Annual conference focuses on ‘Evangelism Resurgence’ across state

Annual conference focuses on ‘Evangelism Resurgence’ across state

By Maggie Walsh and Neisha Roberts
The Alabama Baptist

Once you’ve been touched by the Master Creator, you’re forever changed. And that change should prompt action, Kenny Grant said.

“Ordinary people come in contact with extraordinary Christ and are transformed,” said Grant, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Savannah, Georgia, at the Feb. 27–28 Alabama Baptist State Evangelism Conference. Take the story of the demon-possessed man in Mark 5, for instance.

“This man is a hard case in a hard place,” Grant said. His spiritual desecration, social isolation, mental domination, emotional desperation, physical mutilation, moral degradation and total devastation caused everyone to run from him — everyone but Jesus.

“Jesus sailed through a hellish storm to get to this man,” Grant said, and once the man felt “the grip of grace” he was changed. And in verse 19, Jesus tells the man to do one thing: “Tell them how much the Lord has done for you.”

Grant emphasized, “If you’ve been redeemed it seems like the very least you can do is tell somebody.”

Under the theme of “Evangelism Resurgence,” about 500 participants were inspired and challenged through sermons, songs and a good dose of the Holy Spirit during the conference held at First Baptist Church, Pelham.

Growing through evangelism

Chad Burdette, pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church, Ranburne, believes “any single church in the state of Alabama can grow through evangelism.”

But in order to do that, he said, pastors are going to have to get real about what is going on in churches.

“When are we going to quit designing church services to fit our needs instead of praising Him?”

It comes down to understanding our brokenness, a reality that hit Burdette years ago when he was addicted to prescription drugs and alcohol. And it wasn’t until he crashed into a wall — literally — that he began to realize something needed to change. While he was in a drug rehabilitation center in Georgia, he reached the end of his rope.

“I was sick and tired of being sick and tired but I was reminded of the One I was told about and I believed in the power of prayer and a risen Savior.”

In the same way, the Church has to cry out to Jesus with a fresh awareness of its own brokenness.

‘We need to welcome Jesus’

“We need a breakthrough,” Burdette said. “But we cannot pray for a breakthrough unless we’re broken ourselves. Resurgence must begin in the local church before it can hit the community. … If we want a resurgence, if we want a movement, we need to welcome Jesus.”

James Merritt, pastor of Cross Pointe Baptist Church, Duluth, Georgia, reminded participants that everyone has a funeral. And everyone “can make an eternal impact … and leave an eternal echo” through their legacy.

Sharing from Acts 20 and pulling from Paul’s instruction to the elders of the early Church, Merritt suggested three ways to be on mission for the Lord and to leave an “eternal echo” — by serving God’s people, speaking God’s truth and sharing God’s grace.

“Everybody’s been called to testify the good news of God’s grace,” Merritt said. “We’re all called to different vocations but we’re all called to the same task. Nothing in life will have a greater, longer-lasting impact than when you share about the grace of God you have experienced.”

Take the grace that Joel Carwile, pastor of First Baptist Church, Athens, experienced in his own family, for instance. Carwile shared the faith story of his parents — his father accepted Christ just months after Carwile became a pastor, a salvation that answered a 19-year prayer effort by Carwile’s mother.

‘We must be the watchmen’

Drawing from Ezekiel 33:1–9, Carwile likened his mother’s faithfulness in praying and sharing the gospel with his father to the life-saving warning mentioned in verse 7. The passage talks about how God renewed Ezekiel’s call as a watchman whose primary role was to hold others accountable and warn them of the deadly consequence of turning from God.

“We must be the watchmen of the hour,” Carwile said. “You and I are called to be watchmen because God will bring a sword to our land. … All we’re required to do is tell. God does the saving. We need to change some of our scorecards for what success is.

“Do you want an ‘Evangelism Resurgence?’” he asked. “Start at the house (with your family) … and don’t give up.”
In the broken world in which we live, however, we’re so easily distracted by our frustration from any number of things, said Larry Robertson, pastor of Hillsdale Baptist Church, Clarksville, Tennessee. But is it worth it?

‘We’re offended’

“My sermon has no points but my sermon has a point — I want to submit to you today as my only point that we’re offended, but we’re offended at lesser things.

“We’re deeply offended when someone takes a symbol of our faith and desecrates it. But I ask you how offended are we at the artwork of Satan to desecrate not a symbol of God but a substantive image of God — a living breathing human thing?

“How offended are we at the lostness of our neighbors? When’s the last time we looked at somebody and saw beneath the layers of life choices and brokenness and pain and just knew in our hearts that this is not the way things are supposed to be?”

That is why we have been saved, he said, to share Jesus with others so He can transform them into His likeness.

“What offends you more — those external things or the fact that a person is the image of God, the ‘imago Dei,’ disfigured by sin?” Robertson challenged.

“If we don’t open our hearts and our minds, we’ll never open our mouths.”

We’ll never open our mouths, however, if our relationship with the Lord is fractured like the Church in Jerusalem’s was during Nehemiah’s day.

Blake Newsom said, “[The Church in Jerusalem] had sinned against God and breached and broken their relationship. … They were dealing with the aftermath of their sin and struggling to maintain the mission God had given them — to glorify God to the nations around them.”

Worldly influences

In the same way today “we as a people of God are in danger of losing our identity as a holy people. … The world influences us more than we have influenced the world. We have forgotten our mission,” said Newsom, pastor of Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile.

But Newsom said believers can see in Nehemiah three ways to reclaim their identity and mission — by casting a greater vision, having a deeper burden and feeling an urgent response to the mission God has entrusted to us.

“The Church has too often been on the defense. It’s time to hit back. We need the men of God to stand up and say, ‘I’ll rebuild the walls, God. Who’s with me? No one? That’s OK, I’ll go by myself to rebuild it.’ And we’ll wait to see the things God can do when we get a greater vision and a deeper burden that flows into an urgent response.”