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You Make the Call - Episode 3

You make the call … on singing about alcohol …

A Christian has the opportunity to earn some extra income by playing guitar for a local “cover” band. The band plays at restaurants, music venues, and private parties.

The band plays covers of dozens of hit songs from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s … even a country tune or two. But, by far, one of the most popular, most requested, songs at every event is the Jimmy Buffett classic, “Margaritaville.”

What should this believer do?

Cross-Cultural Church Planting Training

I’m forced to write this post several days in advance because (as you are reading this) I am currently outside the United States. I am leading my church’s third team of the year to the Pachitea Province in Peru. We are meeting up with our student summer missionary who is already in Panao, the capital of the district. He just called me a few moments ago to inform me that the internet set-up is largely limited. The internet “cafe” that we used before has recently closed its doors. So don’t count on me being able to respond or interact for several more days.

Anyhow … our mission is pretty simple. The other five members of our team (my wife, another adult from our church, and three college students) will focus upon ministries to children, door-to-door evangelism, friendship evangelism, and “building bridges” by all possible means.

My primary responsibility will be training church planters. I will be using a resource from the IMB’s South American Resources site to train indigenous Christians in starting house churches. The goal of our church, as a Church Planting Strategist Church through the IMB, is to help facilitate an indigenous Church Planting Movement (CPM) among the Pachitea Quechua people of Peru. (Interestingly, our people group was one of the sight chosen for this year’s prayer emphasis. If you get a set of the prayer cards, check out our card!)

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Quotable - Stephen Neill

“In the days of William Carey, a year would ordinarily elapse between the posting of an important letter and the receipt of the answer. Naturally the missionary enjoyed almost complete freedom of action; he was compelled by force of circumstances to make his own decisions, right or wrong, in the light of the situation as he saw it.

“As communications improved and became more speedy, at every turn the missionary had to refer matters to his home board or committee. The man on the spot lost in importance. What he lost was gained by a distant body of men, the majority of whom had never visited the lands concerning the destinies of which they had to make so many decisions.”

Stephen Neill in A History of Christian Missions. 2nd Ed.  (Penguin Books: 1986), p. 380.

Saturday Video - Me Church

Is Congregational Polity a Baptist Distinctive?

One of the speakers at the 2008 Pastors Conference in Indy stated that his church had not had a business meeting in two years. When someone asked him about it, he asked “Is the church still here? Are the lights still on? Do we still have baptisms?” This megachurch pastor seemed proud that his church did not exercise congregational polity.

In section VI of BFM2K, it states:
“A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel; observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth. Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” (emphasis mine)

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A Contract With Southern Baptists - Part 2

Dave Samples, a Southern Baptist pastor in Colorado, continues his seven-part series entitled “A Contract With Southern Baptists.” His first installment stimulated some healthy conversation, especially regarding his use of the phrase, “doctrinal humility.” It was a great post.

Now on to part two of Dave’s “contract.” Interact and enjoy.

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Baptists Must Be . . .

Based in Humility - A necessary foundation - 2 Chronicles 7:14; Psalm 51:16-17; Matthew 18:4, 23:12; Philippians 2:1-8; James 4:6,10; 1 Peter 5:1-6

Authorized by Scripture - a necessary standard - 2 Timothy 2:15, 3:16-17; Psalm 119; Hebrews 4:12; James 1:21-25

It’s one thing to proclaim a high view of Scripture–it’s quite another to live a high view of Scripture.

The Battle for the Bible has been won and it’s time that we begin to live out the Bible’s principles. Set aside for the moment those passages that we might have interpretive disagreements over. Let’s focus on practicing those passages that we can all agree upon.

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When Trouble Comes

But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you. - Isaiah 43:1-2

It was our privilege as a church a few weeks ago to have as our guest the President of New Orleans Seminary, Chuck Kelley, and his wife Rhonda. One of the nuggets he left with us is the above set of verses.

If you have not heard his testimony concerning the aftermath of Katrina, then by all means you need to go hear it. Katrina did not leave the Seminary unscathed - every faculty member lost everything - most students who lived on ground level lost everything. And yet the stories about how God intervened and worked through His many servants inspired and encouraged my flock.

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Avoiding Conflict - Conflicted Avoidance

Just so you know, I am something of a softie. I don’t like conflict, and my relational cry in the last couple of years has been “can’t we all just get along?”

I wasn’t always this way. Quite the contrary (which is probably why I am this way now). I used to be a real firebrand, full of controversy and opinion and ready to engage on any topic I considered important. In fact, after hearing from my state convention exec that some people did not particularly like me, and asking him why, I heard him answer: “Roger, you have a reputation of being a guy who does exactly what God tells him to do no matter what anyone else thinks! I chose to take that as a compliment (though it was more likely a caution.) He said I needed to be a team player; I asked if that meant compromising what God had called me to do.

So much for avoiding conflict.

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The Danger of Baptist Isolationism on the Mission Field

For the past couple of years, one of the main issues that has driven the “Baptist blogosphere” has been the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) IMB guidelines on baptism and “private prayer language.” As most who read this will already be aware, I have taken a public stand opposing both guidelines. I still believe it is important that the guidelines be reversed, and encourage anyone who has not yet done so to sign the Time to Change document (read an important update here).

However, for me, the guidelines, in and of themselves, are not the main issue. They are, rather, symptomatic and symbolic of an underlying issue that I think is of much greater import for us as Southern Baptists as we set our sights for the future on a Great Commission Resurgence. That issue is the danger of Baptist isolationism on the mission field.

Around 10 years ago when “New Directions” at the IMB (now called “Strategic Directions for the 21st Century”) was launched, a number of missiological principles were systematically communicated to leadership and field workers by means of various conferences, training events, and in-house documents. One of the main ideas was that, if we are going to complete the task of reaching all the people groups of the world with the gospel, it is going to take something bigger than our personal ministry efforts alone. It is also going to take something bigger than the combined resources of the IMB and the SBC. It is a God-sized task. And the accomplishment of a God-sized task, in addition to the sovereign, wonder-working power of God, implies the combined efforts of all of the Body of Christ, whether back home in the United States, on the “mission field” itself, or around the world. The Lausanne Movement has captured well the idea behind this sentiment with the watch-phrase “The Whole Church taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World.”

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Quotable - Ed Stetzer

So many I spoke with desire to reach out to churches of different ministry paradigms. That is good news. Now, my only hope is that it is not too late.

Actually, that is not right. It is too late for many. We have preached out a whole generation of contemporary church pastors and they won’t return. However, there is hope to connect with some who are still open and willing …  And the scores of men planting culturally relevant churches (contemporary, urban, emerging, etc.) and many more seeking to revitalize plateaued churches give me hope for a future of biblically sound and missiologically diverse SBC congregations in North America. We will always be a convention of primarily traditional churches, and I am so thankful for them, but I am encouraged that there may be room at the table for other biblically faithful expressions of church and ministry.

Ed Stetzer, analyzing the events of the 2008 Southern Baptist Convention.