SBC

As you can tell from my Twitter feed, I am in Louisville, KY at the Southern Baptist Convention.  The actual Convention starts tomorrow, but today was the Pastor’s Conference.  It’s always good to hear some good preaching.  When I started preaching each Sunday morning, I never realized how much I would miss hearing sermons!  There have been some great messages today.  Very timely in my life.  I heard Ed Stetzer, Francis Chan, Fred Luter, Alvin Reid, and David Platt.  They were all great!  The thing that seems to resonate in my heart most tonight as I reflect on the day is this: the priority of sharing the Gospel.

Often we hear sermons that admonish us to do more soul winning.  That’s not what is on my heart.  I mean, yes we need to share the gospel more, but what I sensed today was the reality that sharing the Gospel IS what we are to be about.  We are to understand the Gospel, live the Gospel, and share the Gospel.  It is that simple.  The Southern Baptist Convention began as a way for like-minded churches to partner to share the gospel and plant churches.  So many of our 44,000 churches have moved away from a Gospel focus.  We focus on ourselves, our buildings, our needs, our desires, our preferences, etc.  God has called us to take the message of Jesus to the nations.  As David Platt said tonight, “God will accomplish His work.  He doesn’t need the Southern Baptist Convention in order to do His work.  If we retreat from our Mission, He will simply use someone else, and we will be miserable in the process.”

The night ended by me running into my Pastor.  Marvin Suitt will always be my pastor.  I rode with his family back to my hotel.  We stopped at a Convenience store for them to pick up some snacks and it was great to see my pastor go right up to a homeless man and begin to tell him about Jesus.  What a great example!  Lord, help me to be more about the Gospel than anything.  Lord help me to be Gospel-minded in all that I do.