Here’s a great quote from Puritan William Gurnall:
Love of the world. Tell some of adding faith to faith, one degree of grace to another, and you shall find they have more mind to join house to house, and lay field to field; their souls are athirst, but not for Christ or heaven: it is earth, earth, they never think they have enough of, till death comes and stops their mouth with a shovelful digged out of their own grave!
Both of my regular readers have likely noticed the link to the IV Man’s Blague as one of the blogs I enjoy reading. NB: Rob is a French teacher, so you pronounce “blague” as “blog.” You’ll get a kick out of his new post, Signs of Summer. As a homeschooling parent, here’s my favorite of the bunch:
Enjoy your weekend and have a blessed Lord’s Day and Father’s Day.
Here are notes from the workshop Dr. Dave Pennington’s workshop, “Organizing the Church for the Great Commission.”
Dr. Dave Pennington, Burge Terrace Baptist Church (Indianapolis, IN)
workshop description: “to challenge pastors to rethink their strategy in reaching their communities. It seeks to provide some fresh ideas for a “bottom up” approach to evangelize effectively your community with the gospel of Jesus Christ!
Dr. Pennington felt great need to return to basics: personal prayer and evangelism.
Paul wrote in Rom 9.1-3 that he had “great heaviness and sorrow in my heart” for lost loved ones.
cf. Rom 10.1—heart’s desire and prayer…that they might be saved.
Dave suggested a paradigm shift: we pastors must rekindle our passion for the lost before it will pass on to our people. Their weekly church visitation night is primarily follow-up. A church doesn’t need huge numbers to accomplish this. Thinks it’s better not to “cold call” the visitors; make appointments instead.
“I apppreciate your visiting the church; do you mind if I stop by and visit for a few minutes; see if you have any questions.”
Since people now tend to be distrustful and private, not to mention skeptical of strangers knocking at their door—a change in approach may be helpful.
Key concepts.
solution: reconnect with our neighbors for the purpose of sharing the gospel.
Nothing will give a burden for reaching unsaved people than being around unsaved people.
We’ve so pulled out of culture that the average Fundamental Baptist doesn’t have much of a relationship with any lost people.
Key concepts: neighborhood canvassing of key and strategic neighborhoods (8-10 of them)—neighborhood mission fields. Literature distribution. Families adopt their neighborhoods as mission fields.
Neighborhood socializing—invite unsaved neighbors to homes for a family cookout, etc.
Because how are we going to reach people we’ve never had any contact with?
We spend a lot of effort to get lost people into the church to hear the gospel; we should do more to get saved people to go to the lost to give them the gospel!
Vision for the Christian home: a place of hospitality
Given to hospitality: Gk., Lover of strangers [filoxenia].
Other suggestions: Brown Bag Bible study (lunchtime Bible study for coworkers); Backyard Bible clubs; etc.
Opening Address: Dr. Charles Phelps
It seemed evident from the outset of this year’s national meeting that the FBFI leadership is keenly aware of the blogging presence of Sharper Iron and other blogs. FBFI president John Vaughn, offering a warm welcome to all, also welcomed bloggers at this year’s meeting, and publicly wished that others who were attending only vicariously could be present. He laid special emphasis upon the FBFI mission to seek personal revival and support one another in the uncompromising proclamation of the gospel. It also became clearer as the initial meeting unfolded that a key purpose of this year’s conference was to tackle the simmering Calvinism issue more directly. With evangelist Will Galkin, one of the two scheduled opening speakers, unable to preach due to needing to be with his ailing father, it fell upon Dr. Chuck Phelps to deliver the opening night’s only message.
Phelps’ opening remarks were based on Philippians 1, in which he affirmed the conference theme, “The Glorious Gospel of Christ.” He stated that “new allegiances are forming making it important to consider again the pertinent facts of the gospel.” He challenged all to consider “if we like Paul were gripped by the glory of the gospel, even analyzing our present circumstances in the light of the gospel.”
Then the introduction became more pointed: Phelps identified what he called “potholes” in the gospel road: “easy-believism,” which he credited to Arminian doctrine and “worldly evangelicalism;” and Lordship salvation, which he viewed was an attempt to balance the former. Demonstrating that the pendulum had swung too far with this attempt, Phelps read a portion from the 2003 edition of John MacArthur’s Hard to Believe, in which MacArthur asserts, “Don’t believe anyone who says it’s easy to become a Christian…salvation is the fruit of actions, not of intentions.” Phelps likened that statement to some that have come out of the Vatican.
Phelps acknowledged the paradox that salvation is simple, yet complex. Then noting the generally-acknowledged rise of “the New Calvinism,” he posed some pointed questions: Are you comfortable with Particular redemption/limited atonement? Or the WCF statement that supports predestination to damnation? Or Reformer Beza’s assertion that the unsaved in hell are there for the glory of God? By contrast to these notions, he recounted the story of how Ford Porter came to write the tract “God’s Simple Plan of Salvation,”—simply a small-town pastor’s attempt to evangelize the 1800 homes in his community—by reading some of the more plaintive exhortations to salvation found therein.
He then directed us to Christ’s “Bread of Life” discourse in John 6, from which the sermon’s points were drawn. He asserted that this was, in fact, the gospel that Jesus preached, identifiable with several basic conclusions:
JESUS TAUGHT THAT…
Liberally sprinkled with illustrations, Phelps sought to get across the point that the salvation presented by Christ was simple, yet rich and multi-layered. He slowed for emphasis at one point by saying, “No offense, but there is no ordo salutis in John 6; but there is ‘believe.’”
With emotion surfacing at times throughout the message, Phelps became “confessional” in his conclusion, admitting to the “barrenness of busy-ness” over the last two years as a Bible college president, with the result that he had led only one soul to Christ over that time. He then invited people to stand who had a testimony of leading someone to Christ over the last week, month, two months, six months, or past year, not counting those who had responded in services. Many stood, while many others remained seated. While this was no doubt uncomfortable for some, we were reminded that this was a small preview of the account we all must give at the Bema of Christ. Many responded in the invitation to devote themselves more passionately to the gospel.
