If you haven't met David Hardage and heard his stump speech, you should take advantage of an opportunity to do so soon. He's the fellow who writes the column at the bottom of this page and the relatively new executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Given the chance, he speaks eloquently and passionately about our state convention. One topic that particularly resonates is his call for Texas Baptists to raise up "a new generation of pastors." We aren't producing enough pastors to meet the current demand, much less providing qualified pastors to start hundreds of churches we must plant in the next few years, he says. And he's absolutely on target; we need pastors like never before.

As recently as a generation ago, the pastorate—and often missions, as well as other church ministries—stood out as a respected and appealing profession. Clergy often ranked among the revered leaders of Texas towns and other communities across the South and Southwest. Christian parents hoped their children, and particularly their sons, would consider the ministry. Churches took pride in counting the number of pastors, missionaries and church staff they produced. Young folks answered to "preacher boy" as a term of endearment.

Now? Not so much.

Editor Marv Knox

Several factors contribute to the declining desirability of the pastorate. They include:

• Generally diminished respect for church.

• Dwindling respect for authority.

• Overall increase in education levels, which closed the gap between the academic attainment of laity and clergy.

• Moral failure of some clergy.

• Escalating materialism of the prevailing culture and the sense ministerial pay doesn't provide a decent return on investment, of either time or tuition.

Beyond these issues, the No. 1 reason Baptists and other Christians aren't producing enough pastors is we do not value and respect the pastorate—our pastors—as we did a generation and more ago.

Raising up pastors is like orchard farming. It requires long-range vision, patience, persistence and voluminous amounts of faith and hope. A new generation of pastors—and other missionaries and ministers—won't appear in a couple of years, just because we decide we need them. The gap from the time high schoolers begin to consider a call to ministry and completion of seminary spans a decade or more. So, we must get busy. Now.

It's time for pastors and lay leaders to "call out the called." We should encourage our brightest and most winsome teenagers to consider ministry—and especially the pastorate—as a serious option for their lives. Some churches will speak these words of encouragement to girls and boys, while others will focus on boys. That is a local-church decision. But the imperative is to urge young people to think about serving the Lord in churches.

We should encourage pastors and church staff to mentor faithful teens. We should allow young people to shadow our clergy and provide them with opportunities for meaningful participation in the full life of the church, including occasional preaching and involvement in decision-making.

We should make sure ministry-minded young people receive an opportunity to earn college and seminary degrees. This could take the form of church scholarships or low-interest loans. It certainly will involve encouragement and affirmation.

We should make sure young ministers start well. This will involve myriad opportunities. They include funded and mentored support for young church planters, as well as residency and apprentice programs for brand-new ministers.

We also should not overlook young adults, who may change careers and still invest 30 or more years in productive ministry.

In our zeal, we must not forsake discernment. Do not send young people to seminary if your congregation, which knows them best, would not call them to serve your church.

Bumper crops of pastors and other ministers won't grow up like weeds. We must plant and cultivate them.

Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard. Visit his blog at baptiststandard.com.

The other morning, I caught a bug.

Nope, I didn't come down with the flu. Or succumb to the common cold. Didn't develop an upset tummy, either.

I caught a bug.

The kind with wings, spiky legs and antennae.

In my mouth. Or, more precisely, right smack on the hangy-downy thing—I think it's called the uvula—at the back of my mouth and/or throat.

I caught this bug well before dawn, just around the 3/4-mark of my morning run. It happened underneath live oak trees and beside black-eyed susans on Bethel School Road.

Since it was dead-dark and we were about a block from the nearest street light and under the "shade" of the oaks, I never saw him coming.

(Come to think of it, I don't know if the bug was a he or a she. If I ever learned that little lesson in biology class, that was too long ago. So, although I?know better, I tend to think of every bug but a queen bee as a boy. Kind of like when I was a kid and thought all dogs were boys and all cats were girls. That was before Daddy and I had "the talk.")

Anyway, I know exactly how it happened, because I have seen pictures of myself running.

See, I've got a deviated septum. The inside of my nose is as crooked as the Brazos River. I can't take in enough air exclusively through my nose to (a) run and (b) not die.

So, when I tool down the road, my mouth takes the shape of a oval, and I suck in air. Lots of air. And, unfortunately, the occasional bug.

Since I never saw him, I don't know how big the bug was. Splattered on the back of my throat, he felt like a grasshopper. Or an owl.

