I am sitting in San Francisco Bread Company in Jonesboro with my bride and drinking coffee and being on the internet wearing blue jeans. I feel like some cool dude, college age, twenty something guy, Oh well. We are visiting my mother and brothers for Thanksgiving. Its great to see my family. With my schedule, it is difficult to get over on the east part of the state so this only happens usually twice a year. Caleb’s getting in some duck hunting. I may bow hunt with one of my brothers one afternoon, but mainly just hanging out. Jonathan, Benjamin and Aaron are just hanging out. Jonathan is hoping to see some old buddies from Wynne if they can hook up.
First Baptist Rogers will deliver up to 2400 meals tomorrow morning for Thanksgiving. That’s right “deliver” not just serve and the number is “2400.” As of yesterday at noon, we had over 1500 called in or walk in requests for meals. Our church is the greatest when it comes to service and doing stuff together. When Caleb was playing football over Thanksgiving (while at Shiloh), since we had the football game, we got to serve and deliver meals. It was a great time of sharing the gospel and loving on people who were in need. Thanksgiving and Christmas bring out the best in believers of our Lord. We are able to focus on others and the message of the “season” which is really the message for our lives.
A grateful heart conquers our attitudes which in turn gives interpretation to our circumstances. I will be preaching on that this Sunday and just thinking about it buoys my attitude considering all that I have to be grateful for. Nothing is perfect and can be criticized whether it is our family, our job, our church, our health, our finances, etc. I have often confessed that I can be the champion of criticism. I can point out what is wrong better than anyone else. Sometimes I have done that as a desire to make things better and to improve; but Thanksgiving helps get me beyond the nitty details that bog me down and allow me to see the big picture. As believers, we need to look at the big picture of heaven, future grace, future deliverance, inheritance, reward, His kingdom culminated, the nations worshiping, grace extended perfectly, joy unspeakable, completion in every area. . .Hallelujah! Have a great Thanksgiving. Go to church to celebrate with other believers. There is nothing like it. Until next time. . ..
I inadvertently did not post this brief post on Nov. 13. I hope to become more consistent in the blogging now that the ABSC presidential term has been completed. I regret that I did not get this out because it really thrilled my heart to hear and see of the continuation and fruit of the investment in this uupg. Eight baptized last year, eighty this year, maybe 800 next year? In the midst of a financial recession and slow receipts; it is great to see the real measure of the kingdom cannot be thwarted. Here is the post that was omitted in a nutshell with the story told via the Olingers blog. Thanks Paul and Shana for allowing God to touch and shape your hearts and thus touch so many others.
This has been an exciting week for FBC Rogers seeing new believers reached among an adopted UUPG in Southeast Asia. To see some great pictures, go to http://www.olingeradventures.blogspot.com/
Ronnie is doing a good job preaching the Gospel. People are being saved and responding to God’s invitation. We have two more nights. I suspect our staff will collapse when it is over. I am still learning some things about us and our community and our schools. More on that later. An obvious is that we have seen a major societal shift and we are even experiencing it in the great urban, metropolitan areas of Arkansas (ok that’s a joke). As we seek to engage this culture, it becomes more obvious of the post Christian mindset of many people. The frame work from which people think, presuppose, and the point of their beginning in anything has certainly shifted. Those attitudes and behaviors that were without question unacceptable by society as a whole have moved major steps toward the mainstream thinking. I do think that our major press services are clearly more liberal than the mainstream, but I do think that mainstream America has moved to the left also. These shifts create greater challenges but also some great opportunities. Pray for our crusade and the follow up that will come next.
I have engaged in some very intriguing conversations about baptism the past week or two and may choose to share those thoughts on the blog in the future. Baptism is a powerful testimony and visible expression of the life changing Gospel.
Let me give a shout out to my oldest son who has set up this new blog format and now has his middle aged dad on twitter. I had my first lesson today. I am amazed at all the people who do this twitter deal. Facebook has been a great challenge to me also. For those of you who are on it regularly know by now that I do facebook about once a month at the most. Maybe that will change. I know a lot of folks waste a lot of time on facebook (in my opinion). What if we spent as much time in prayer. Man I don’t have time to do all the other stuff that I am supposed to do. Pray that I will be more disciplined and have some more time to be more faithful with the blog and do the twitter deal. I can’t imagine anyone caring about what I have going on throughout the day, maybe because I don’t care if someone is drinking a coke somewhere. . .Ha! Pray for me.
