This should probably be my last post before heading to Indianapolis. I’m backed up with work to do and I’ve got a wedding to perform this weekend so I don’t think I’ll have time to write anymore. I wanted to write a quick note and mention a couple of things to look for while I’m gone to the convention.

• First, I will not be live blogging. I’m not planning to take my laptop into the convention hall this year which will be a first compared to the past couple of years. I will, however, be in communication during the convention with my good friend, Alan Cross. Alan can’t be in Indy this year but will have access to his computer. If anything important pops up, I will let Alan know and he will get the word out asap. Be sure to bookmark his site and be prepared to check his updates out.
• Although I won’t be live blogging, I’ll try to provide a nightly update on the convention. I am often very busy during this week so I’m not promising anything. I know, however, that it is pretty typical for my site traffic to triple during convention week so I know many of you are looking for info. I’ll do the best I can to provide it.
• I’m privileged to be a part of Ed Stetzer and Philip Nation’s blog tour to promote their new book, “Compelled by Love“. As part of that I will be posting a two part interview on Tuesday during the convention. Part 1 will feature a written interview which we did this week. Part 2, however, will feature an audio interview with Ed that we’ll be recording Monday morning in Indy. Be sure to watch for that. The book is fantastic and Stetzer and Nation help provide some excellent resources.
• Thankfully our church has been very generous in their commitment to missions giving through the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offerings and as a result Tracy and I have been invited to a dinner with the IMB and then a luncheon with NAMB. I’m looking forward to spending that time with the great missions thinkers in our convention.
• Ok, this one is kind of goofy, but I figured I’d have some fun this year and mix everybody up. I think I’m going to sport a suit every day of the convention. After my jeans and shirts over the past two years, I thought that would be a fun change of pace.

I have previously made my commitment to Avery Wills for 2008 SBC President clear. I believe he is the man who is best suited to lead our convention forward at this place in convention life.

One of the men in the IMB that I highly admire is Dr. Rodney Hammer. I first met Rodney while in training to go overseas with the IMB. Tracy and I lived side by side with Rodney, his wife and son. I learned then, while listening to Rodney teach during our training, to value his opinions significantly. Today Rodney briefly commented on SBCOutpost and offered his opinion about the upcoming SBC Presidential election. I enjoyed it so much I thought I would reproduce it here in hopes that even more people might consider his words.

SBC Friends,

I believe that Avery Willis is the one SBC presidential candidate that can bring what the SBC needs now…focus and leadership in spiritual renewal. Repentance and Revival will bring the fruit, the spiritual health, and the evangelism and mission results we so desparately desire. Beholdened to none except Christ, focused on the Kingdom, an Irenic conservative known and beloved throughout the Convention for his focus on spiritual health, revival, discipleship, evangelims and missions. It’s not his platform…it’s his entire life and ministry. The appointments and practical leadership will also see greater involvement of younger, more diverse, gospel and Kingdom focused Southern Baptists as well.
Bill Wagner is a good man. But Avery Willis is, I believe, God’s man for the hour and the model of what we need.

Amen Rodney, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I signed a statement this past week. It was a statement that some wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ put together that speaks of our shared passion for the world to come to Christ and our commitment to helping make that happen. That statement is specifically designed to encourage the trustees of the International Mission Board to work to repeal the recent changes made to their guidelines for missionary service that have since cost many, many otherwise qualified candidates from serving overseas. This disappointing conclusion, arrived at by our IMB trustee board, is something that I have publicly communicated my displeasure about for quite some time so I won’t rehash that here. I would ask, however, that you read the statement yourself and consider signing it as well. You can do so by clicking here.

At Frederick Boulevard we like to say that, “We exist to Reach, Teach and Unleash committed followers of Jesus Christ.” This passion drives everything that we do. When we look at our metro area we know that we have approximately 105,000 people within 15 miles of our facility. Of those 105,000 approximately 80,000 are disconnected from any church. Our goal, then, is to connect those 80,000 disconnected people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we think about new ways to effectively reach those 80,000 we are constantly challenging ourselves to do whatever it takes to reach them.

Our newest effort to reach the 80,000 disconnected people was announced this past Sunday in worship and I am so excited about it! One of the most significant populations in our community that are dramatically unreached is the Hispanic population. We also know, however, that they are probably not going to come to our facility. We have tried over the years to use ESL, as well as other ministries, and have not successfully brought them to our facility. So, in order to reach them with the gospel we are going to go to them rather than ask them to come to us. As Elders, we recently agreed to move towards the planting an additional campus of Frederick Boulevard that will be on the south side of St. Joseph and will be a Hispanic campus. We are moving towards becoming more of a multiplying church than ever before. This should be one of the most significant efforts we’ve ever been involved in as we try to take the gospel to those who do not have it.