The second he landed, I felt like he karate-chopped my throat. My head snapped back, and my mouth instinctively clamped shut. Too late; I know. I tried to spit him out, but he was stuck. My eyes watered as I stumbled forward, and then I felt my throat was going to close down.

For just a second, I thought, "Now, this will be an unusual obituary." Then I bent over, grabbed my knees and heaved. And expectorated again.

Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, he—and I—were free at last.

I tried to run with my mouth shut, but that only lasted about 50 yards. Then the death trap for bugs opened up again. And I could breathe.

My episode with the bug reminded me of dealing with temptation.

• Temptations usually fly in when I'm away from the light of God's presence, which I sense through prayer and Bible study.

• They attack me when I'm alone.

• They're more potent when I'm fatigued.

• They knock me off-stride and cause me to forget my purpose.

• They can bring me to my knees.

• But when I remember who and where I am, and Whose I am, I can cast them aside.

A few leaders in our church stand and declare "a deep conviction" about practically any issue we consider. They offer little rationale, but they swing votes. Why does pietistic language trump in-depth analysis?

T

he "conviction" you describe has the power to influence a congregation's path through business meetings, committee meetings, Sunday school gatherings and even through a passing hallway conversation. Such potentially divisive behavior is, ironically, a misappropriation of the church's purpose. After all, doesn't the church strive to develop leaders who make decisions from the spiritual perspective of deep convictions? The reason these words carry such weight is that they are Spirit-infused language.

The deeper problem is your church leaders appear to be misusing the church's spiritual focus. However, this conduct is not new. Jesus' ongoing confrontations with the Pharisees were not about their lack of religious principles, but more about their misapplication of faith truths. Can't you hear a Pharisee saying to our Lord, "I have a deep conviction about dining with sinners"? From the beginning of our faith, supposedly heaven-sent convictions have been misused to wield undue influence or get one's own way.

Since this language can be inherently a statement of wise spiritual discernment, how can the church know the speaker's motivation is pure? The first step in evaluating these power-packed and super-charged words is to consider the role of the business meeting in the life of the church. The very use of the word "business" separates this meeting from ministries. Perhaps a business meeting should be just as much a spiritual experience as Sunday morning worship. Through meaningful presentations, celebrative reports and even some difficult decision-making, the business of God's people should be a purposeful act of praise and honor before God. Consider how you might incorporate worship in the conduct of church business. Then, such declarations of "deep convictions" are uttered in the more familiar context of spirituality and humility before God.

The next step is to recognize the process does not begin at the business meeting. The long journey to faith conviction begins in Bible studies, prayer gatherings, small groups and worship. In these settings, honest discussion and study provide the congregation the opportunity to learn that "deep conviction" first begins with a solid faith in God, finds meaning through constant prayer with God, uncovers discernment within the church of God, and seeks fulfillment in the people of God. When the church becomes intentional about the spiritual growth of her members' convictions, the church will discover that business meetings are times of truly "deep convictions."

Allen Reasons, senior minister

Fifth Avenue Baptist Church

Huntington, W.Va.

Right or Wrong? is co-sponsored by the Texas Baptist theological education office and Christian Life Commission. Send your questions about how to apply your faith to bill.tillman@texasbaptists.org.

Jonathan Cahn's The Harbinger is one of the bestselling Christian books of 2012. The subtitle reveals Cahn's thesis: "The ancient mystery that holds the secret of America's future." This "ancient mystery" supposedly is contained in Isaiah 9:10: "The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars." To Cahn, this verse explains 9/11, the Great Recession and the future of our nation.

His logic: America was founded by Christians who dedicated this nation to God. In return, he placed a "hedge" of protection around us. Cahn believes we removed God from our classrooms and courtrooms in the 1960s, and he views the legalization of abortion as a further step away from the Lord. In response, God removed his protection from our nation, allowing the 9/11 terrorists to attack our country.

"The bricks have fallen down" describes the collapse of the World Trade Center; "we will rebuild with dressed stone" refers to a 20-ton stone used as the cornerstone of the structure that would replace the fallen Twin Towers. The "fig trees" that were felled is connected to a sycamore tree that was destroyed on 9/11; the "cedars" that replaced it refers to a pine tree that was put in place of the sycamore. As the Isaiah passage describes a nation whose prideful self-reliance spurred God to further punishment, so our nation's refusal to return to God after 9/11 has led to ongoing judgment.

