Encouraged, Inspired Pastors Critical to True Revival, SBC Officials Say
by Allie Martin
June 14, 2004
(AgapePress) - Southern Baptist pastors from across America are being encouraged to persevere and continue preaching God's Word without compromise.The 69th annual Pastor's Conference precedes the annual Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) meeting at the Indianapolis Convention Center on Tuesday and Wednesday. The theme for this year's Pastor's Conference is "Jesus Came Preaching" and is based on Mark 1:14. Dr. Morris Chapman, president of the SBC's executive committee, says the conference for pastors sets the stage for the denomination's regular business meeting.
"The Pastor's Conference is the real opportunity for Southern Baptists to get together and hear some of our finest preachers as they preach the Word of God," Chapmen explains. "So it's a time of inspiration that gets us in the spirit and the mind and the heart to have our convention and our business."
Rev. Ted Traylor opened the Pastor's Conference, which concludes Monday night, by offering counselors to Baptist pastors who "need someone to talk with, to pray about some issue in ministry or personal life." And in his opening prayer, Rev. Steve Taylor asked God to "work in the lives of those who need the encouragement, those that need to be mended."
Why the emphasis on encouraging pastors? Morris says a true revival will be sparked not by denomination officials, but by pastors and their congregations.
"We are well aware that revival does not come just because the vision is cast," he says. "It has to be grassroots; it has to be something that comes from among the people who have, as the Bible tells us, been praying, asking forgiveness of sin, trusting the Lord.
"So we're praying that as we cast out the vision, [it] will just move among the masses until it comes bubbling back to the surface as a mighty movement of God."
Dr. Adrian Rogers, Dr. Paige Patterson, and Dr. Jerry Vines -- all former SBC presidents -- are among the speakers addressing the Pastor's Conference. Monday's schedule includes worship and a message from Rev. Jack Graham, who is completing his term as president of the SBC.
A Conservative Turn
Messengers to this week's SBC meeting will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of a turning point in the nation's largest evangelical denomination. Back in 1979, conservative Christians who took a literal view of the Bible were elected to top posts in the SBC, marking an about-face from the liberal direction the denomination had been heading.
Dr. Morris Chapman says had it not been for that change in direction, Southern Baptists today would be facing some of the same issues other denominations are struggling with stemming from liberalism and secularization.
"Of course any time you have a convention of sixteen or seventeen million people and 45,000 churches, there are always matters to address -- so we're never without issues to resolve," he says. "But there is a spirit that we're in place to hopefully be used of God to become a mighty army for the cause of Christ around the world."
Chapman says the true heroes of the conservative resurgence in the SBC were those at the grassroots level who loved the Lord and had a desire to return to what the Bible teaches.
The pastors heard references to societal issues that require a biblical response, and were challenged to speak out against the nation's moral decline. Rev. Ronnie Floyd of Springdale, Arkansas, warned his colleagues that "the Holocaust happened years ago because of silence." He also blamed silence in the pulpit for three decades of legal abortion.
"Now we have same-sex marriage that is about to take this nation by storm unless preachers and pastors stand up and preach the truth and stop being so silent and so fearful," Floyd said, adding that some Baptist pastors care more about their golf game and their personal financial portfolio than they do about reaching their communities with the Gospel.
Associated Press contributed to this story.
