My First Trip To The Southern Baptist Annual Convention

So I have been a Southern Baptist all my life.  No really all of it. And I have been in the ministry since 1999 and I have never been, nor cared to go to an SBC meeting. This year all that changed. For about a year leading up to the meeting, I began to feel compelled to get more involved in or denominations convention. Issues were beginning to be raised that were important to me, and I also felt should be important to the local church. There was also a lot of division in the denomination. Mostly between younger leaders and older leaders. Calvinist and Non-Calvinist. Old school vs. new ideas. In many ways it was a fight for our identity. But just a few months before the convention Danny Akin gave us his 12 axioms of a Great Commission Resurgence (GCR). Our President Johnny Hunt took those and ran with them. A divine movement had begun. I wanted to be a part.

So me and Nathan Dewberry (Student Pastor) made our hotel reservations for Louisville, Kentucky, and off we went. What took place during that week was historic and life giving to our denomination. For starters I noticed young adults. All I had ever heard is how the convention is dying out and it is nothing but a gray headed convention. Surprise! Then the messages (for the most part) were some of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard preached. At one point at the beginning of the week many people made their way to the stage to kneel, weep and repent. This was also a convention like no other in that it united young and old, Calvinist and non-Calvinist, Old school and pioneers. The one cause, the one heart beat, was the Great Commission Resurgence. Taking the gospel to the world and making disciples.

Another thing that added to the week were the additional gatherings that brought leaders together like the BaptistTwentyOne Panel discussion (awesome!) and Nine Marks at Nine. As I said before that this was my first trip to a convention, but it was obvious and spoken by all that the Holy Spirit was doing a work in a mighty way. So I am excited about our direction as a denomination. But it also hits closer to home for me. I have a renewed zeal and excitement to proclaim the gospel to those around me. To cut the “fat” from my own personal life and get real about what Christ has called me to do.

Through this experience I have made many new friends through Twitter who were there and I look forward to hearing how God is moving them and their churches. By God’s grace, I will attend next year. See you then.

Dr. Johnny Hunt On The Great Commission Resurgence

Registration Is Now Open For Our Men’s Theological Reading Groups

Back last July I first read about and blogged about a church in Alabama that was doing Theological Reading Groups. I am excited to announce that we will be starting our own groups at Lindsay Lane this July. Registration is now open! These first groups will be for men only but ladies group may be in the future depending upon interest. Each group will meet once a week to discuss that weeks assigned chapter reading. We are currently offereing two tracks to choose from. The first is Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem. The second is Biblical Theology (actually 2 books: Promises Made & Promises Kept) by Mark Dever. You decide which track/book(s) you wish to read. Buy the book. Sign up for a time and day of week (which you get to pick), show up for our first kick-off meeting and off you go. You will have started on a 16 month journey that will change your life. For more info and to register, download the brochure/registration form here. Try this facebook link to join our facebook group.

Church Discipline Is An Expression Of Love

Church Discipline is rarely if ever practiced in most Southern Baptist Churches. But it is not as if it has not been discussed. I found this article from 1999 that illustrates what has been discussed for years. Here is an excerpt of the article:

Addressing church discipline, (Don)Whitney pointed to statistics that two-thirds of Southern Baptist church members are absent from church every Sunday. He cited three reasons for such a problem: a methodology that is bringing large numbers of unconverted people into the church; the lack of biblical preaching; and the failure of churches to practice church discipline.
With many lost people as church members, churches often are not interested in calling a Bible-preaching pastor who supports church discipline, he said.
“The church that follows that pattern over a long enough period of time is on the path to apostasy,” Whitney said.
Speaking from Matthew 18:15-20, Whitney said churches should practice church discipline because it honors Christ by obeying Scripture. Also, he said church discipline maintains the purity of Christ’s church, restores fallen brothers and sisters to righteousness, returns believers to spiritual freedom and reconciles broken fellowship between believers.
“One of the misunderstandings is that [church discipline] is punitive, but the goal is restorative,” Whitney said. “The goal is to win someone back, not kick someone out.”
Church discipline, when done correctly, should follow a precise process, Whitney said. A Christian should first reprove a fallen brother or sister in private, then take one or two more people along for a second visit, if necessary. If the person still refuses to repent, only then should the church deal with the problem and consider withdrawing fellowship from the person.
Withdrawing fellowship “requires a persistent refusal to listen to the church and repent,” Whitney said. “It’s not a one-time mistake where someone messes up and they’re out of here.”
Church discipline is never an easy process — Whitney called it “gut-churning” — but Christians should take comfort in the fact that God has promised to be with the church through the process. Southern Baptists need pastors who are bold enough to stand on the teachings of Scripture, even when it’s not popular to do so, Whitney said.
And how do churches know when discipline has been successful?
“It’s when you obey Christ,” Whitney said. “Our job is not to bring about the repentance. Our job is to obey Christ, and he is the one who will effect repentanc

And as of most recently Dr. Daniel Akin, in his now famous and hopefully historic address at Southeastern Seminary said the following when he gave his speech on A Great Commission Resurgence back in April of this year:

Each of these distinctives must be embraced under the lordship of Christ as revealed in Christian Scripture and interpreted by gospel-centered congregations. We must be willing to alter our practices to better accord with a robust Baptist identity, including in many churches a more responsible baptismal policy, a recovery of redemptive church discipline, a healthier balance between pastoral leadership and congregational authority, and a commitment to an every-member ministry.

