Hammond, Hunt address 500 at state leader meeting
By josuedavid | August 17, 2008
Hammond, Hunt address 500 at state leader meeting
By Mickey Noah
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| Geoff Hammond, president of the North American Mission Board, addressed 515 state and local leaders at NAMB’s annual Summer State Leadership meeting July 27-30 in Atlanta. During the week, Hammond emphasized his agency’s focus on the new National Evangelism Initiative and announced new goals related to starting churches and sending missionaries in North America. Photo by John Swain. |
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| Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church Woodstock, Georgia, spoke to attendees at the North American Mission Board’s annual Summer State Leadership meeting in Atlanta. Hunt told those in the audience, “We need God to revive us personally, as churches and as a denomination, and give us passion for lost people.” Photo by John Swain. |
ATLANTA, Ga. – In one of the North American Mission Board’s largest summer senior leadership gatherings in its history, 515 Southern Baptist leaders converged in Atlanta July 27-31 and heard NAMB president Geoff Hammond say “this is not your father’s North America anymore.”
Representing Southern Baptists from each state of the Union, Canada and Puerto Rico, attendees included specialists in evangelism, church planting, ministry and academics from state conventions, local associations, all six SBC seminaries and NAMB.
“North America is increasingly a lost mission field,” Hammond told the crowd packing the Airport Westin Hotel ballroom. “North America has always been a mission field. It was a lost mission field that Jesus Himself came to.”
Hammond challenged Southern Baptist leaders to pray for a spiritual awakening in the changing North American environment, emphasizing the changing population and diversity of the U.S. and Canada.
“Among the world’s industrialized countries, Canada and the U.S. continue to have growing populations, legally and illegally,” said Hammond. “Canada admits into their country 250,000 legal immigrants each year. The U.S. population is 303 million and will be 400 million in the next 35 years. Over 100 million will be Hispanic.”
Illustrating the continent’s exploding diversity today, Hammond said 100,000 Ethiopians now call Atlanta home. Some 166,000 Armenians live in Los Angeles. In Toronto, 911 calls are handled in any of 150 languages, according to Hammond.
In his first address to state convention, local association and NAMB staff, new Southern Baptist Convention president Johnny Hunt delivered a wakeup call.
“If this denomination doesn’t get desperate for God’s Son and a movement of the Holy Ghost of God in our denomination again, we’re in trouble,” Hunt said. “The great evangelist Vance Havner said, ‘the great tragedy of our day is that the situation is desperate but the saints are not.’
Attendance at the recent convention in Indianapolis dropped 20 percent. You can’t do that very often and not be in serious trouble.”
Hunt, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga., said Baptists have to go back 50 years to find baptism numbers as low in North America. Hunt said evangelism is what Southern Baptists do as a result of what they’ve learned – to be obedient to the Great Commission.
“But revival comes when God touches. We need God to revive us personally, as churches and as a denomination, and give us passion for lost people. You let God come down and touch our hearts and we’ll share. God’s going to have to wake us up, shake us and show us where we are.”
To meet the challenges of spreading the Gospel throughout North America, NAMB’s senior strategists, under the leadership of Hammond, homed in on the mission agency’s new National Evangelism Initiative (NEI), recently introduced at the SBC’s annual convention in Indianapolis.
“Not often do we have the opportunity to come together at an historical point with a rallying call to Southern Baptists like the NEI,” Hammond said. “We didn’t come up with NEI in a vacuum. About 96 partners from state conventions, associations and NAMB developed the strategy after many hours of meetings and travel. After your input here, it will go national,” he told the audience.
With a time-horizon of 12 years, NEI will be launched in early 2009. Its theme will be “God’s Plan for Sharing” (GPS) with the goal of every believer sharing and every person in North America hearing by 2020. The four primary focus points of the initiative are praying, engaging, sowing and harvesting.
“The process of implementation lies in the hands of many of you in this room,” Hammond said. The church is the way Jesus has chosen to win the world. Our headquarters is the local church. Jesus died for the church.”
Calling associations the “front lines,” Hammond said association offices have most of the contacts with SBC churches. He reminded the Baptist leaders that in an effort to achieve more focus and emphasis on associations, NAMB has appointed David Meacham – a former associational missionary and state executive — to the newly created post of NAMB senior strategist for associations.
