114386936089093636

An Evangelism Problem?

Those who know me, know that I’m committed to missions and evangelism. Our small church has doubled their baptisms every year for 3 years running now. We’ve gone door to door and shared Christ in over 1,000 homes in the past year alone. We have increased our missions giving from around $1,000 the first year that I was there, to around $7,000 today. I’m not trying to brag (you’ll see that clearly in a minute) but I want to help you to understand that I’m not trying to cop out of the work of evangelism. After all of this “success” it seems to me that we’re failing miserably. Let me illustrate:

In America, 70% of evangelical “converts” leave the church within one year of their “conversion.” Of those “converts” left in the church, a large amount would be children, of which 88% of churched children leave the church at 18 yrs of age, and never return. This would lead me to conservatively estimate that maybe 15% of our converts are legitimate. Maybe!

Then, if you consider that divorce rates are higher in the church than out, teen promiscuity is just as high in the church rather than out, etc., etc. etc., it seems to me that of those left in the church, many of those are not truly “regenerated” or “changed” by God’s power. Billy Graham has said before that some 70% of church attenders are lost. That reduces the amount of legitimate conversions to something like 3-4%.

I say all this to say that I’m conerned that our understanding of evangelism is seriously flawed. I can certainly identify the problem, but I struggle with finding an answer to the problem. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, particularly as it relates to potential solutions.

114386936089093636

An Evangelism Problem?

Those who know me, know that I’m committed to missions and evangelism. Our small church has doubled their baptisms every year for 3 years running now. We’ve gone door to door and shared Christ in over 1,000 homes in the past year alone. We have increased our missions giving from around $1,000 the first year that I was there, to around $7,000 today. I’m not trying to brag (you’ll see that clearly in a minute) but I want to help you to understand that I’m not trying to cop out of the work of evangelism. After all of this “success” it seems to me that we’re failing miserably. Let me illustrate:

In America, 70% of evangelical “converts” leave the church within one year of their “conversion.” Of those “converts” left in the church, a large amount would be children, of which 88% of churched children leave the church at 18 yrs of age, and never return. This would lead me to conservatively estimate that maybe 15% of our converts are legitimate. Maybe!

Then, if you consider that divorce rates are higher in the church than out, teen promiscuity is just as high in the church rather than out, etc., etc. etc., it seems to me that of those left in the church, many of those are not truly “regenerated” or “changed” by God’s power. Billy Graham has said before that some 70% of church attenders are lost. That reduces the amount of legitimate conversions to something like 3-4%.

I say all this to say that I’m conerned that our understanding of evangelism is seriously flawed. I can certainly identify the problem, but I struggle with finding an answer to the problem. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, particularly as it relates to potential solutions.

114386724317491174

This is hilarious!

I don’t know what to think of it. I’ve never, EVER, thought of myself as in the vein of the Wesleyan/Methodism tradition. This will take some thinking on my own part. The only saving grace is that Fundamentalist is on down the list, just above neo-orthodox. Take the little test yourself, it’s fun.

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God’s grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Emergent/Postmodern 79% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Reformed Evangelical 68% Fundamentalist 61% Neo orthodox 54% Classical Liberal 46% Charismatic/Pentecostal 43% Modern Liberal 39% Roman Catholic 11% What’s your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

114386724317491174

This is hilarious!

I don’t know what to think of it. I’ve never, EVER, thought of myself as in the vein of the Wesleyan/Methodism tradition. This will take some thinking on my own part. The only saving grace is that Fundamentalist is on down the list, just above neo-orthodox. Take the little test yourself, it’s fun.

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God’s grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists. Emergent/Postmodern 79% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Reformed Evangelical 68% Fundamentalist 61% Neo orthodox 54% Classical Liberal 46% Charismatic/Pentecostal 43% Modern Liberal 39% Roman Catholic 11% What’s your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

114347244774957978

What to do about re-Baptism?

Our church has struggled through the controversy surrounding the new Baptism policy of the International Mission Board (IMB) with much fervor over the past months. This controversy hit home, strongly, this week at our church. You see our Youth Pastor (YP) and his wife are in process with the IMB to become Missionary Aprentices which would lead to career missionary status. They want to work with unreached people groups, probably Muslim peoples and very possibly in Turkey which is the most lost country in the world, statistically. The hang up is that our YP was saved and then baptized in a church that is strongly evangelical but who believes that you can lose your salvation. The IMB has stated that he must be baptized in an appropriate church in order to proceed and this caused a quandry for our church, and for me personally. Do we, and I, re-baptize them to satisfy the IMB or do we stand firm because we believe that his previous baptism was suficient?

We finally came to the following conclusion and I thought it might be helpful to others to hear what we went through and so I thought I would describe our conclusions.

1. We believe that biblical baptism is baptism by immersion, post-conversion as a symbolic testimony to our affiliation with Christ. Since this affiliation is with Christ, and not any specific church, it is not necessary that it be in a church that is doctrinally unified with our church. As long as the prescribed processes above are completed, it is biblical baptistm.

2. As we believe in biblical baptism as outlined above, and as we believe that the current IMB requirements place extra-biblical requirements on baptism, we then interpret the decision to require extra-biblical baptism to mean that those who are espousing extra-biblical requirements are understood to be weaker brothers and sisters in the faith. (i.e. many of the IMB trustees. I realize that it is probably not popular to call the trustees of a SBC entity weaker brothers/sisters, but it is our understanding that in this particular instance, and for the reasons listed above this categorization would apply.)

