Index Of All SBC Voices Network Blogs

There is a substantial number of Southern Baptist blogs listed on the Index page. I'll try to peruse a measure of them over the next few days and add links to the blogroll.

Quote for the Moment

Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.
— Baltasar Gracian

Ministry helps execs apply Christian principles to workplace

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080322/BUSINESS01/803220314/1003/BUSINESS

Suggested Reading for 3/21/08

James

Chapter 5

Rich Oppressors Will Be Judged

1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! 2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a witness against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have heaped up treasure in the last days. 4 Indeed the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 5 You have lived on the earth in pleasure and luxury; you have fattened your hearts as in a day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned, you have murdered the just; he does not resist you.

Be Patient and Persevering

7 Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. 8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. 9 Do not grumble against one another, brethren, lest you be condemned. Behold, the Judge is standing at the door! 10 My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. 11 Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord--that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful. 12 But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath. But let your "Yes," be "Yes," and your "No," "No," lest you fall into judgment.

Meeting Specific Needs

13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.

Bring Back the Erring One

19 Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20 let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

Suggested Reading for 3/20/08

James

Chapter 4

Pride Promotes Strife

1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously"? 6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble."

Humility Cures Worldliness

7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

Do Not Judge a Brother

11 Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. 12 There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. Who are you to judge another?

Do Not Boast About Tomorrow

13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit"; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that." 16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

Ed's Suggested Reading for 3/19/08

James

Chapter 3

The Untamable Tongue

1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. 2 For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. 3 Indeed, we put bits in horses' mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. 4 Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires. 5 Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. 8 But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? 12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.

Heavenly Versus Demonic Wisdom

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. 16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. 18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Suggested reading for 3/18/08

James

Chapter 2

Beware of Personal Favoritism

1 My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. 2 For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, 3 and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, "You sit here in a good place," and say to the poor man, "You stand there," or, "Sit here at my footstool," 4 have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? 7 Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? 8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well; 9 but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Faith Without Works is Dead

14 What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe--and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." And he was called the friend of God. 24 You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? 26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Ed's suggested reading for 3/17/08

JAMES

Chapter 1

Greeting to the Twelve Tribes

1 James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad: Greetings.

Profiting from Trials

2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

The Perspective of Rich and Poor

9 Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, 10 but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. 11 For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits.

Loving God Under Trials

12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. 16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. 18 Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

Qualities Needed in Trials

19 So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; 20 for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.

Doers - Not Hearers Only

21 Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. 26 If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

Seminary student's climate change project is not SBC's

Seminary student's climate change project is not SBC's
By StaffMar 10, 2008

WASHINGTON (BP)--Jonathan Merritt, a 25-year-old student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., captured widespread media attention March 10 in releasing a statement titled "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change."

The so-called "Southern Baptist" statement is not an initiative of the Southern Baptist Convention which voiced its views on global warming last summer in a resolution, "On Global Warming".

However, the student's project carries the names of a number of high-profile Southern Baptist leaders including his father, James Merritt, pastor of Cross Pointe, the Church at Gwinnett Center in Duluth, Ga., and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Frank Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., and the current SBC president, and Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, and a past president of the SBC, also signed the document.

Although he signed Merritt's declaration, Page, in a statement to Baptist Press, voiced support for the 2007 SBC resolution and earlier SBC resolutions on the topic.

"Southern Baptists have long stood for a clear environmental message which takes seriously God's call to guard and keep the earth," Page said. "We have been balanced and responsive in our calls for care....

"However, in a broader sense, many of God's people have been timid about speaking out regarding issues which relate to environmentalism. Perhaps this timidity has been a fear that speaking out would tie us to the very extreme left wing liberal environmental lobby. Some in this group are known for harsh political tirades. Others have issued irresponsible calls for economic change which would devastate the economies of some of the poorest nations in the world."

In a teleconference with media March 10, Merritt said the idea for the initiative came to him during a theology class.