“Is NEI going to be a challenge? Absolutely. Is it anything less than what God expects of us? No.” Hammond told the audience that they would not recognize the Southern Baptist Convention in 2020 “if God helps us reach these goals.”
In addition to the objectives set for the NEI, Hammond stated additional goals in the areas of church starting and missionary sending.
Hammond stated he wants each of the 48,000 SBC churches in North America engaged in starting new churches to reach all people groups by 2020. In addition, he hopes to see every Southern Baptist crossing cultural and spiritual barriers to serve in some sort of short- or long-term mission endeavor by 2020.
During the four-day conference, NAMB also presented annual awards for outstanding achievements in evangelism and church planting to state conventions and individuals.
Steve Fowler, state director of missions for the Montana Southern Baptist Convention in Billings, Mont., was presented the “Dennis Hampton Rural Church Planting Award,” while Stanley K. Smith, state director of missions for the Baptist Convention of Pennsylvania-South Jersey, was given NAMB’s “People’s Choice Award” for “excellence in mentoring and coaching peers across North America in church planting.”
The Florida Baptist Convention was honored for being No. 1 in the “commitment to expand the Kingdom of God as demonstrated by the planting of 140 new churches in 2007, leading the Southern Baptist Convention in new churches started.”
The Wyoming Southern Baptist Convention was recognized for its 200 percent increase in the number of churches planted in 2007 over 2006.
NAMB’s Evangelization Group recognized four state conventions for their increase in the actual number of baptisms between 2006 and 2007. These included the Georgia Baptist Convention, the Florida Baptist Convention, the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Tennessee Baptist Convention.
Four other state conventions were honored for “expanding the kingdom of God by the increase in percentage of baptisms between 2006 and 2007.” These were the Illinois Baptist State Association, Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention, Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia, and the Convention of Southern Baptists of Puerto Rico.
The Kentucky Baptist Convention was recognized by NAMB’s Sending Missionaries Group as the state association mobilizing the greatest number of Mission Service Corps missionaries serving in evangelism and church planting during 2007.
NAMB also honored and recognized six individuals retiring this year: Darwin Bacon, state director of missions for the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, 20 years of service; Dave Bennett, professor of evangelism at Southwest Baptist University and former director of evangelism for the Missouri Baptist Convention, 16 years; Dan Crawford, professor of evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 23 years; Ted Lam, Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, 20 years; Judy Rice, Alaska Baptist Convention, 42 years; and Bill Wagner, former professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, IMB missionary and president of Olivet University International, 50 total years of service.
Topics: Misiones, Noticias, In English | No Comments »
“I Believe in Jesus, Not Doctrine”
By josuedavid | August 2, 2008
Truth is ancient; it’s grey hairs may make it venerable; it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. –Thomas Watson
| 11 June, 2007 comments: (38) | Postmodernism | |||||||
“I Believe in Jesus, Not Doctrine”Quoting Martyn Lloyd-Jones . . .
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Topics: Posmodernismo, Teología y Doctrina | No Comments »
Segundo Taller de Identidad Bautista
By josuedavid | May 13, 2008
Topics: Eventos, Identidad Bautista, Noticias, Teología y Doctrina, Apologética, En Español, Ayuda Ministerial | No Comments »
Israeli Supreme Court sides with Messianic Jews
By josuedavid | April 22, 2008
Posted on Apr 21, 2008 | by Erin Roach | Baptist PressJERUSALEM (BP)–The Supreme Court of Israel has ruled that Messianic Jews have the same rights regarding automatic citizenship as Jews who do not believe in Jesus as the Messiah.
The case was brought by 12 applicants who had been denied citizenship primarily because they were Jewish believers in Jesus. Most of them had received letters saying they would not receive citizenship because they “commit missionary activity,” according to an e-mail circulated by Calev Myers, founder and chief counsel of The Jerusalem Institute of Justice.
A clerk at the Ministry of Interior reportedly had told one of the applicants that because she was committing missionary activity, she was acting against the interests of the state of Israel and the Jewish people.
Israel’s Supreme Court ended the two-and-a-half-year legal battle April 16 by ruling that Messianics should receive equal treatment under the Israeli law of return, which says that anyone who is born Jewish can immigrate from anywhere in the world to Israel and be granted citizenship automatically.