So, please be praying for us as we move through this process. Our hope is to begin small in-home Bible studies over the next few months until our campus pastor is here and on staff with us. We then hope to move towards actual services beginning after the 1st of the year. It should be a lot of fun to be a part of.

If you are a part of Frederick Boulevard and you feel like God is moving you towards missions involvement, I would highly encourage you to consider volunteering to be a part of this new campus. We need families who are willing to engage in this new ministry. By the way, Spanish proficiency is not necessary. We have found that we are in need of bi-lingual ministry. Many of the parents speak Spanish as a first language and many of the kids are speaking English as a first language and so we need people who speak either English or Spanish (or both) to be a part of the ministry!

This is an exciting time to be a part of what God is doing in St. Joseph through Frederick Boulevard.

Over the past few months I have not written much original material for the blog. To be honest, school has been a bit of a load and my workload at the church has been pretty high. While the church workload will continue to remain high, school is out now and I’ve got a couple of things in the hopper that I wanted to let you know about.

First, I’ve known of Joel Rainey for quite some time through the blog world. Thankfully, however, I got to meet him in person not too long ago. Joel forwarded me a copy of his new book, Planting Churches in the Real World. I’m excited about reviewing it and hopefully should have that review posted within the next week.

Next, speaking of new books, coming up on June 10th I will have a interview with Ed Stetzer and Philip Nation dealing with their new book, Compelled by Love. I’m part way through the book and it is outstanding so far. I’m looking forward to that post. Since that date happens to fall while we are all three going to be in Indy for the SBC Annual Meeting I am also attempting to arrange an audio interview. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that we can arrange that.

Finally I’m beginning to work on a series of posts entitled “Mission Dei”. I find that a large number of SBC churches have no actual strategy in respect to missions methodology. A lack of strategic planning, in my opinion, leads to a lack of long term impact and allows for an unfortunate overexpenditure in regards to missions money. I want to help lay out a few principles that guide my thinking in regards to a comprehensive missions strategy for a local church. If you are from another church besides Frederick Boulevard, hopefully this will challenge you to think through your own missions efforts. If you read this from Frederick Boulevard hopefully this will help you to understand where we are going as a church in respect to our missions efforts. It should be an exciting series!

Finally, I’m going to leave you with a Weekend Worship video. It’s been a while since I’ve posted one but I recently ran across this new song from Chris Tomlin, City of God, and I’ve fallen in love with it. I wanted to share it with you as well. I hope you enjoy it this weekend.

This week, in lieu of music, I want to post a video that was uploaded today to the IMB’s new site, CommissionStories.com. The creator of this video emailed me today and alerted me to it and after watching it, I wanted to pass it on to you. It is a remarkable testimony of God’s grace in a very, very dark place. I hope it encourages you this weekend.   

For some reason, however, I am not able at this point to resize the video and make it fit here on MicahFries.com. So, it’s not posted here on my blog but I’d still like you to take a look at it. You can view it by clicking here.

In a recent post I pointed you each to the writings of an IMB missionary to Ecuador, Guy Muse. Guy and his wife, Linda have been featured in a Baptist Press article today. BP particularly looks at some exciting church planting efforts that they are leading. I would encourage you each to run over and take a look at what God is doing through their efforts. It’s encouraging! 

Click here to read the article.

The title of this post is the remarkable quote from J.P Lipscomb as he spoke about his wife, Linda, who died on Valentine’s Day after a bus accident while serving in Asia with the IMB. As I read this article on Baptist Press today I was forced to be still for a moment and think through his words. The whole quote was actually: “Linda knew she was dying, we never had any respect for death. Death is given too much respect. … The only way you can get to heaven is to die.” I wonder how many of us have that kind of attitude when it comes to living for Christ? Throwing caution to the wind, racing towards the Kingdom, aggressively promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ regardless of the cost.

I’ll be honest with you,  I often struggle with having this kind of attitude.  Scripture is so clear to us in 1 Corinthians 15 when it says, “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Too many of us struggle with living in fear of death. We live in terror of pain. We walk around worried that someone won’t like us or that something might bother us when reality tells us that all that anyone can do, at most, is kill us and what kind of punishment is that? It’s the gateway to eternity! Why do we fear the greatest hope that we have? 

I would encourage you to read the story of Linda Lipscomb and her death. I hope it challenges you like it has me.