"In the lecture," he said, "my professor made the statement that when we destroy creation, which is God's revelation, it is no different than tearing a page out of the Bible. At that moment, God began to work in my heart and call me to do something. is the product of that nudge from God that day." Merritt has been identified as the project director of the Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative, which is behind the document.

The declaration, which carries 46 signatures, says Southern Baptists' "current denominational engagement with these issues often been too timid, failing to produce a unified moral voice. Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed. We can do better."

The declaration released March 10 offers four main points:
-- Human beings have a responsibility to care for creation and acknowledge their participation in environmental decline.
-- Addressing climate change is prudent.
-- Stewardship of the earth is required by Christian and Southern Baptist beliefs.
-- Individuals, churches, communities and governments should act now.

The statement included the disclaimer that advocacy of environmental stewardship will not reduce the signers' commitment to protecting unborn and other human life or to the biblical view of marriage.

"We will never compromise our convictions nor attenuate our advocacy on these matters, which constitute the most pressing moral issues of our day," the statement says. "However, we are not a single-issue body."

One of the most glaring missing endorsements was that of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

During the teleconference, Merritt mentioned that the ERLC had provided helpful inputs to reshape the statement but in the end did not endorse the final draft.

In a statement to Baptist Press, ERLC President Richard Land said he declined to endorse Merritt's declaration out of respect for Southern Baptists' autonomy.
"They reserve to themselves the right to decide through Convention action what the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy positions are to be," Land said. "The ERLC will continue to share the officially adopted positions of the Convention with public policy makers and the media."

Land also took issue with the signers' statement that Southern Baptists have been "too timid" in addressing these issues. "The Convention has officially addressed the issues of creation care and environmental stewardship in its 2006 and 2007 Conventions through resolutions adopted by the Convention's duly elected messengers," Land said. Referring to the 2007 action, he added that the approved action "is as close to an 'official' position as the SBC is capable of making, apart from its formal confession of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message."

"Consequently, in our convention-assigned role to share faithfully with Washington and other public policy venues where the convention is on an issue, it would be misleading and unethical of the ERLC to promote a position at variance with the convention's expressly stated positions."
While some media reports interpreted the declaration as a major shift of position in Southern Baptist circles, the document actually builds on statements adopted in the past, Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Seminary, said during the teleconference.

"What the statement does is in concert with what Southern Baptists have said," Akin said. "The difference is that this comes as a grass-roots movement, not through the mechanism of a resolution that comes when the convention is in session.

"It does challenge Southern Baptists to be more proactive," he added. "I see it as building on what Southern Baptists have said in previous statements and position papers."

Southern Baptist messengers, in speaking to the issue of global warming during the 2007 annual meeting in San Antonio, encouraged their fellow Southern Baptists "to proceed cautiously in the human-induced global warming debate in light of conflicting scientific research." It also called for public policies that guarantee "an appropriate balance between care for the environment, effects on economics, and impacts on the poor when considering programs to reduce" carbon and other emissions.

The resolution affirmed Southern Baptists' responsibility to protect the environment while urging caution in the debate over humanity's role in global warming.

Messengers to the 2007 convention voted to delete two paragraphs of recommendations that were in the global warming measure when it came from the Resolutions Committee. They approved an amendment from the floor that removed proposals for government funding to do research on the human impact on global warming and to find energy alternatives to oil and other carbon-producing resources. Messengers passed the amendment with about 60 percent in the majority before approving the resolution overwhelmingly.

Last year's SBC resolution, which cited the Bible and offered a scientific and historical summary of climate change, is the seventh since 1970 to affirm that Christians have a responsibility to be stewards of creation.

Evangelical Christians have expressed differences of opinion on how to address global warming.
The Evangelical Climate Initiative (ECI), a coalition of more than 100 evangelical leaders, contends human beings are the main cause of global warming, which it says will negatively impact poor people the most. The ECI, which issued a statement in February 2006, has endorsed legislation to decrease carbon dioxide emissions in an effort to combat climate change.
The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation says the cause of global warming is uncertain. It has expressed concern about the effects that policies proposed by those who believe in human-induced climate change would have on the poor. Some proposals might make little difference in the environment while harming economic progress, especially for the needy, it fears. The Cornwall Alliance released a document in July 2006 that was partly a response to ECI's statement and was signed by more than 110 evangelicals. Barrett Duke, the ERLC's vice president of public policy and research, has endorsed the Cornwall statement.

