As some of you may know recently me and a friend went to a local seeker sensitive “church” called The Wave Church located in Virginia Beach, VA. While there we shared the Gospel with a lady there and to make a long story short we were met with amazing amounts of hostility from Steve Kelly the churches pastor and were escorted by security off the campus.

You can listen to the entire story located in the second hour from start to finish on Pirate Christian Radio by clicking here.

That was almost a month ago? So why bring it up now?

Because  recently there were some incredibly serious allegations against Perry Nobles church NewSpring Church.

So what happens when someone so much as blogs about these pop-culture untouchable self appointed men of God in way that they do not approve of?

Harassment.

Stalking.

Verbal assault.

Gay Porn sent in mail.

Family harassed.

Mocking.

and yes even having a long awaited adoption ruined.

Shocking? Yes…Incredibly.

However the question needs to be asked. Should this sort of behavior be expected?

These boys who pretend to be pastors of human beings are quick to come up with new ideas but never are they willing to defend them. They would rather be a bully. It’s easier. This is why you have never seen an academic debate of their methodologies because they are unable to defend any accusation honestly. It’s much easy to set-up fake twitter accounts and try to destroy ones family.

Ken Silva had an issue like this before. For writing blogs against Richard Abanes and Rick Warren where instead of Abanes being a man, he played the bully and tried to take down Ken Silva’s entire website by contacting the web host.

I do believe as the proclamation of the Gospel grows in the United States these ‘churches’ will be exposed for who they truly are and more and more persecution will come to anyone who tries to stand up for the Gospel.

This is nothing more then a start of a new version of catholic tyranny.

Just remember what the Bible says about reproof in Proverbs:

“Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.” – Proverbs 9:8

NewSping is a classic example of a scoffer, just as so many seeker driven best life now pastors are.

Here is the entire account of the incident according to James Duncan  - Read Here

Here is the statement sent out at NewSpring – Read Here

In my last post I discussed why I believe that the GCR would fail. However I do not believe that the GCR is a failed hopeless attempt at bringing life into a dead convention. I think there is hope. So here are some ideas that I believe will be vital for the success of the Great Commission Resurgence.

Remember, the core problem of the Southern Baptist Convention is not a lack of Church planting or national mission  boards. These are simply symptoms and causes of a greater problem, a complete lack of desire  to do any evangelism at all.

So how can the SBC address the root cause?

American Missionaries
I want to suggest that one of the functions of the Southern Baptist Convention  should be to hire and equip full time “American  Missionaries.” These would be men  of God who are actively involved in  evangelism in  the United States. Their primary goal would be to travel and proclaim the Gospel all over the United States while their secondary goal would be to visit local Southern Baptist Churches, hold evangelism training seminars and encouraging the congregation by example to go share their the glorious truths of God’s word.

I got a twitter about this yesterday from @Witnesses

@Witnesses – Not that I am out there [doing evangelism] all that much myself, I’d like someone local to encourage me and join me to ease my nervousness.

How many people within the Southern Baptist Convention desire to share the Gospel but have no idea how to do it? They just need someone to come along side of them and support them. A traveling evangelist could come to a local area spend a few weeks with several churches and encourage people to share the Gospel.

This would be a great way to “just be there” and support those who desire to do evangelism but never had the support.

The great thing about this is that there are many Southern Baptist across the nation who are already actively involved in street ministry/public evangelism. They may not be the most scholarly but their heart is there and they are experienced in the work of evangelism. Some of them I know personally, they have quit their jobs and are supporting their family based on donations from friends and family members. Why not have the SBC come and financially support these guys who are already actively involved in the work of the Great Commission and allow them to be more productive then they could be on donation based ministry?

Shouldn’t the SBC desire to support active evangelism in the community anyway?

The people within  the congregation need to see first hand that mission work does not take place overseas but right in their backyard. They need to see normal, average people being bold for the Gospel while being encouraged to do the same thing.

I am not saying that we should exclude seminary graduates from this position but I do not think we should exclude non-seminarians from this either. The Southern Baptist Convention has done such a fine job of creating a caste system with it’s elaborate seminaries and education requirements for missionaries that the people who just “go to church” believe that the work of the church is to much for them. They feel that they don’t know enough. The average people in the Southern Baptist Convention need to see average Southern Baptist giving their lives for the Gospel.

This is all part of nurturing the ground for the work of Church planting. It’s all part of the goal of getting the average joes involved in the dirty yet rewarding work of the Gospel. Without it the Great Commission Resurgence will be lost among the other great convention meetings and heated debates, becoming nothing more then a Southern Baptist battle over carpet color.

As someone who was pretty much born and raised Southern Baptist and is passionate about evangelism I was really excited about the Southern Baptist Conventions “Great Commission Resurgence.” Upon first hearing about this I became a huge cheerleader for it. I watched the streams of the convention, followed #sbc2009 tag and was extremely proud of my denomination to see it pass. However recently as I have been researching it and following what the GCR plans to do in terms of church planting and missions, I have become incredibly disappointed. You see it’s not that the plans to reshuffle the IMB and NAMB are a bad idea, it’s not. In fact I am a huge fan of placing missions back into the hands of the local church and disassembling the mission boards are part of that.

However if you think reshuffling and rearranging the current structure is going to make the Southern Baptist Convention transform the world for the Gospel…your out of your mind.

The primary problem is not the mission boards. The primary problem in the Southern Baptist Convention are people who believe that they can come to church once a week, place their money in offering plate and  perform their weekly act of evangelism by telling the waitress at Shoneys that they “just got back from church.”

The root of the problem is not the structure of the current system.The root of the problem is people who don’t care about the Gospel.

The problem is we are trying to get Church planting into the hand of people who could care less about other churches besides their own. We are trying to place missions into the hands of people who really believe as long as their local church meets their Lottie Moon goal every year…they can mark “Great Commission” off of their list of Christian things to do.

The problem with the Great Commission Resurgence is that for to long the Southern Baptist Convention has done little to nothing to raise up soldiers for the Gospel. Our altar calls and fast food evangelism at the end of a sermon has made entire generations have no clue how to share the Gospel with their own families or neighbors.

You can prove this quite easily.

Stand up in front of your Church next Sunday and announce that the entire Church will be going to the local mall to share the Gospel after service. Tell them were going to swarm the halls of holiday shoppers with the true meaning of Christmas. Let them know all they have to do is pass out tracts to strangers, they don’t have to say a word to anyone…

Then simply count how many people show up and that number will be the reason the GCR will fail.

Its quite simple, if you go into a SBC church and ask the people to step outside and share the Gospel they will stare at you as if you are a pregnant teenager.

Unless the Southern Baptist Convention addresses the root issue the Convention will never be a Church planting convention.

And let me be clear. This is not about seeing every church member on a soapbox on the corner. This is not about street preaching. The problem is far more serious then that, this is about getting people to talk about the Gospel with people they know and getting the boldness to talk to people they don’t know.

So please Albert Mohler, Danny Akin, Johnny Hunt and the rest of the GCR committee include some ways to get the back row baptist on the front lines or else you are seriously wasting your time.

In the next blog, I’ll give you some ideas on how to accomplish this.