We have less than two days until our Harvest Crusade begins on Sunday morning. We believe that the Bible clearly teaches in Ephesians 4:11ff that God has given the church the gift of the evangelist for the purpose of building up His church which includes the reaching of the lost. In my Rediscover Church series, we talked about the important quality of “witness” in the life of the authentic church. In that message, I mentioned that there are conventional methods and missional methods. Conventional methods were characterized under the heading of confrontational meaning they confronted people who a person may not know well or at all with the Gospel. Also included in the conventional method was that of event evangelism. Our harvest crusade would be considered a conventional method falling under the idea of event evangelism. This approach is biblical and as a matter of fact was a front line method of church evangelism, growth, and expansion in the book of Acts. The two occasions in the first four chapters of preaching followed by thousands being saved and baptized fall into this method. Also, Acts 8 account of the Ethiopian eunuch coming to Christ through the combination of Scripture and a willing witness by the name of Philip. So for those who dismiss “conventional methods” dismiss the lead method of the first century church. I do believe that some of our slow down in penetrating the pagan pool can be attributed to pastors (like me) in particular no longer sharing the gospel with everyone they can. Then we stand back and criticize a method that we have long abandoned, so our assessment in some measure is more theory than tried and tested then failed.
On the other hand, I did give most of my attention in the witness message to missional methods which include “authentic relationship” and it taking longer for people to make decisions than it once did. We have done surveys with those who have visited our church and for whatever reason had not joined in a year’s time. We asked them the scary question, “Why have you not joined our church?” Those of us who are the public people fear that we are major reason that people have not yet joined our church. What we discovered is that an overwhelming majority of those surveyed still had not joined any church and there were very, very few remarks about why they had not joined our church. The major reason of the few were our size. Basically people just take longer to make those decisions for a variety of reasons. Some of those may be found in Rainer’s Essential Church. With that in mind, relational evangelism is very important and was emphasized in the message. (A side bar: it really does not surprise me, but many times people pick up one part of a message and in this message, some thought I did not mention the relationship aspect or down played it, when in reality that was the emphasis of the sermon) It is important to have relationships with people who are not yet believers so when opportunities such as event evangelism take place, we can encourage their participation and be their friend and guide through the process. Friendship evangelism works for sure, but my observation through almost 20 years as the lead preaching pastor is that those who reach their friends with the gospel also practice conventional and confrontational evangelism. Those who champion friendship evangelism through the criticism and abandonment of conventional, confrontational, event, and proclamation evangelism have rarely led their friends to Christ, to obedience to Christ in baptism and meaningful church membership. My observation is certainly not authoritative or infallible. While very limited to my 20 years as a pastor and another 10 years as regular witness for Christ and the locations where I have lived, the evidence of what I just mentioned has been so overwhelming and not even close that I have little doubt of its validity.
Knowing what we know, we must pray to the Lord of the harvest, reach out to those in the harvest (our friends and family for sure, but also our casual acquaintances and divine appointments), compel them to come to Christ through our love, our passion, our kindness, our acts of service, and yes also through our words of invitation and the Gospel.
Let’s believe God wants to see many come to know His Son this next week. Let’s do our part in partnership in the Gospel. I hope your are ready. We are going to have a great week. Our motive is right for His glory, our message is life changing and mighty to save. Until next time. . . .Wes
I am back again. I have been catching up from being off in July and getting ready for an exciting yet busy Fall. First I want to respond to the text message questions that I was unable to answer during our worship services on August 23. So let’s get to those first.
Question: People bring up church being full of hypocrites during witnessing. How do we explain everyone sins…that doesn’t make all hypocrites?
