I have had a fast and furious past few weeks. From a nice extended weekend at the lake to a week with 200 children at Children’s Camp to this week which has been full of meetings, it seems as if it never slows down! That being said, I love so much being a pastor that even though my schedule is full, I couldn’t be happier! Tracy and I were talking the other day about how unique it is that each of us is getting to fulfill our dreams for our lives. She is a stay at home mom and I’m a lead Pastor at an amazing church which is being used by God to take the gospel to the world. What a blessing!

Coming up this week, however, is a couple of very exciting events. We start our new sermon series this week entitled “Oasis”. Just as an oasis appears in the midst of vast desert, so to Christ appears out of the midst of our depravity and offers us hope in a hopeless world. I’m excited about the new series. On top of the exciting series, the good folks who design our stage for each series have built a 10 foot waterfall which looks incredible! I’ll try and post pictures in the upcoming weeks once the stage design is complete.

Beyond that we start VBS next week. Last year we had over 200 children and this year we are praying for 400! We’ll see how God blesses our prayers and how God uses our VBS to draw children to Himself.

Finally, below is a picture a friend took of my wife and girls as we played with fireworks last week at the lake. I thought it was particularly good so I thought I would post it.

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.

The other day I posted a good example of theology gone horribly wrong. Today, though, I want to put up a video that is wonderfully right. This is good stuff. Louie Giglio is one of my favorite preachers in American right now. He is a wonderful communicator who does a phenomenal job of making much of God and pointing people to Christ. As an aside note, it was announced yesterday that he and Worship leader Chris Tomlin are going to plant a church together in the Atlanta area. Talk about a dynamite tandem!

Anyway, you need to watch this short clip from a Giglio message about God’s wonderful work in creation. A couple of folks from Frederick pointed me in this direction and I’m really glad that they did.

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.

8 years ago today I stood at an altar and exchanged vows with the woman of my dreams. Today we get to celebrate 8 years of marriage together. When we stood at the altar and said “I do” at Beulah Baptist Church in Dothan, AL I am positive that Tracy had no idea what she was getting into. All I knew was that I was the most blessed guy in the world. As today is a celebration day, I spent a bit of time reflecting on the past 8 years and I have come to the conclusion that I would be a wreck if it was not for my godly wife. She has been my encourager and helpmate on occasions when I deserved neither. She has been my critic and has provided accountability when I did not want, but certainly needed, both. She continues to amaze me with her love for the Lord, her passion for being a Mommy and her incredible love for me. I was the most blessed guy in the world 8 years ago today and I am even more blessed today than I was then.

Tracy, I love you and I am so thankful for 8 years with you and I cannot wait for another 50 or 60 more.

New research came out today that highlighted a recent SBC trend away from baptisms. [click here] Oh, we still say that they are important, and we still communicate that we’re an evangelistic denomination, but the truth is that we are not. No, today we are more known for which side of the methodological fences we stand on than we are known for our passion for connecting disconnected people with the Gospel.

Ed Stetzer has written a great article detailing what these statistics mean for our convention. I would highly encourage you to read his thoughts. You can do so by clicking here. In his article, Stetzer makes a tremendous statement, but one which I predict will not be kindly received by everyone. He says,

The Conservative Resurgence failed to produce a Great Commission Resurgence. It restored our denomination’s value of Scripture but application is often absent, at least in the area of evangelism.

Stetzer is absolutely right. Our battle for the priority of scripture was absolutely necessary. If we are not a people who believe in the supremacy and innerancy of God’s word, we are nothing in my opinion. Having said that, right belief means nothing if it is not accompanied by right action. In other words, orthodoxy must be partnered with orthopraxy for it to be beneficial. Our convention, and the churches that make up her number, claim a great commitment to God’s word. We are proud of our positions. We are so strongly tied to them that the word “innerancy” has almost become our club’s secret password without which one cannot serve. Now, I do not want to diminish innerancy at all, but if our behavior doesn’t link hands with our belief, what good is our belief?

It’s time that we heed well the other words of Stetzer and rally around the gospel. Frank Page’s words from his initial election as SBC president should be embraced. It’s beyond time that people know us for what we are for, rather than simply know us for what we are against. We are for the gospel. We are for the sufficiency of Christ on behalf of those who are separated from the Gospel due to sin. We are for people experiencing grace, hope and forgiveness through the cross of Christ.

In my own town, here in St. Joseph, MO, we have a population of 105,000 in the metro area. Of that number approximately 80,000 are in a group that I refer to as “disconnected”. In other words, they are either unchurched, dechurched or are not involved in the church that they claim to belong to. My passion in life is to help connect those 80,000 disconnected people with the gospel. Our church specifically must do whatever it takes to accomplish that task. Up to this point, we are not fulfilling that task as we should.

Each person reading this post lives in a city or area where the majority of the population does not appear to have an active relationship with Jesus Christ. Our charge must be to somehow connect them with the Gospel. Beyond that, it is time we think creatively about ways to effectively do so. So many of our churches are convinced that if they can just hold another revival meeting, and beat on a few more doors, that will do the trick. Statistics are also bearing out that those methods are simply not seeing success. When we become desperate to fulfill the task that God has given us, we will throw off any unsuccessful efforts and continue to work until we find more effective ways to engage people with the Gospel.

Someone asked me the other day how our church, Frederick Boulevard, was doing. I told them honestly that attendance and finances are at an all time high but that I was disappointed right now. When asked why I shared that our baptisms are plateaued at the same place they were last year. We may have seen a few more, but not many. I’ve shared the gospel with a number of people lately, but I haven’t shared with enough. I’m afraid that too often it’s easy for us to become satisfied in our churches. We want to reach other people as long as we can continue to be happy. The truth is, maybe it’s time that we become uncomfortable for the gospel. Maybe it is time that we step outside of our usual pattern so that our neighbors who don’t know Christ can respond to His grace. Maybe it’s time that we get desperate to complete the task God has given us.

I’m afraid that if we don’t the downward spiral that we are seeing today, will only be the tip of the iceberg.

We are in the middle of our new series entitled “life: living as the body”. This week we’ll be preaching on Romans 12 and I will be preaching on the importance of worshiping together. As part of my message I have been grappling with a working definition of worship. I’d love to have input from those of you who attend Frederick and those of you who do not. I’ll insert my working definition below and you feel free to critique it and offer your definitions as well.

“Worship is a sacrificial expression of our love for, and dedication to, God which seeks to reflect His glory and proclaim His truth.”