June 19, 2000

Pastors called to be partners
in the worldwide spiritual harvest
___ORLANDO, Fla.--Southern Baptists must be partners in a global spiritual harvest, speakers at the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors' Conference declared June 11-12.
___Speaker after speaker urged the pastors to sow and reap a spiritual harvest in their personal lives, homes, churches and world.
___That harvest--even of one soul--is not possible apart from the presence of God, stressed

JONATHAN BURTON, son of Bill and Laurie Burton of Bethany Baptist Church in Breckenridge, enjoys an attempt up the North American Mission Board's mountain-climbing tower June 13. The tower was located in the NAMB area of the Southern Baptist Convention's exhibit hall inside Orlando's Orange County Convention Center. (BP photo by Bill Bangham)

Chuck McAlister, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Ark.
___He urged Southern Baptists to guard their affirmation of Jesus Christ as the exclusive means of salvation. "Why are people so upset with our evangelistic initiatives? Because of our insistence that Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved.
___"When we preach the truth of the gospel, we will have to do so in opposition to the crowd," he added. "God never called us to be politically correct. He called us to proclaim the truth."
___That truth must be seen through the eyes of Jesus, added Ken Freeman, an evangelist from San Antonio.
___"When you see what Jesus sees, you will feel what Jesus feels," he said. "I'm convinced we are not looking through the eyes of Jesus.
___"I wish we were as passionate about winning people like we are about the authority of the Bible and worship styles. When we are arguing over the Bible and worship, our world is dying."
___Orlando evangelist Jay Strack stressed the need for Christians to focus on God's vision for their lives. "No idea that you or I could conceive could outshine the personal vision God has for you," he said.
___A biblical vision will change how a Christian sees God, how a Christian sees himself or herself and how a Christian sees others, he noted. "We need a fresh vision of the Holy One of Israel, of ourselves and of other people. How do we see other people?"
___Several speakers emphasized the importance of reaching and serving today's families.
___James Merritt, pastor of First Baptist Church in Snellville, Ga., who last week was elected SBC president, spoke on a father's faithfulness.
___"Every daddy needs to be a hero to his children," Merritt said. "God holds fathers responsible for the destiny of their families."
___Merritt noted that even though Eve sinned first, God went to Adam first because he was the spiritual leader of the home.
___He suggested five lessons God gave to fathers in ancient Israel to raise a holy family--invite children to receive the Lord, inspire children to revere the Lord, influence children to reverence the Lord, instruct children to reflect the Lord and invoke children to walk with the Lord.
___"You cannot teach what you do not live," he said. "You can take your children to church every Sunday, but if you don't live it on Monday, your influence will mean nothing."
___From the beginning, God intended for the home to be the university of life, with fathers as the professors and the Bible as the curriculum, he added.
___"We have people alarmed because they won't let them hang the Ten Commandments on the walls at school, but how many hang them on the walls of their homes?" Merritt asked. "Parents are up in arms because students can't pray in schools, but they don't teach them to pray in the home."
___He concluded that when a nation turns from God, it begins to ask, Who is God? Then it forsakes God and finally asks, Who needs God?
___Evangelist Rodney Gage of Fort Worth spoke on reaching the next generation, which he described as "smooth on the outside but shattered on the inside."
___"I am totally convinced that the secret of reaching the next generation is in the hands of their parents," Gage said. He noted a serious breakdown in communication between children and their parents that results in confusion and frustration.
___Gage suggested parents attempt to provide their children stability, attention, fairness, forgiveness, intimacy and love.
___Ken Whitten, pastor of Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa, Fla., spoke on defending the family. He compared modern America to the "generation that knew not God," described in the Old Testament book of Judges.
___"We have more broken homes, more broken hearts and more broken hopes than any generation in history," he said.
___The family must be nurtured, which is a challenge in a difficult, fast-paced world where it is easy to drift away from God's values, said Charles Lowery, pastor of Hoffmantown Baptist Church in Albuquerque, N.M.
___The key to a good relationship in marriage is to listen, show appreciation, share intimacy

KEN FREEMAN, an evangelist from San Antonio, speaks during the SBC Pastors' Conference in Orlando, Fla. (BP photo)

and value the relationship, he explained. "Tell yourself every day what's really important-- faith, family and friends. Nothing else really matters."
___Christians must exercise personal holiness, observed Jim Henry, pastor of First Baptist Church in Orlando.
___Personal holiness requires Christians to walk closely with God so that they are morally alert and others can see Christ through them, he said. "Our holy God calls for us, a holy people, to engage our society so that they might see the difference between night and day."
___God requires holiness of his followers, he added. "Being a child of God, we must bear the family resemblance."
___Pastors particularly face two major challenges to their personal holiness--materialism and lust, Henry said. He noted a poll showed more than 25 percent of pastors admitted to inappropriate sexual conduct.
___He recalled evangelist Billy Graham's prayer asking God to kill him before he was unfaithful to his wife. When Henry told his wife he had prayed the same thing, he reported, "She said, 'Don't worry, I'll kill you first.'"
___Jerry Spencer, pastor of Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Dothan, Ala., was elected president of the Pastors' Conference. He was nominated by former Southern Baptist Convention President Adrian Rogers, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in suburban Memphis, Tenn.
___Vice president Darrell Ormon, pastor of First Baptist Church of Stuart, Fla., was nominated by Jerry Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Va., who described Ormon as "one of my preacher boys" who graduated from Falwell's Liberty University.
___David Winfrey, Charlie Warren, Trennis Henderson and Stella Prather contributed to this story
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