Sounds good right? Biblical and logical even. So why don’t we practice it? Are we ignorant, afraid, too busy with other things, or just lazy. I think all are true to some degree. But I think one of our biggest problems is not what we see about this issue but what we don’t see. We don’t see church discipline as being a loving act.

Number 7 of the Nine marks of a Healthy Church has this to say about church disciple being an act of love:

We know intuitively as parents that love is not always lenient – love doesn’t always let.  If I let my daughter touch a hot stove repeatedly without disciplining her, I am not loving her enough to keep her from burning herself.  My discipline, or lack thereof, reflects on the quality and extent of my love for her. In the same way, if God lets us continue to commit the same sin with impunity, He is not loving us enough to teach us the importance of avoiding the burn of sin. It follows that if a church member sees his brother sinning continually and says or does nothing, that lack of discipline reflects poorly on the quality and extent of the member’s love for his brother.

Hebrews 12:5-11 says:

⁵My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; ⁶for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.  ⁷It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  ⁸But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.  ⁹Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?  ¹⁰For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.  ¹¹All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

How is it that so many churches and church members have lost their way in this area? We are so afraid or apathetic to confront others for their own good. And we wonder why “Christianity” has lost it’s appeal to so many in the world. I think part of it is due to the fact that there are so many unrepentant Christians in the church. The result of not disciplining church members over the years has been a lowering of standards in the church. We are afraid we will run people off from the church, yet those in the church lives are falling apart. Marriages are splitting, gossip runs rampant, Men don’t lead in their homes and our children are being held captive and captivated by the world. As we discussed this in my Sunday School class a couple of weeks back an young lady wisely said we are just too selfish. Too selfish to lovingly confront someone to turn them back to their one true joy; the only thing that can satisfy them…Christ.

I know that we have all heard the horror stories of  people who go on witch hunts and think they are the Church police, dragging people up front for the purpose of just getting rid of them. But we can’t allow the fear of abuse keep us from being obedient to what scripture tells us to do.  It begins with each of us as members of the body getting involved in community. Placing ourselves under the authority of the church. Making ourselves accountable to each other. If each of us were to be involved in each others lives in this way we would rarely ever have to bring a matter before the church. And when matters are brought to the attention of church leaders, we must have the courage and love to discipline.

To listen to a conversation on this topic with Matt Schmucker, executive director of IX Marks and an elder at Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, click here.

Thinking About Some Events

High Deposit, High Withdrawal: Church Staff Philosophy

Pastor James MacDonald asked the question, “What’s the cultural ethos of your church staff?” In the video he discusses a “High Deposit, High Withdrawal” philosophy. Sounds like a high expectations approach with great rewards.

New Amy Grant Music

Amy Grant is “back” with new new music and a new video. What do you think?

Leaving Those Things Which Are Behind

Paul the apostle wrote in Philippians 3:13:

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,

 This is not an attempt to break down this verse or even preach on the meaning of this passage. This is solely an observation, opinion, and sight into to what I struggle with. 

I find it interesting that Paul used the word “forgetting” instead of “have forgotten”. It was if he still had to work on forgetting those things from his past that added no value to his future or present. Paul did have some baggage. He had persecuted the church he now loved and was a part of. Oh how I wish I could say I had forgotten all the things in my past that I am so ashamed of. The wicked choices, the foolish fantasies, the wasted dreams. It’s all a waste. Now I know that at this moment some of my church family may be saying, “But Pastor Dusty says God never waste our past“. I understand that. This is something a little different though. I suppose I wish I didn’t have certain things in my past that God didn’t have to not waste (I don’t know if that sentence even makes sense). But yet I press on. Over the last six months I have really been looking at my life and really taking inventory of those things that I need to let go of and forget. Just put it all behind me that I may be able to more clearly press on. Maybe it is focus I need and I am realizing just how much past baggage hinders focus. What ever it is this is a painful process. Because to forget them I have to face them. And not only that but if we are honest sometimes we still want to hold on to because there is a part of us that likes to play  the victim. In a way we try to use or weaknesses as a comfort. Even when our past is ugly we can become so used to hiding behind it that we are more afraid of being left exposed and forced to move on.

Threads Connect Conferences Dates Have Been Set

Lifeway’s Threads division will be holding it’s Connect Conferences again this year. I went to the Nashville conference last year and found it to be very beneficial. Lord willing I will be able to go again this year and take others with me. Ed Stetzer and Jason Hayes will be addressing some of the same issues that their book “Lost and Found” addresses. Along with Thom and Sam Rainer this conference seeks to help the church engage today’s young adults with the gospel. Seating is limited so if you are interested register soon.

more about “Threads Connect Conferences Dates Hav…“, posted with vodpod

J.C. Ryle’s “Holiness” Is Available For Free Online

Sometime last month a friend of mine sent me a book in the mail that I had never heard of. It was Holiness by J.C. Ryle. I have just finished the introduction of this book, and alreadyI can tell that this man is worth reading. Since then I have had another friend make me aware that this book is available for free online, so I wanted to pass the info along in case anyone was interested. You can find the online version here. Happy reading!