“This is yet another battle won in our war to establish equality in Israel for the Messianic Jewish community just like every other legitimate stream of faith within the Jewish world,” Myers wrote.
Jim Sibley, a professor at Criswell College in Dallas and a former missionary to Israel, told Baptist Press that Jewish believers had been excluded from the law of return by previous court rulings, including one in the 1980s declaring that if a Jew believed in Jesus as the Messiah, he was not to be considered Jewish.
Traditional rabbinic Judaism teaches that Jewishness is determined by the mother’s bloodline, Sibley explained. Biblically, though, it is traced through the father.
“Apparently at least one of these 12 who were being denied citizenship had a Gentile mother and a Jewish father,” Sibley, director of the Pasche Institute of Jewish Studies at Criswell, said. “Even in a situation like that, it’s usually enough to be granted citizenship. All this [court decision] does is to basically say the same rules that apply to any other Jewish people would apply to Jewish believers in Jesus.”
With the ruling, Sibley said, Messianic Jews may seek citizenship in Israel without religious discrimination.
“It’s really a huge ruling because the court apparently further ordered the Israeli Ministry of Interior to stop persecuting Jewish believers,” Sibley said. “Some of the very Orthodox Jewish sectors of society had taken positions in the Ministry of Interior and had been using their positions to revoke believers’ citizenship, deny visas and generally harass not only Jewish believers in Jesus but also Christian workers in Israel.”
The Supreme Court’s decision should alleviate some of the pressure that Jewish believers and foreign Christian workers have felt in Israel, Sibley said, adding that he “can’t help but believe” the ruling is related to a terrorist attack on the Messianic community that occurred in March.
In that incident, 15-year-old Ami Ortiz, whose parents are noted Messianic congregational leaders in Ariel, opened a bomb disguised as a gift delivered to his home. He suffered extensive damage to his body but is expected to recover after at least a year of treatment. Though a police investigation is ongoing, anti-missionary Orthodox Jews were among those originally suspected as perpetrators.
Sibley said Orthodox Jews should reconsider their view of Messianic believers and stop persecuting them.
“With the multitude of Jewish people simply walking away from their Jewish identity and assimilating through secularism and intermarriage, Israelis don’t need to fear Messianic Jews,” Sibley said. “As they themselves should know, Jewish believers in Jesus not only affirm their Jewishness, they insist on it. And furthermore, those who are citizens of Israel are patriotic. They serve in the military and they pay their taxes.”
–30–
Erin Roach is a staff writer for Baptist Press.
Taken from: http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=27874
Topics: Evangelismo, Noticias | No Comments »
Together For The Gospel
By josuedavid | April 15, 2008
Martes, 15 de abril de 2008
La conferencia “Together For the Gospel” es un encuentro que se lleva a cabo cada dos años para pastores y líderes de nuestras iglesias. Esta conferencia en Louisville, Kentucky es dirigida por Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, C.J. Mahaney y Albert Mohler con el propósito de proclamar el verdadero evangelio centrado en Jesucristo y en las Sagradas Escrituras. Este año las conferencias son:
Sesión 1: Ligon Duncan
- Sana Doctrina, Esencial para el Fiel Ministerio Pastoral
- Una Gozosa Defensa y Declaración de la Necesidad y la Practicabilidad de la Teología Sistemática en la Vida de la Iglesia
Sesión 2: Thabiti Anyabwile
- Tomando la Imagen: Identidad, La Obra de Cristo y La Iglesia
Sesión 3: John MacArthur
- El pecador ni quiere ni puede: La doctrina de la absoluta inabilidad
Sesión 4: Mark Dever
- Mejorando el Evangelio: Ejercicios para Teología No Bíblica
Sesión 5: R.C. Sproul
- El motivo maldito de la Expiación
Sesión 6: Albert Mohler
- ¿Porqué la detestan tanto? La doctrina de la Expiación
Sesión 7: John Piper
- Como la Supremacía de Cristo Produce Un Cristiano Sacrificio Radical
Sesión 8: CJ Majaney
- Sosteniendo el alma del Pastor
El pastor Carlos Pacheco y el hermano Edwin Velez están participando de estas conferencias. Esta mañana el hermano Edwin Velez se comunicó con nosotros hablándonos de que hoy comienza el día de registro. Por estas cosas inesperadas de la vida, sus maletas se extraviaron al llegar pero ya finalmente las consiguieron. Oren para que esta actividad sea de bendición para todos los presentes y que sea un tiempo donde la unidad de la Iglesia de Jesucristo permee, esa que trasciende las denominaciones, centrados en el Padre Dios Creador, en Jesucristo como el único camino al Padre, en el Espíritu Santo como el único interprete de las Escrituras y Su Santa Palabra, Unica y Sola Regla de Fe y Conducta.
