SBC Day 2

Yesterday was interesting at the convention.  The highlight was the motion on the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force.  Hopefully this will produce some good thoughts for our convention to look at next year.  We certainly need ways to streamline our missions effort.  One tough thing to hear was the Lottie Moon Offering, that supports International Missions, missed the goal by almost $30 million!  If things don’t change quickly the IMB will be pulling 700 people off the field and only 500 of the 2000 in preparation to go, will be able to go!  I can remember in years past the call to pray for God to send more laborers into the harvest around the world.  God has answered that prayer by calling more to go.  Now, the funds aren’t there to send them!

It was encouraging to hear of churches taking a “Christmas in August” Missions Offering in August.  It was also encouraging to see the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Texas give a check for $100,000.  God is still working!

It was interesting hearing some of the motions from the floor.  Any messenger can make a motion from the floor.  If it receives a “second”, the Committee on the Order of Business looks at it and determines what Board it should go to, if it should come to the convention floor, or if it is “out of order.”  As someone said, “apparently you can say the craziest thing, and someone will second it.”  We had motions ranging from studying the claim that the world will end in 2011 and that our churches are run by Satan (same motion), to a committee studying the impact of the 1611 KJV in preparation of the 400th Anniversary.  There were people who wanted to ban the sale of books by certain authors, investigate seminary presidents for inviting certain chapel speakers, and for Lifeway to only purchase things made in the USA when it comes to VBS materials!  You’ve gotta love the freedom to make such motions!

All in all, it was good to see us end the day with the focus on sharing the Gospel around the world.  That is what we are called to do.  That is why this convention formed in the first place.

SBC

As you can tell from my Twitter feed, I am in Louisville, KY at the Southern Baptist Convention.  The actual Convention starts tomorrow, but today was the Pastor’s Conference.  It’s always good to hear some good preaching.  When I started preaching each Sunday morning, I never realized how much I would miss hearing sermons!  There have been some great messages today.  Very timely in my life.  I heard Ed Stetzer, Francis Chan, Fred Luter, Alvin Reid, and David Platt.  They were all great!  The thing that seems to resonate in my heart most tonight as I reflect on the day is this: the priority of sharing the Gospel.

Often we hear sermons that admonish us to do more soul winning.  That’s not what is on my heart.  I mean, yes we need to share the gospel more, but what I sensed today was the reality that sharing the Gospel IS what we are to be about.  We are to understand the Gospel, live the Gospel, and share the Gospel.  It is that simple.  The Southern Baptist Convention began as a way for like-minded churches to partner to share the gospel and plant churches.  So many of our 44,000 churches have moved away from a Gospel focus.  We focus on ourselves, our buildings, our needs, our desires, our preferences, etc.  God has called us to take the message of Jesus to the nations.  As David Platt said tonight, “God will accomplish His work.  He doesn’t need the Southern Baptist Convention in order to do His work.  If we retreat from our Mission, He will simply use someone else, and we will be miserable in the process.”

The night ended by me running into my Pastor.  Marvin Suitt will always be my pastor.  I rode with his family back to my hotel.  We stopped at a Convenience store for them to pick up some snacks and it was great to see my pastor go right up to a homeless man and begin to tell him about Jesus.  What a great example!  Lord, help me to be more about the Gospel than anything.  Lord help me to be Gospel-minded in all that I do.

plans unplanned

Everything was as usual when I saw Matthea and the kids board an airplane for Orlando on Saturday May 22nd.  The plan was for her and the kids to spend the next 10 days with her family in Florida, then I would drive down on Monday June 1 and we’d stay there until Monday June 8th, when we would all drive back to Durham.  Seemed like a good plan to us.  They would have plenty of time with family in Florida, I would be able to have some quiet time at the house, it would be good for everyone.  On my end, things were going well.  I managed to see 2 movies at the theater in 2 days.  I spent a day at the Lake with some folks from church.  I successfully wakeboarded (apparently it is tougher than it looks).  Things took a turn Tuesday evening, the 25th.

I was getting into may car at church when my phone rang.  My mother-in-law say, “Jon, everyone is ok, no one is hurt…now here is Matthea.”  That’s a helpful, but scary way to start the conversation.  Matthea proceeded to tell me that her parents house was struck by lightning.  She was ironing a dress and was knocked across the room.  The light fixture in the back bedroom exploded and there was a lot of smoke pouring into the house.  They gathered up the kids and called 911 on their way out the door.  Matthea told me this and said there were now about 6 firetrucks at the house.  Well, thankfully no one was injured.  Also it seems there were no other calls for the firemen, since they never even had to turn on their hoses.  The only damage was to some of the main electrical lines and some outlets.  Within a few hours I had found someone to watch the dog and I was on my way down Interstate 95 to bring them back home…since there was no electricity.

Within 48 hours of my departure, we were all safe and sound back in North Carolina.  It was an interesting trip.  Carter and Katherine and alternated vomitting during the trip home.  Needless to say we were all glad to be at home.  2 days later, Matthea’s dad had repaired everything and they had power now in their home.  So we had a decision to make.  What to do for vacation?  We had already made the 1000 mile round trip journey to Florida and back.  We were tired and exhausted and in need of some rest and family time.  Sunday evening, the 31st, we decided to spend a few night in Myrtle Beach.

Monday we rested, cleaned, and packed.  Tuesday morning we headed out for the beach.  We found a good deal on a place to stay for a few days.  The kids were having a blast, everything was great.  Then we heard terrible news from back home.  A dear man in our church was suddenly killed in an accident.  We have only been in Durham for 4 months, but we have come to love so many of the people here already.  In fact, we had lunch at this man’s home just 4 days earlier!  We debated on coming back that night, but we decided to come back on Thursday morning.  Our hearts ached for this family and their loss.  Our hearts ached for our church family and the loss of a dear church member.

Some have said that our vacation was interrupted.  Well, it may seem that way.  The truth is that ministry is not my job.  We wanted to come back and be with our friends who were grieving, we were grieving with them.  Ministry is our life.  Ministry is living life together.  We’ll have our time of rest when the Lord sees fit for that.

This past Sunday I preached from Romans 8.  I talked about how God knows all things and nothing is a surprise to Him.  I have realized in the past 2 weeks that I should never plan for something without thinking that He may have other plans.  I don’t think the Christian Life is ever boring.  Now, there are boring Christians, but that’s another thing…Serving Christ and being open to Him is always an adventure.  When I was in Ethiopia last Fall, our team leader, BeckyLynn (who blogs here), would always say, “you just have to flow.”

Thanks to many of you who have prayed for us these past few weeks.  Thanks for following me on Twitter and keeping up with us.

a new book

I just walked out to get the mail and I received my Advance Review Copy of The Jesus Paradigm by David Alan Black.  I am looking forward to getting into it today.  I will post a review shortly.  Also, I have been out of the blogging world (except for my Twiter feed) for the past few weeks.  I’ll be posting about the past 2 weeks soon as well!