I agree that is often brought up. I always like to clearly define what a hypocrite really is. A hypocrite is someone who pretends to be something that they really aren’t. Someone who does not pretend to have it all together, but rather is struggling in whatever area of life is not a hypocrite. They are simply struggling, seeking, learning in their spiritual journey. In reality, that’s all of us. After clearly establishing what a hypocrite really is and is not; then I acknowledge that there are some hypocrites in the church, but probably not as many as many people suggest. I like to use the illustration that if you are wanting to have an example of a football player to teach your child to play the game the best way it can be played, you do not pick the guy who never comes to practice, never plays, does not know the plays. No, you pick the the best player on the team as an example of a football player. But when it comes to church, people often pick the worst example and completely ignore the best examples. I like to say, I know some wonderful people who love God and serve people in a great way and I begin to tell them about those people. All of this is still preliminary to actually sharing the Gospel. But I do think you can make a great case for authentic believers loving God and loving others through Christ.
Question: The gospel has been so watered down that it is frustrating that so many people have a completely wrong understanding of what it really is to be saved.
That is really not a question but a statement and I agree with it. My suggestion is to take our frustration and turn it into positive energy in making known the authentic gospel in word and deed.
Question: How do you really reach people who don’t believe? How do you overcome bitterness and hate they often feel and overcome their fears without losing yourself in the process ?
Basically, that is the nature of evangelism. Those who do not believe are lost and need Christ. We must depend on the Holy Spirit to convict and convince them and in essence transform them. The beginning of belief (faith) is sharing the gospel. ”Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Christ). The key to overcoming any barrier is speaking the truth of the Gospel. God’s Word is powerful. Typically, those who have bitterness need to know that God loves them and that love was demonstrated on the cross by the sacrificial death of Christ. By sensitively communicating that we are all enemies of Christ and that He chose to forgive us to the point of His own death, instead of condemning us. That simple but radical message has the power transform people.
Question: I have a friend/co-worker who has made it clear that she does not want to be a part of a fellowship of believers because of some past hurt that came from people in her former church. I sense that it is because she truly is lost. What is the best way to reach out to her without pushing her further away?
Let me first of all say, that if you really do love someone and are sensitive to their needs, then most of the time they know that. It may be harder to push them farther away than you think. Actually, when a person is lost, they are as far away as they can be. Certainly do not argue or talk with people about Christ or the church if they make it clear that they do not want you talking to them. At that point, you certainly should be praying for them. Past hurt in a church situations keeps a lot of folks away from the church today. I usually just say, I am sorry that you have been hurt or had a bad experience in a church and then explain that the church is made up of people just like you who have problems and difficulties. I always speak highly of the church as the bride of Christ and that Christ loves the church. I always speak of the great things the church has done in our community and around the world and how my life has personally been blessed. I use the illustration of the family about how great it is to have family but also sometimes we disagree and hurt each other. That does not make it right or easy; but we overcome many disappointments in many areas of life to keep on doing what we know is right and we know that God wants us to be a part of a local church. We have all been hurt by a friend or a family member but that does not keep us from having friends or family.
Question:How do you witness to friends who knew you before you became a believer without hypocrisy?
This is a great opportunity, because you can share with them the change and the difference Christ has made. The contrast with how you were before and how you are now will stand as a great object lesson for the transforming power of the gospel. There is no hypocrisy, that is unless, you have not changed.
Question: Why do some people think that being baptized is the only way God will love you?
That is more common than what many of us like to think. The influence of Catholic infant baptism has contributed greatly to this idea. But all who practice baptism without proper baptism instruction to the candidate can also lead to this assumption. Clear teaching from the pulpit and in sharing the gospel is really the only way to correct this misconception. The follow up question should be how do we reach people who think that baptism gets them to heaven? This is technically called “regenerational baptism.” While I certainly do not wish to offend friends from those persuasions, this practice and doctrinal belief waters down the doctrine of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Many consider this concept of crossing the line of what we would call a “works salvation.” In our attempts to distance ourselves from this teaching, some of us have minimized baptism to fault. Baptism in the New Testament has always been closely associated with salvation. It is important and closely associated to salvation, but it does not save. I do think that baptism discussion is appropriate in the gospel presentation to clarify what it is not and yet to also speak of its importance to authentic followers of Christ.
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