Cahn links 9/11 to the Great Recession, as our government used means to stimulate the economy that led to financial collapse seven years later. He connects this collapse to the biblical "Sabbath year" (Deuteronomy 15:1-2), whereby every seventh year debts would be forgiven. In his view, the seven years between 9/11 and the fall of Lehman Brothers demonstrates the biblical import of the recession. If we do not return to the Lord, further judgments will come.

I find numerous problems with Cahn's logic. For example, if God removed his "hedge" on 9/11, how are we to understand Pearl Harbor? Washington, D.C. was burned in the War of 1812. The World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. Radical Muslims have been attacking America since 1979.

He likens the Great Recession to the destruction of the Northern Kingdom, but 1929 was a far worse economic collapse. And his method of biblical interpretation is more allegorical than exegetical. It reminds me of Jewish pesher: a passage is read for its surface meaning as well as a deeper mystical message not conveyed by the literal text.

At the same time, I am grateful Cahn calls America's Christians to repentance and spiritual renewal for the sake of our nation. However we view his argument, there can be no question his burden is biblical: "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (Deuteronomy 16:18). Self-reliance is spiritual suicide. Our nation's great need is for a great moral and spiritual awakening. May it begin with me—and with you.

?Jim Denison is president of the Denison Forum on Truth and Culture (www.denisonforum.org) and theologian-in-residence with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Hello, Texas Baptists. Your Baptist Building staff, led by Lorenzo Peña and Susan Ater, hosted a wonderful group of Texas Baptist directors of missions in your Baptist Building recently. These are good servants doing good work, and I am glad to have them as our ministry partners. We strongly support the work of the local Baptist association.

Under the direction of longtime Texas Baptist leader Richard Faling and through the work of your Texas Baptists Missions Foundation (www.texasbaptists.org) a group of retired ministers and missionaries gathered in Kerrville for their annual retreat. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to fellowship with and speak to this group.

As you know, Texas Baptists now have endorsed more than 700 chaplains around the state, country and world, serving in many different capacities. Led by Bobby Smith and Brad Riza, many of these chaplains and spouses gathered in Waxahachie recently for a training and fellowship time. I was honored to spend some time talking to them about who we are and what we are doing as a Texas Baptist family. If you or someone you know is interested in pursuing chaplaincy endorsement, please contact us at www.texasbaptists.org.

Our Baptist General Convention of Texas Day at Logsdon Seminary (www.hsutx.edu) on the campus of Hardin-Simmons University was such a blessing to me and the others from our staff who were able to attend. Thanks to Dean Don Wiliford for the invitation. We'll be back next year!

I spent a few minutes with your Baptist Building information technology staff recently, encouraging them in the Lord and his work. We are blessed by such fine folks, led by our own Dave Lyons.

It was a privilege to preach at Northside Baptist Church in Corsicana (www.nbchurch.net), where my friend Rick Lamb is the pastor. Northside has just completed a beautiful building addition and remodel. Very impressive!

Bill Roe is the director of missions for Bosque Baptist Association. He so honored me with the invitation to preach at their evangelism conference, held at First Baptist Church in Clifton (www.firstbaptistchurchclifton.org). Some years ago, he led my ordination service and the dedication time for our son, John. He and Nina mean so much to Kathleen and me!

More next time. See you in Corpus Christi Oct. 29-31.

David Hardage is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.

I'll be honest. I'm a coward.

During the political season, I find myself avoiding certain conversations I care about. Mind you, I do have opinions. My wife would say I have an opinion on everything. Faith and social issues are extremely important to me, and I have spent a lot of years studying and following the trends and their impact on people I care a lot about. I am especially focused on issues that affect the poor, mentally ill, unemployed, addicted and homeless. Topics of Medicare, unemployment benefits, the death penalty, gun control, abortion, gay marriage, state and federal budgets and deficits, immigration and foreign policy all matter to me.

I do have opinions. And I vote.

Yet during the final months of America's presidential street fight, I tend to lay low. I know one simple conversation with almost anyone can turn volatile and unleash the beast within them. If educated congressmen, presidential candidates, governors and even local representatives can be as nasty and polarized as they have publicly shown, there is little reason to discuss an issue honestly, since the potential for alienation and misrepresentation is at an all-time high. No one seems to be listening, having crystallized their presuppositions with a crafty skill of spinning any topic into their agenda. Ironically, our children are watching adult leaders model behavior we wouldn't let them get away with.

