February 10, 2003
Truett pastors' conference makes urgent appeal
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___WACO--A sense of urgency dominated Truett Theological Seminary's inaugural pastors' conference Feb. 3-5.
___"The Urgency of the Hour" was the theme for the conference, which attracted about 350 pastors from across Texas to the seminary at Baylor University. Over and over, they sang a new hymn penned for the event by music evangelist Dick Baker, "Night Cometh." That is the motto inscribed on the seminary's clock tower.
___Participants heard a series of sermons emphasizing urgency:
___Joel Gregory. Preaching is sounding God's trumpet in the midst of battle, Joel Gregory stressed. He cited the Apostle Paul's analogy: "If the trumpet does not sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?"
___Gregory, for more than two decades known as one of Baptists' premier pulpiteers, walked away from the pastorate of First Baptist Church of Dallas in 1992. For awhile,he sold burial plots; now he is a magazine publisher in Fort Worth.
BAPTIST WORLD ALLIANCE Executive Director Denton Lotz (center) spoke at the pastors' conference and was hosted by Milton Cunningham, special projects coordinator for Baylor alumni services, and Truett Seminary Dean Paul Powell. (Cliff Cheney/Baylor Photo)
___At various times, he saw preaching as exegesis, the interpretation of Scripture; or as an oratorical performance; and even as an "aesthetic art form to carve out a niche in history."
___"But when you have put the trumpet down for awhile, you better understand what it's about when you pick it up," he said.
___"We are preaching to people who are battling for their very existence," he added, lamenting that he cannot go back to apologize to former parishioners who reached out to him through their need, but he did not realize what was happening.
___"You preach into people's battles," he advised. "Most of the people you preach to are barely making it."
___Recalling how he rapidly moved "from a mansion to a one-bedroom apartment, from national TV to obscurity," he reported, "God taught me people are living in a battle."
___Pastors also preach to churches engaged in battle, Gregory noted: "Since the Reformation, never has there been a greater battle for the soul of the church."
___Some church leaders, he said, want to reflect culture in order to build huge churches, while others want to return to an "old-time religion" that never existed.
___The battle of the church is not about worship or marketing strategies or growth programs, he said, "but about the soul of who we are."
___Preaching additionally goes out to a national battle, he said, admitting his thinking has changed.
___Before 9/11, he believed America primarily was a secular society. "Now, I see a thin veneer of secularism overlaying a deep desire for faith."
___In the midst of cataclysm, Americans won't turn to sociology, psychology or TV, he said. "They're going to want to know if there's a word from God. You are going to face a church house full of people wanting to know if you've got a trumpet to blow."
___And pastors preach from their own battles, he said, pointing to pastors whose preaching matured after they faced crises.
___"You find your voice in the middle of your battles," he observed. "Authentic preaching has always had as its center the canonical gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ ... and don't ever try to change it. Don't trade authentic preaching for the kazoo of being contemporary, for the tin whistle of entertainment, for the turkey call of trying to get as many people as you can under one roof."
___Wherever they are called to blow the preaching trumpet, pastors should remain faithful, Gregory urged.
___"Most of you are preachers because you are very good Christians and preached out of your commitment," he said. "God called some of us to preach because he knew that's how we would stay Christians. ... Because I knew I'd have to pick up the trumpet, I went back to the Savior."
___
___"Every day in the office, we hear of Baptist people who are killed" as Christian martyrs. "We must defend religious freedom for Buddhists and Hindus and all people if we want to preserve it for ourselves."
___The task of seeking reconciliation should come naturally to Christians, because the nature of the gospel is reconciliation, he added.
___"The Christ of the cross calls us not to lift the sword but to lift up the cross," Lotz said. He quoted a Chinese leader, who said that if the vertical relationship between people and God is not right, then the horizontal relationship between people groups cannot be right.
___That means Christians who want reconciliation must begin by being alone with God, confessing sin and seeking God's wisdom, he said.
___
___Orozco cited a seemingly contradictory passage from the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus twice said, "Unless you repent, you will all perish as well," but followed with a parable in which a gardener pleads with a landowner to spare a fig tree that does not produce fruit.
___"For Jesus, repentance is more a matter of posture than position," he said. It's a person's posture before God, understanding who he or she is in relationship to God, to other sinners and to individual sin.
___Christians who don't understand the need for continual repentance and don't understand they are dying "one tragic moment at a time" are like the whitewashed tombs described by Jesus, he added. "They look good on the outside, but they're dry bones and dust on the inside."
___Christians in America today often take a hard view of sinners, he claimed. That view demands sinners be cut down for sinning.
___But Jesus' parable of the fig tree illustrates how Jesus continually advocates for more time for sinners to repent, Orozco said. He quoted Presbyterian preaching professor David Buttrick, who said, "God loved Hitler the same way he loves Billy Graham."
