. This is biblical.
Tenth, be humble before other people. When you are humble, God will raise you up. The way up is down. When you humble yourself before God, you can more easily humble yourself before others. God is not attracted to pride, but He is to humility. He lifts up those who are humble before Him.
Thank you Pastor for living for Jesus. Fulfill the calling God has given to you in your life. Please know I am with you in this battle and praying for you daily.
Now is the Time to Lead,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
What Happened to Evangelism in the Southern Baptist Convention
What happened to evangelism in the Southern Baptist Convention? It was our commitment to evangelism in the past that set us apart from all other denominations. The events and experiences churches offered to their community were done with the specific intent of winning others to faith in Christ.
What happened? Where did this go?
Waking Up To Reality
I do realize that all of our 51,094 churches and congregations do not complete and report the Annual Church Profile. However, of the churches who did report, in the church year from October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2014 the number of baptisms was lower than it was in the year of 1948. This is deplorable!
The U.S. population in 1948 was 146 million in comparison to 317 million in 2014. Therefore, with thousands of more Southern Baptist churches with millions of more members, along with having 171 million more Americans to reach today, we are reaching and baptizing less people than we did in 1948.
We need to wake up to reality. We need spiritual revival in the Church and spiritual awakening in America.
I Can Remember When
I can remember when some of my seminary classes were filled with exciting challenges about reaching people for Christ.
I can remember when my seminary evangelism classes equipped me in how to lead an evangelistic church that had a strategy to reach your town or city for Christ.
I can remember some of my seminary classes built within me a deep belief of how God wanted to work in our day, just as He did in and through the revivals and awakenings of the past generations.
I can remember when there was a proven record of evangelism regarding pastors and evangelists who were invited to bring the keynote message in the local association, or speak at an evangelism conference of a state convention, or preach the national pastors’ conference of the Southern Baptist Convention or preach at the Southern Baptist Convention. The only pastors considered led a strong evangelistic church and had a reputation for baptizing great numbers of people for Christ in proportion to their community and their opportunity.
I can remember when nominations for offices of any kind in Southern Baptist life were not even considered if you were not a part of a strongly evangelistic church.
Is it still like this today? I really cannot answer all of these questions, but I can surely answer some of them.
Quite honestly, I am not impressed by how many books a pastor sells, how many twitter followers he may have, at how many conferences he speaks, how great of a preacher he is, or how much his church does around the world if he pastors or is associated with a church that has a lame commitment to evangelizing and baptizing lost people and reaching his own community with the gospel of Christ.
Could It Be
Could it be that we have scrutinized the evangelism of others so much that we have cut the heart of evangelism out of our pastors and churches? Could it be that we so fear what others think about the ways we reach others because we fear being misunderstood, we have ceased talking about evangelism with our pastors and churches? Could it be everything else in our convention is more important than evangelism?
Could it be that we recognize and reward many others things before we ever recognize evangelism through our churches?
I pray not, but could it be?
What Our Southern Baptist Convention Can Do
The 42 state conventions and 12 national entities of our Southern Baptist Convention can hold up high the banner for evangelizing lost people and baptizing new believers. Within their assigned roles, they have the influence to help our churches by elevating evangelism to unprecedented levels.
We need them to elevate evangelism before our churches through conferences, conversations, and strategies they implement.
We need to begin to celebrate, again, pastors and churches that are reaching and baptizing great numbers of people in proportion to their opportunity afforded to them. We need to celebrate them in relationship to the size of their community and what has been entrusted to them by the Lord.
What Our Pastors And Churches Can Do
The real issues of evangelism lie with our pastors and churches. It is on us, not our Southern Baptist structure, regardless of how they could be or should be assisting and helping our churches.
Therefore, pastors and churches, please consider these things to see more people reached for Christ and baptized by your church:
- Through each event or experience you offer as a church, regardless of the audience, strategically use it for evangelism.
- Preach each message and plan each service with the eventual goal of calling people to follow Jesus Christ.
- Offer a public invitation weekly. If not a “walk down front” invitation, use other ways to call people to follow Jesus weekly.
- Highlight baptisms in your worship services weekly.
- Creatively offer ways for people to begin to follow Christ; we did this recently and 74 people came to Christ and are being baptized as a result of a unique Sunday morning emphasis.
- Add outreach events or experiences to your church calendar that are solely committed to reaching people with the gospel.
- Renew your commitment to develop, equip, and empower people to share their faith with lost people regularly.
- Create a specific strategy to reach your community or city with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Let’s not be paralyzed. By no means do I believe I have all the answers, but I do know…
It begins with us. It begins with our churches.
Do something. Do more than you are doing now. Take a risk.
Return to the importance of reaching and baptizing people.
Now is the Time to Lead,
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 51,094 churches and congregations 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.