3. Re-baptism of anyone would not be a sin (although biblically unnececesary) and therefore permissible if conscience is able to be complicit.

4. As the spread of the gospel among unreached peoples is more of a priority than a non-essential doctrinal/theological disagreement, and for the sake of building harmony among those of our fellowship (SBC) who are “weaker believers” we would go ahead with the re-baptism.

That is why we ended up participating in the re-baptism of one of our church’s most dedicated members, faithful Christians, and fantastic staff members last night. We did choose to do it on a Sunday night so as to do away with potential confusion for any non-believers or young, immature believers who might be in the audience. All in all, while I’m not happy with having to participate in the activity of re-baptizing an already baptized believer, I’m thankful that we can have a part in the propogation of the Gospel around the world.

114347244774957978

What to do about re-Baptism?

Our church has struggled through the controversy surrounding the new Baptism policy of the International Mission Board (IMB) with much fervor over the past months. This controversy hit home, strongly, this week at our church. You see our Youth Pastor (YP) and his wife are in process with the IMB to become Missionary Aprentices which would lead to career missionary status. They want to work with unreached people groups, probably Muslim peoples and very possibly in Turkey which is the most lost country in the world, statistically. The hang up is that our YP was saved and then baptized in a church that is strongly evangelical but who believes that you can lose your salvation. The IMB has stated that he must be baptized in an appropriate church in order to proceed and this caused a quandry for our church, and for me personally. Do we, and I, re-baptize them to satisfy the IMB or do we stand firm because we believe that his previous baptism was suficient?

We finally came to the following conclusion and I thought it might be helpful to others to hear what we went through and so I thought I would describe our conclusions.

1. We believe that biblical baptism is baptism by immersion, post-conversion as a symbolic testimony to our affiliation with Christ. Since this affiliation is with Christ, and not any specific church, it is not necessary that it be in a church that is doctrinally unified with our church. As long as the prescribed processes above are completed, it is biblical baptistm.

2. As we believe in biblical baptism as outlined above, and as we believe that the current IMB requirements place extra-biblical requirements on baptism, we then interpret the decision to require extra-biblical baptism to mean that those who are espousing extra-biblical requirements are understood to be weaker brothers and sisters in the faith. (i.e. many of the IMB trustees. I realize that it is probably not popular to call the trustees of a SBC entity weaker brothers/sisters, but it is our understanding that in this particular instance, and for the reasons listed above this categorization would apply.)

3. Re-baptism of anyone would not be a sin (although biblically unnececesary) and therefore permissible if conscience is able to be complicit.

4. As the spread of the gospel among unreached peoples is more of a priority than a non-essential doctrinal/theological disagreement, and for the sake of building harmony among those of our fellowship (SBC) who are “weaker believers” we would go ahead with the re-baptism.

That is why we ended up participating in the re-baptism of one of our church’s most dedicated members, faithful Christians, and fantastic staff members last night. We did choose to do it on a Sunday night so as to do away with potential confusion for any non-believers or young, immature believers who might be in the audience. All in all, while I’m not happy with having to participate in the activity of re-baptizing an already baptized believer, I’m thankful that we can have a part in the propogation of the Gospel around the world.

114316443922349585

IMB Broadcasts

As many of the current trustees are calling for openness and because the trustee board of the IMB reports directly to the convention at large, and also because most of SBC observers are not able to take the time and/or money to be at IMB BoT meetings I think that it is time to start providing all public meetings of the BoT online in a downloadable format. The cost to handle this would negligible and the staffing would not need to be increased as the time involved would be minimal. This would solve many problems as far as public support and trust for the IMB BoT is concerned. As these sessions are already open to the public there would be no concerns about the information getting out. This seems to be a win/win situation to me. This is already accomplished by the SBC with our annual meetings and so the technology should be readily available. I would encourage you to write the trustees and encourage them in this way. This should be a very workable solution to the issue of openness and accountability that is so needed.

I can’t take credit for the idea, either. Thanks to Ben Cole for being the brainchild behind this option.

114316443922349585

IMB Broadcasts

As many of the current trustees are calling for openness and because the trustee board of the IMB reports directly to the convention at large, and also because most of SBC observers are not able to take the time and/or money to be at IMB BoT meetings I think that it is time to start providing all public meetings of the BoT online in a downloadable format. The cost to handle this would negligible and the staffing would not need to be increased as the time involved would be minimal. This would solve many problems as far as public support and trust for the IMB BoT is concerned. As these sessions are already open to the public there would be no concerns about the information getting out. This seems to be a win/win situation to me. This is already accomplished by the SBC with our annual meetings and so the technology should be readily available. I would encourage you to write the trustees and encourage them in this way. This should be a very workable solution to the issue of openness and accountability that is so needed.

I can’t take credit for the idea, either. Thanks to Ben Cole for being the brainchild behind this option.

114315084423456976

DAWN Online

Our DAWN Missions Conference sessions are now available online. Of particular interest is the personal testimony of Robak Hoospianmer, a refuge from Iran who works with Voice of the Martyrs. Check it out here.

114315084423456976

DAWN Online

Our DAWN Missions Conference sessions are now available online. Of particular interest is the personal testimony of Robak Hoospianmer, a refuge from Iran who works with Voice of the Martyrs. Check it out here.