Sleet, ice or snow could not stop conferees from ‘Restoring Passion; Raising the Cross’

By Bruce Tegg

Contributing Writer

SPRINGFIELD—Church leaders braved storms of sleet, ice and snow to stoke the fires of evangelism at the Missouri Baptist Convention’s (MBC) Evangelism Conference held Jan. 26-28 at Second Baptist Church here.

Conditions severe enough to hold the number of registrants down to 560 and prevent some speakers from attending could not prevent this year’s “Restoring Passion; Raising the Cross”-themed event from taking place. It was meant to bring attention to the need of first getting the church on track in the process of lifting up the cross.

Gary Taylor, MBC evangelism director, opened the conference with some sobering facts:

“There are 251 million unsaved people in America,” Taylor said. Every 11 seconds someone dies; 75 percent of them die without Christ.

“America is the third-most unsaved country in the world today.”

Ken Weathersby, senior strategist of the Evangelization Group with the North American Mission Board (NAMB), led the first session, preaching out of Philippians 3:10-15.

He said our Christian music is enjoyable and uplifting, pointing people to the Savior. Churches are plugged into technology and are using PowerPoint, videos, internet, blogs and bio-metrics. We can easily travel from one place to another using a variety of means. Yet with all these facts we still miss the mark.

“We have great music, great technology, great transportation, (but) why are this many (people) going to Hell?” he said. “We need to get back to the basics.”

He encouraged people to be faithful in the simple process inviting people to Christ and to church. NAMB did a recent research project to find the most effective way to get a non-church-attending member to return to church. After hundreds of surveys, asking people to identify which methods were the most effective, the answer was when a family member invited them to church. The second most effective method was a friend or neighbor inviting them to church.

After a brief time of praise led by Bill Shiflett, former MBC worship specialist who now leads worship at Lenexa (Kan.) Baptist Church, Norm Howell, pastor, Skyline Baptist Church, Branson, was presented with a plaque recognizing his work as a missionary working in El Salvador.

Steve Hale, staff evangelist, First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga., then encouraged church leaders, “Never doubt in the darkness what God gave you in the light.” He pointed to Joseph in Genesis and asked, “Are you doing what God called you to do?” Hale challenged listeners to examine what they are doing in the light of God’s call.

Once a person knows they are where God wants them, they must walk in the confidence of that knowledge. Additionally, they must be on guard for attacks from Satan in three main areas: family, finances and friendships.

Hale pointed to Joseph’s strength in resisting temptation in Genesis 39:10-13. He explained how Joseph was so secure in his relationship with God, his master’s wife could not be successful in her temptation. Even when Joseph was wrongfully accused, arrested and sentenced to prison, he refused to become bitter. He kept his integrity and used the adverse situations to draw him closer to the Lord. Hale explained many pastors, like Joseph, are overworked, underpaid, under appreciated and tempted on every side, but God has the power to bring victory.

A church leader’s relationship to the Lord must be made the priority. Through God’s power, pornography, bitterness, treachery, and anger can be turned into triumph. Hale concluded by saying, “God is more concerned what you are in Him, than what you are doing for Him.”

Due to the severe weather conditions, many in the morning crowd were kept from attending the evening sessions. Hale brought another challenging message, this time focused on the trials of Elijah.

“The problem (with America) is not in the White House, but in God’s house,” Hale said. “We have heard God’s Word, but we have not heeded what we have heard.”

He said America leads the world in pornography, illegal drug use, and illiteracy despite having more churches, Bibles and Christian bookstores. He explained it is the anemic church leading America into judgment and not the corrupt politicians.

Hale was upbeat about the climate being ripe for a spiritual awakening if God’s people would get right with God. Like the false prophets of old, the church of today has many activities but no fire, or voice of God.

Elijah repaired the altar of the Lord. Church leaders need to establish a daily quiet time and get alone with the Lord.

“Fifty percent of all pastors have some type of addiction and one-third of all pastors are addicted to porn,” Hale said. Pastors must repair the altar of God to experience the presence of God. So must churchgoers.

“Why are Christians saying, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ then skipping church for sporting events?” Hale asked.

Finally, Hale encouraged pastors to preach boldly.

“We have preachers more concerned about job security and not preaching the Word,” he said. Be more like John the Baptist, he concluded.

Charles Roesel, former 30-year pastor of First Baptist Church, Leesburg, Fla., followed Hale to the platform and sounded the call to action. More than 7,000 were baptized into the church at Leesburg under his ministry in a town of only 15,000 residents.

Someone once asked Roesel about his gimmick.

“The person and work of the Holy Spirit,” Roesel responded. “I don’t have a monopoly on Him, but I want Him to have a monopoly on me.”