Compiled by Baptist Press staff, with reporting by Washington bureau chief Tom Strode and BP assistant editor Mark Kelly.

Copyright (c) 2008 Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist Press901 Commerce StreetNashville, TN 37203Tel: 615.244.2355 Fax: 615.782.8736 email: bpress@sbc.net

The SBC has collectively lost its mind

Southern Baptist Leaders Issue Surprising Call to Fight Climate Change
Monday , March 10, 2008
In a major shift, a group of Southern Baptist leaders said their denomination has been "too timid" on environmental issues and has a biblical duty to stop global warming.
The declaration, signed by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention among others and released Monday, shows a growing urgency about climate change even within groups that once dismissed claims of an overheating planet as a liberal ruse.
The conservative denomination has 16.3 million members and is the largest Protestant group in the U.S.
The signers of "A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" acknowledged that not all Christians accept the science behind global warming.
They said they do not expect fellow believers to back any proposed solutions that would violate Scripture, such as advocating population control through abortion.
However, the leaders said that current evidence of global warming is "substantial," and that the threat is too grave to wait for perfect knowledge about whether, or how much, people contribute to the trend.
"We believe our current denominational resolutions and engagement with these issues have often been too timid," according to the statement. "Our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed. We can do better."
No one speaks on behalf of all Southern Baptists, who leave decision-making to local churches. Yet the signatories represent some of the top figures in the convention.
Among them are the denomination's president, the Rev. Frank Page of South Carolina; two former presidents, the Rev. James Merritt of Georgia and the Rev. Jack Graham of Texas; and the Rev. Ronnie Floyd of Arkansas, who helped conservatives solidify control of the denomination in the 1970s and 1980s.
Also backing the effort are presidents of three prominent Baptist-affiliated schools: David Dockery of Union University in Tennessee; Timothy George of Samford University's Beeson Divinity School in Alabama; and Danny Akin of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina. More than 35 people signed the statement.
Supporters plan to collect more signatures for the declaration through baptistcreationcare.org and encourage congregations to advocate for environmental protection.
Even before Monday's statement, religious activism on climate change had broadened beyond just liberal-leaning churches.
The 1993 "Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation" became a guiding document for the Evangelical Environmental Network. The Rev. Rich Cizik, Washington director of the National Association of Evangelicals, became a prominent environmental advocate, trying to persuade conservative Christians that global warming is real.
Polls of younger evangelicals found they considered environmental protection a priority.
But many of the most conservative Christians, including some Southern Baptist leaders, remained skeptical, and vigorously challenged evangelical environmentalists.
The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, backed by James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship ministries, among others, said that while conservation is important, some environmental concerns "are without foundation or greatly exaggerated."
Last year, Dobson and other Christian conservatives unsuccessfully pressured the National Association of Evangelicals to silence Cizik on the issue.
The last Southern Baptist statement on global warming came at the denomination's 2007 annual meeting, which approved a statement questioning the belief that humans are largely to blame for climate change and warning that increased regulation of greenhouse gases will hurt the poor.
Even so, Jonathan Merritt, a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, began rallying denominational leaders to take a different approach. Merritt, 25, son of former convention president James Merritt, said a theology class had inspired him.
His professor had compared destroying God's creation to "tearing a page out of the Bible."
"That struck me. It broke me," the younger Merritt said in an interview, "and that was the impetus that began a life change, a shift of perspective for me."

Dr. Robert Smith Jr.

