BGCT president urges Texas Baptists to seek the lost, feed the flocks

Posted: 11/02/07

BGCT president urges Texas Baptists
to seek the lost, feed the flocks

By Analiz González

Buckner International

AMARILLO—With references to Jesus’ parables about a lost coin, a lost sheep and a lost boy in Luke 15, Steve Vernon urged participants at the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting to follow Christ’s command to seek the lost and feed the sheep.

In his presidential message to the convention, Vernon recalled a time when his 4-year-old daughter walked off in a mall. She was only gone five minutes, but it gave him a glimpse into what God feels for those who don’t follow him.

“It’s the picture of the yearning of the father for a child,” said Vernon, pastor of First Baptist Church in Levelland and incumbent BGCT president.

“Often times at churches, we get busy about other things. We get busy about housekeeping and doing our services and cleaning the buildings and filing all the insurance and going through the motions, … and none of that is bad. But shouldn’t the shepherds feed the sheep? Isn’t that what we ought to be about?”

About 24 million people live in Texas, and an estimated 11 million profess to be Christians. The rest are scattered and lost, Vernon said.

“There is a world around us that is injured, that is hurt, They’re weak and sick. They stray, they’re scattered, they’re lost,” Vernon said.

“In Ezekiel 34, it says that they become food for every wild animal. And it laments that God sees the sheep, but he sees no one looking for them. That’s the picture of the sheep around us in our state, nation, our world.”

Texas Baptists can demonstrate their love for Christ by doing what he called them to do, he insisted.

“Shouldn’t shepherds feed the sheep?” he asked.