“I believe the coming of the Lord is very near,” he noted, saying it should drive us to be engaged in the community around us. We must love the prostitutes, the diseased, and the homosexuals to Christ while we still have time.

Roesel said most people in today’s church do not depend on God for their provision and direction. Said another way, we lack purpose.

As he preached, Roesel described how God financed the building of an entire ministry village called the Christian Care Center, Inc., complete with more than 500 volunteers and 60 doctors operating more than 70 ministries through donations. Every month, more than 600 people receive care and ministry through their facilities. Don’t ask if we can afford a certain project, Roesel said. Ask if God wants it.

Roesel used The Lord’s Prayer to illustrate what Christians look like when they walk by faith and not by sight. Churches are splitting over insignificant issues while Muslim mosques are springing up across America. Roesel described a church splitting over a donated piano. It was a Yamaha and half the church did not want a Japanese-made piano in the church. Roesel warned, “We are one step from stupid at any time.”

By the end of the evening session cars were frozen in a solid coating of ice and sleet. Attendees returned to their homes and hotels determined to not allow this storm to quash their desire to learn more although there was the possibility the conference would have to close early due to the weather. 

Tuesday morning attendees awoke to another day of frozen streets and a constant barrage of sleet mixed with snow pummeling the city. The conference continued despite the bad weather, with Pastor Larry Wynn of Dacula, Ga., and Keynote Speaker Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, unable to fly into Springfield. The morning session began an hour later, and there was only one round of breakout sessions.

Roesel agreed to preach in the afternoon, preaching on compromise out of Exodus 8 and 10.

Pharaoh was willing to allow Moses to sacrifice as long as they stayed in Egypt. This is like the world saying you can worship God anywhere, you don’t need to go to church. This violates the command of God against forsaking the assembly of the church.

Pharaoh also granted permission to leave Egypt as long as they did not go very far away. This exemplifies those trying to keep one foot in the world while placing the other foot in the church. People want to have their Christian life without giving up their secular life. God calls this hypocrisy.

Pharaoh then relented a little more and allowed only the men to worship. This is how the world tells Christians to not force Christianity down the throats of their children. Roesel challenged this idea with the absurd logic of not forcing education, or cleanliness, or even vegetables on a child.

Roesel ended by emphasizing how Christians must love God and love people but use money, instead of loving money and using people.

Host Pastor John Marshall, who also agreed to be a substitute conference speaker, came with a sermon on Luke 19:10, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

In a communist country, churches are not permitted to have any organized activity outside the church building. Marshall used that truth to ask, “What evangelistic activity in your church would violate communist law?”

Marshall then made it clear the church today keeps feeding the few in the church while the unsaved are dying and going to Hell. One strategy employed at Second Baptist is for Christians to tell their unsaved friends they are praying for them, then do it. “People believe in prayer,” Marshall said, noting that they will appreciate you praying for them.

In a stinging statement, Marshall proclaimed, “Our denomination has been on a 30-year tantrum being mad at lost people and what they do.” This anger Christians experience over lost people acting like lost people is destructive to evangelistic efforts. Jesus used the illustration of a parent relating to a child. Love must be the basis of the relationship, not anger.

In conclusion, Marshall told the story of his grandfather who was lost in the woods. After a long time, the sounds of the rescuers seemed more like the sounds of something to run from. Marshall compared this experience to the lost running from the very ones who can introduce them to the Savior. Christians must use kindness, gentleness and love to reach the lost.

In the evening session, Joe White, president of Kanakuk Kamps and founder of Young Christian’s Weekend, Kids Across America, and Cross International, came in carrying a 20-foot telephone pole. In character, White complains about needing to make another cross for a man named Jesus. As he tells salvation’s story, White, aggressively chops a notch in the pole to attach a cross bar. 

Unknown to many, he does these presentations, chopping, lifting, nailing and finally carrying the full-sized cross, while fighting leukemia. The presentation is gripping and can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Qf7VM2bys.

White then invited the attendees to see the best illustration of what Jesus does for us. He showed a video of Dick Hoyt, who ran with his son, Rick, a victim of cerebral palsy, in a variety of marathons (the journey’s apex was the Iron Man competition). White compared Hoyt carrying his son across the finish line to what it will be like when Christ carries us across our finish line.

As he scattered chain links across the platform, White invited each person to kneel at the front, take a link, pray and recommit his or her life to Christ. The chain link is a reminder to be solidly chained to Christ and not chained to pornography, abuse, hate, rage, and unforgiveness.

Grown men were moved to tears and sobs of repentance filled the sanctuary as White ended in prayer. The ice did not seem so cold, or the snow so deep, as people left the building to brush and scrape several inches of the wintry mix off their cars. The conference had warmed their hearts.