In my mind, the poor are the ones being hijacked in all of this. Wealthy politicians from both major parties certainly are not arguing or creating policy from the viewpoint of Jesus. In fact, thinly veiled religious statements have become part of the shallowness of American politics. To the pundits, "under God" doesn't mean "I submit to the teachings of God to love my enemies, serve others and model the sacrificial lifestyle of God in the flesh." It more closely resembles Friday night football in Texas, when the public prayer in the stadium blesses the home team and urges God's victory for them. We have wrapped the Bible in a flag and replaced faith with "civil religion," which ultimately becomes anti-Christian.

Will Christian Americans ever stand up for the poor and marginalized? I doubt it.

Although I may be a growing cynic, it is not from cynicism I make that statement. It's just that I believe most politics and religion today are driven by wealth and selfishness. There was a time when government's role was to protect and advocate for those in our culture who could not protect themselves. Yet today in the United States, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Texas is No. 50 of all states in funds to help the mentally ill. It is No. 40 of all states in help for the poor. We have one of the highest teen-pregnancy rates in the nation. Urban teenagers still drop out of school at alarming rates.

Instead of "welcoming the stranger" as the Bible clearly required of followers of God, we despise the foreigner. There is no restorative justice or rehabilitation in place for the offender, and certainly no jobs for felons when they are released. And amidst all these social dilemmas in our nation and state, there is little room for substantive discussion and compromise—only blame, anger and creating anecdotal myths that seek to validate our stances, with very little accomplished in the end.

I am hopeful, though not so much for politics in America. I still believe in the transforming work of God's Spirit, which can renew and transform any of his followers. I still believe the church and God's people living out the kingdom of God on earth will have more impact than any politician. Yet even that goes with a price. Jesus was crucified by the politicians and religious leaders of his day.

Jimmy Dorrell is executive director of Mission Waco/Mission World in Waco.

"Are there flaws in the church? Absolutely. But is there great beauty in the church? Absolutely."

Stephen Colbert

Comedian, during the "Catholic Comedy Slam" at New York's Fordham University with Cardinal Timothy Dolan and author James Martin (New York Times/RNS)

"This animosity against Christians is so rampant that it now has a name: Christophobia."

Timothy Dolan

President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaking at a conference on religious freedom in which he described the persecution of Christians abroad as "epidemic" (RNS)

"I so strongly believe that the great religions of the world are stronger than any insults. They have withstood offense for centuries. Refraining from violence, then, is not a sign of weakness in one's faith; it is absolutely the opposite, a sign that one's faith is unshakable."

Hillary Clinton

U.S. secretary of state, speaking about the anti-Muslim video that sparked anti-American riots across the Middle East (RNS)

A Mormon president?

David Moore presents a good case for religious liberty and soul competency in "Should I vote for a Mormon?" (Sept. 17). But he fails to face Mitt Romney's own claim about his faith.

Romney dodges questions about what he truly believes as though the issues deep in his heart have no bearing on his qualification for the presidency. He was a Mormon missionary and a Mormon bishop. This is no nominal Mormon; the man has deeply held convictions he has steadfastly promoted.

Some might say faith does not matter. Would you vote for someone who sacrificed fish in their backyard to a statue of Neptune? Would you vote for a Raelian who teaches life on Earth was scientifically created by a species of extraterrestrials as a biology experiment? What a person believes tells so much about how a person thinks that it is beyond the pale of understanding that our national media have not pressed the issue with Romney and demanded answers.

We are at a sad day in our nation's history when we have written an unbreakable 11th Commandment: Thou shall not critique another person's faith.

Ben Macklin

Stephenville

I will vote for a Mormon, a non-Christian who is a person of character and honesty and is concerned about the welfare of our nation and people before I will vote for a person that professes to be a Christian but fails to exemplify the life of a Christian and desecrates the word of God (Sept. 3). I'll do it every time.

F.A. Taylor

Kempner

HBU: Not Fundamentalist

I want to reassure Wayne and Susan Clark Webb (Sept. 17) that Houston Baptist University is not Fundamentalist, but fits well into the Baptist General Convention of Texas tradition. As an adjunct professor in the HBU School of Christianity, I have complete confidence HBU is not Fundamentalist but is fundamental in Texas Baptist beliefs.