Links and information related to our March 9th guest speaker:

http://www.preaching.com/resources/features/11548050/

http://www.preaching.com/media/podcasts/11552116/archive3/

http://www.sebts.edu/chapel/chapelMessages.cfm?filter_sortdirection=DESC&filter_semesterid=0&Page=6

rrsmith@samford.edu
Associate Professor of DivinityA.S., God's Bible College B.S., Cincinnati Bible College M.Div., Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Doctor of Sacred Theology (Hon.), Temple Community Bible College

Robert Smith serves as professor of Christian preaching at Beeson Divinity School. Previously he served as the Carl E. Bates Associate Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. A popular teacher and preacher, he received Southern’s 1996 Findley B. Edge Award for Teaching Excellence. An ordained Baptist minister, he served as pastor of the New Mission Missionary Baptist Church for twenty years before returning to complete his Ph.D. He is a contributing editor of a study of Christian ministry in the African American church, Preparing for Christian Ministry, and co-editor of A Mighty Long Journey. His research interests include the place of passion in preaching, the literary history of African American preaching, Christological preaching, and theologies of preaching. At Beeson, Smith teaches Christian Preaching and other electives in homiletics. He received Beeson Divinity School’s "Teacher of the Year Award" in 2005. He and his wife, Wanda, are the parents of four adult children.

Time Margin, from LifeChurch.tv

Time Margin

By Craig Groeschel on March 5, 2008

Many people say, “I don’t have time for ______________.”
This statement isn’t true. The truth is, we have time for what we choose to have time for.
Too many people today allow the expectations of society to consume most of our time margin.
When God sends us an opportunity to make a difference, we often think we don’t have time.
This is a huge problem for churches. In my opinion, most churches do WAY TOO MUCH! We get busy managing ministries of the past and miss divine opportunities in the present.
The way we create margin in our schedules is simply by doing less.
What do you need to stop doing to create margin for God to use?

Acting With Urgency, from Perry Noble's blog

Acting With Urgency
There are times in life when action MUST be taken…I had one of those times several months ago…

I had been out and about and was pulling into my neighborhood when I felt something crawling in my pants right around my knee. I thought maybe my mind was playing tricks on me and dismissed it until…

While pulling into my driveway whatever “it” was decided to begin biting me…right around mid thigh!

How did I respond? Well…I didn’t do as many Christians would have done and begin praying about it. I didn’t form a group with other people who had been bitten to discuss the problem. I didn’t try to decide whether “it” had been predestined to bite me OR if it had chosen to…

I responded with urgency!

First of all I screamed like a girl! I am not trying to be crass here…but when you are a dude and something bites you mid-thigh…it is perfectly acceptable to scream!

Second of all I pulled my car into my garage as fast as I could…as I think back I probably barely made it in…our door isn’t the fastest opening door in the world.

Third I LEAPED out of my car and pulled my pants off. (I know–that’s gross, but ANY dude in my situation would have done the same!) I could not find whatever had bitten me earlier…so I just jumped up and down on my pants, hoping to eventually “squish” whatever it was that had VIOLENTLY disrupted my day.

(Lucretia gave me a VERY weird look when I walked inside with no pants on!)

Bottom line…when I was bitten…everything changed. I acted with urgency…I had to, sitting there and being passive was not an option…and doing so could have caused serious damage and pain!

There are times in life when many of us have felt “bitten” by God…nudged in an undeniably divine way that makes us incredibly uncomfortable and forces us to take immediate action. Simply put–I believe that God OFTEN causes us to act with urgency.

You see, if heaven and hell are real (and I believe they are), and people without Christ really do go to hell then we need to act with urgency. Unfortunately, many churches have used “evangelism repellent” to make sure that the “go and tell” bug gets nowhere near them.
When it comes to evangelism Scripture strongly indicates that we should all act with urgency…with passion…with a seriousness like never before. And…this Sunday we will see some incredible and undeniable scenarios of what happens when someone responds to God’s call on their life to take the message outside of the church.

This weekend will be one of those services that could quite possibly go down in NewSpring history as one of the best ever! Trust me when I say we will never forget it!One more thing…I also believe God calls us to urgently respond to things on an individual basis as well. Is there anything He’s asking you to do? Just curious.