References:
Topics: Radicalmente Bíblicos, Eventos, Teología y Doctrina, Apologética | No Comments »
Reseña del Segundo Congreso de Jóvenes Radicalmente Bíblicos
By josuedavid | March 4, 2008
SEGUNDO CONGRESO DE JÓVENES RADICALMENTE BÍBLICOS
SI NO PUEDE VER EL VIDEO DE FOTOS PRESIONE AQUI
EDITORIAL POR JUVENTUDCRISTIANAPR.COM
La anticipación se iba acrecentando cada día que pasaba. Comenzaban a llegar mensajes indicando la cercanía del evento. Finalmente llegó el gran día del 1 de marzo de 2008; día en que se llevó a cabo el 2do Congreso de Jóvenes Radicalmente Bíblicos en Yauco. Caleb (Jefe de Contenido) y yo nos dirigimos rumbo a la Iglesia Bautista La Gracia en Yauco. El trayecto de la ruta de Caguas hacia Yauco demostró las bellezas y encantos de la zona sur de nuestra isla. Fue entonces cuando entramos a la Iglesia y nos percatamos que la misma se encuentra centrada en medio del campo pero cuenta con facilidades sumamente modernas. El estacionamiento se encontraba lleno y personas iban llegando en todo momento.
Nos dirigimos a la mesa de registro en donde un amable grupo de hermanos nos recibieron para formalizar el proceso de inscripción y orientación de los visitantes a la actividad. Al entrar al templo nos sorprendió la cantidad de jóvenes que abarrotaban las sillas y adoraban al Señor al ritmo del grupo de adoración. Luego de una candente y emocionante sesión de adoración y alabanza dirigida por jóvenes que demostraron sus dones artísticos de una forma magistral, se fueron presentando uno a uno los grupos de jóvenes de las diferentes iglesias. Asistieron jóvenes de todos los rincones de la isla y hasta de la República Dominicana. El ambiente era de júbilo y fiesta.
El pastor Xavier Crespo presentó una charla titulada Reformando tu corazón a través de la palabra y el pastor Carlos Pacheco hizo lo propio con la charla Un llamado radical. Los jóvenes tuvieron la oportunidad de reaccionar y comentar sobre los temas presentados y de entrar en comunión con Dios mientras aprendían sobre como llegar a ser realmente radicales.
El congreso contó con la participación de cerca de 500 personas las cuales estamos seguros que no salieron de Yauco de la misma forma en que llegaron. Felicitamos a los Jóvenes Radicalmente Bíblicos por coordinar esta gran actividad la cual demostró que se pueden unir jóvenes, Iglesias, pueblos y hasta países en el nombre de nuestro Señor Jesucristo.
Angel Ortiz
Editor de JuventudCristianaPR.com
GALERÍAS DE FOTOS
Topics: El Llamado, Radicalmente Bíblicos, Reflexión/Reto, Evangelismo | No Comments »
Taller de Doctrina: Identidad Bautista
By josuedavid | March 4, 2008
PARA FOTOS DEL TALLER DE DOCTRINA
PRESIONE AQUÍ
El Taller de Doctrina: Identidad Bautista se llevó a cabo en la Iglesia Bautista Apocalipsis de Aguadilla el sábado 16 de febrero de 2008. El nombre completo del taller: Identidad Bautista: Principios; Misión y Teología. El Seminario Teológico Bautista de Puerto Rico emitió certificados de participación a los presentes. Fue dirigidos a Pastores y miembros de Iglesias Bautistas del Sur pero nos visitaron pastores de otras denominaciones.