I was chairman of the BGCT Executive Board and BGCT president during those turbulent times when we dealt with those who tried to take over the BGCT and its institutions. I saw firsthand the Fundamentalist methods and doctrinal changes that group tried to impose.

To my knowledge, none of those attitudes is present at HBU. President Robert Sloan is an outstanding Baptist and personal friend. He actively participated with the BGCT against the unwarranted Fundamentalist attacks against our traditional Texas Baptist beliefs.

I am acquainted with the School of Christianity faculty. I admit I am not as familiar with other departments or schools at HBU. None of these men or women could be said to be Fundamentalist or liberal. As I said, Texas Baptists can be very proud of HBU.

I would gladly invite the Webbs and others to sit in on my Bible classes and feel certain permission would be given for Baptists to visit other classes at HBU. I cannot believe Robert Sloan and the trustees would tolerate faculty or administrators who would seek to turn HBU away from traditional Texas Baptist beliefs.

Come and see. I believe you will be pleased.

Robert G. Campbell

Houston

What do you think? Because we affirm the Baptist principle of the priesthood of all believers, we value hearing from our readers. Send letters to Editor Marv Knox by mail: P.O. Box 259019, Plano 75025-9019; or by e-mail: marvknox@baptiststandard.com. Due to space considerations, limit letters to 250 words.

She asked me how I thought my work here was going. I had to think about it for awhile, because it's hard to measure. It's easy to count the number of times I've shared my faith or the number of people attending Bible study each week. But what's really going on in people's hearts is honestly a mystery to me. But the one thing that I have really felt strongly about is that my time here has been authentic.

I have always known that no one wants to hear a speech about what I believe in. I've always known that I don't particularly enjoy when others—trying to convince me of something—talk at me instead of with me. So, I have made it my goal to just be real with people about why I believe what I believe and to talk about the events that have happened in my life that have changed the way I think. I just want to be authentic, and God’s word does such a great job of explaining it in 2 Peter 1:16— "For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty."

I don't want to try to cleverly convince people that following God is the right thing to do, I want to tell them about the awesome things the Father has done in my life and how in my life I have had opportunities to see just how amazing God can really be.

And through this, we've seen growth. And it might not always be crazy exciting growth, but growth where little by little we convince our friends that the questions and doubts that they have are not going to offend us. And little by little—I pray—they start to develop an understanding of who God is. It's not easy, and it's definitely not fast. But it's authentic.

Jon, a student at the University of Texas at El Paso, is serving in East Asia with Go Now Missions. His last name is withheld for security reasons.

I don't know why God chose to use this question to really speak to me, but it really sank down deep. This question really made me grasp how lost the world really is and how much I take knowing the word of God for granted.

This scenario refreshed my understanding of my purpose here—teaching students the word that will make them wise for salvation. As in the parable of the sower, my responsibility is only to spread the word and have faith that God will provide the rain. Because I have faith that God will provide the rain, I need to prepare my field to receive it.

It reminds me of a dialogue from the movie, Facing the Giants:

"Grant, I heard a story about two farmers who desperately needed rain. And both of them prayed for rain, but only one of them went out and prepared his fields to receive it. Which one do you think trusted God to send the rain?"

Well, the one prepared his fields for it. Which one are you? Mr. Bridges continued. "God will send the rain when he's ready. You need to prepare your field to receive it."

Wes, a student at Stephen F. Austin State University, is serving in East Asia with Go Now Missions. His last name is withheld for security reasons.

For me, it was being completely lonely here and honestly questioning my calling when I realized that I needed to fall on our Lord. Once I drew close to God, that is when he totally rocked my world with revelation and insight. This revelation and insight required me to take action—and this was very hard for me to do, because it meant relinquishing my control of the situation.

Words can’t describe the feeling of peace I received once I finally was obedient, relinquished control and took action. I can honestly say that handing it over is probably one of the hardest things to do. But when you can trust our God enough to handle it, that is when we experience true joy. Finding joy in his timing is such a relief when you can finally do it.

As the Psalmist said, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.”  (Psalm 37:5, ESV)

Wes, a student at Stephen F. Austin State University, is serving in East Asia with Go Now Missions. His last name is withheld for security reasons.