___On the surface, Buttrick seems wrong, Orozco conceded, but all people need repentance.
___"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," he said. "And Jesus says, 'Repent, repent, and turn around." The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life for any who repent."
___
___Pastors and church leaders must be "soul experts" who understand the importance of prayer in their own lives and in the life of the church, Wiles said, focusing on the urgency of prayer.
___Prayer makes three differences in a church, he said.
___First, "prayer is the difference between a church that is a living organism and one that is just an organization," he said.
___Second, prayer marks the difference between churches characterized by "pilgrim mentality" feeling a sense of destiny and "settler mentality" merely occupying space.
___Third, prayer is the difference between "a church that's spiritually focused and one that's culturally entertaining."
___"The church of Jesus Christ needs to be careful that it doesn't spend its time catering to tourists," he warned.
___
___"If persons are to come to Christ before God's judgment, it has to be done now," he insisted. "While the world is multiplying, some churches are making additions, and some are making subtractions. We Baptists are good at division. There's no sense of compulsion."
___According to the Apostle Paul, prayer is a necessary ingredient in evangelism, Garland said, lamenting, "If Christians prayed the way people focus on fitness in order to live longer, we'd see results in our churches."
___
___"How many times are we interrupted by someone who needs Jesus, and we say: 'I can't. I've got a church meeting. ... I've got to serve Jesus'?" he asked. "Ministry is a series of interruptions."
___It's also a serious of inconveniences, Reyes reported. Many ministers have shared experiences similar to the call he got one night, when a man phoned his home, threatening suicide.
___Reyes, then a pastor, called a deacon and went to the man's home. They shared the story of Jesus with him, convincing him to put down his gun. Eventually he became a Christian.
___"We've got to take up the opportunity to hear lostness and respond with the gospel," Reyes urged.
___"If we have not had smoke blown in our faces, if we have not smelled the stench of Coors, if we have not heard language we wouldn't repeat, we have not been close enough."
___
___In order to have a missional congregation, the church must be set in the proper contexts, said Roberts, pastor of Northwood Church for the Communities in Keller.
___"We've got to put the church back in the context of the kingdom of God," Roberts said.
___That means starting and caring for churches, he said. "Do you want to see people called into ministry? Start planting churches. God will call them."
___Northwood Church has started 50 congregations, and most of them have started another church within their first year.
___The church also must be reinserted into the context of the world, Roberts added.
___"The context of the world means glocal," doing missions both globally and locally, he said. "The Great Commission has no boundaries."
___Another context for the church is the priesthood of the believer, Roberts said. "The Father can speak to each one of us," laity and clergy alike, he added.
___And the church must be set in the context of eternity, he concluded. "If we put the church back in the context of eternity, we've got plenty of time to do everything God wants us to do."
___
___Saul, the first king of Israel, was a classic example of "dis-integration," said Mann, preaching on the urgency of living with integrity.
___Saul failed because he let his critics tell him who he was, Mann observed, recalling how the prophet Samuel and Saul's military leaders criticized him.
___"As ministers, we live in a shower of criticism," he said, noting integrity only comes when people stop trying to live according to the advice of critics.
___Saul also failed because he allowed his "can'ts" to tell him who he was, Mann added, noting Saul attempted to lead in ways outside his nature and ability.
___And Saul failed because he let his competitors define who he was, he said, noting Saul's eventual successor, David, out-performed him in battle and in the affection of the people.
___Reflecting on his own ministry, Mann said: "The first 25 years, I couldn't understand why every time I made a mistake, the church ate me alive. If you create an atmosphere of condemnation and judgment, the first time you make a mistake, and you will make a mistake, they will get you.
___"But it's amazing what will happen if you preach grace. Jesus changed people, not by accusing people, but by blessing them. Grace is not a license to loaf. ... It is a power to perform."
___
___"Revival is an act of God, seldom planned or negotiated, the result of commitment, repentance of sin and a will to walk in the mandate of God," said Baker, a longtime Texas Baptist pastor and evangelist from McKinney.
___Reading numerous biblical accounts of revival and recounting revivals from throughout church history, Baker called revival "a Christ-pleasing frame of mind, a commitment to conform to the image of God's Son."
___
___Reviewing his own call to the pastorate, Pollard recalled the pastor he had as a youth, "who loved God, loved people and loved introducing people to God."
___"Bob Longshore ... lived the gospel before us," he said, noting Longshore's example resulted in 15 young men committing their lives to the pastorate in one semester.
___Taking his cues from the Apostle Paul, Pollard said ministers who identify and encourage others to embrace their calling to ministry will be those who realize they are debtors to God, not ashamed of the gospel and ready to share that gospel.
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