Las conferencias estarán publicadas en la página de la convención www.CIBSPR.org
Topics: Reflexión/Reto, Identidad Bautista, Noticias, Teología y Doctrina, Plantadores De Iglesias, Apologética | No Comments »
Retiro de ELPI en Cabo Rojo
By josuedavid | January 17, 2008
Jueves, 17 de enero de 2008
Por: Josué David Zapata-Vázquez
Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico - El pasado fin de semana se llevó a cabo en el Tony’s Restaurant and Hotel, el retiro anual de la Escuela de Líderes y Plantadores de Iglesias de la Convención de Iglesias Bautistas del Sur en Puerto Rico e Islas Vírgenes.
Topics: Reflexión/Reto, Ortopraxis, Posmodernismo, Eventos, Evangelismo, Noticias, Soteriología, En Español, Teología y Doctrina, Plantadores De Iglesias | No Comments »
You reap what you sow, more than you sow, and later than you sow.
By josuedavid | December 26, 2007
Live the Principle
Life Principle #6
You reap what you sow, more than you sow, and later than you sow.
Today is the father of tomorrow.
What we are today is the result of what we have been thinking and the way we have lived in the past. Those who save wisely today will have plenty tomorrow. Those who spend everything they have today will have little or nothing in the future. It is a shortsighted person who thinks only of the now, doing as little as possible, for on payday he will have no way to avoid the poor quality and small quantity of his rewards.
God has given us in Scripture a principle that serves both as a warning and an encouragement: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7). This is an unalterable law that affects everyone in every area of life, family, work, and pleasure.
Every farmer understands the hidden meaning in this principle: we reap what we sow, more than we sow, and later than we sow. Let’s look at each part of the principle to make sure we understand its full implications.
1. The principle applies to everyone, both Christians and non-Christians.
This principle is irrevocable; there is no escape, either for the believer or for the unbeliever. It is a law of life.
Did you notice how Galatians 6:7 begins? It says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked.” Herein lies the root cause of the careless and indulgent lifestyle of many believers. They are deceived. They either do not believe the truth, or they think they will somehow be the exceptions to God’s laws.
To mock God is to turn up one’s nose at Him, to hope to outwit Him—a foolish thought, as 2 Corinthians 5:10 reveals: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
If you were required to appear before the judgment seat of Christ in the next five minutes, what kind of crops would you be able to show?
2. We reap what we sow.
The fact that we reap what we sow is good news for those who sow good habits, but a frightening thought for those currently involved in ungodly activities such as promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse, neglect of family or mistreatment of others in order to climb the ladder of success. We cannot sow crabgrass and expect to reap pineapples. We cannot sow disobedience to God and expect to reap His blessing. What we sow, we reap. Let us not deceive ourselves: we will reap the harvest of our lives.
3. We reap more than we sow.
Why do farmers plant their seed? Because they expect to harvest a great deal more than they sow. A single seed that sprouts can yield dozens, scores, even hundreds of seeds. It is the same way with both sin and righteousness—a small decision to do either good or bad reaps a much bigger crop, for either joy or sorrow.
Jesus used the picture of a sprouting seed to show that when we allow God’s Word to produce good things in us, the results multiply: “He who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matt. 13:23). On the other side of the ledger, the prophet Hosea describes what awaits those who choose to sow seeds of wickedness: “They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind” (Hos. 8:7).
4. We reap later than we sow.
Some are deceived because their present seed does not appear to be producing an immediate crop. So they continue down their course, mistakenly believing that there will never be a harvest. But unlike the crops of the field, which get harvested at approximately the same time each year, there is no regular timetable for the harvest of life. Some crops we reap quickly; others take a long time. But do not be deceived—their season will come. And by going the second mile now and giving more than is required, we will reap rich dividends later.
“For whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” What a comforting and assuring thought to those who faithfully labor under difficult circumstances! Faithfulness in such situations will produce a rich harvest in the future, for our heavenly Father always keeps His promises.
Topics: Ortopraxis, Reflexión/Reto, In English, Artículos Recomendados | No Comments »
Por El Camino Angosto
By josuedavid | December 18, 2007
POR EL CAMINO ANGOSTO
Sermon predicado por el Pastor Paul Washer
http://blip.tv/file/473431
Topics: Posmodernismo, Ortopraxis, Evangelismo | No Comments »
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