FORT WORTH—Baptist educators, a Texas pastor, an expert on the law and the head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s ethical and moral concerns entity shared their perspectives on the church’s response to the issue of homosexuality during a panel discussion following the close of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention annual meeting, Nov. 11. The panel was held in MacGorman Chapel on the campus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.

The panel, moderated by SBTC Director of Communications and Ministry Relationships Gary Ledbetter, agreed the church’s failure to speak both to the culture and its members has contributed to the normalization of homosexuality and the rapid acceptance of same-sex marriage in the culture.

Criswell College President Barry Creamer said the trajectory of this issue at this moment has the Bible-believing church judged to be on the wrong side of history rather than the “wrong side of truth.”

Nonetheless, said Creamer, “we have to make absolutely certain the basis of all we do in responding to the government or being obedient to proclaiming the gospel is rooted in my love of God and my love for my neighbor.”

While the gap between the church and culture is well acknowledged, there is a similar gap between the pulpit and the pew on this issue, noted Nathan Lino, senior pastor of Northeast Houston Baptist Church.

“Our people are desperate for teaching on these matters. We do not have to convince them to want to talk about these things,” Lino said.

“I think we pastors live in such a bubble based on our vocation that we are out of touch with the reality in which people live. They are immersed in these matters. … Yet no one is speaking truth to them in these matters nor teaching how to do truth well.”

Lino said homosexuality is personal for most young people: “They have homosexual friends. When we address the issue, they’re not hearing an issue, they’re thinking of their friend.”

“We haven’t done a good job training younger generations how to think biblically about sexuality,” asserted Evan Lenow, assistant professor of ethics and director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Seminary. He said the church has failed to give young people a scriptural foundation for human sexuality.

Russell Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission in Nashville, said the church has been caught flat-footed with the rapid shift in opinion on the homosexual issue in part because of its mishandling of the Bible’s teachings on sexuality.

For a long time, Moore said, the church’s preaching on divorce was unbiblical, given that it was condemnatory. Divorced persons were viewed as “social pariahs,” he said. Then, he continued, the church “over-corrected” on the issue when divorce became normalized in the culture.

“The problem with divorce is not that it is shocking but that divorce is destroying a picture of the union of the church and Jesus Christ,” Moore said.

“The culture around us has changed its views on sexuality where sexuality becomes the highest good and the highest end of who someone is. When you add to it a narrative that views the sexual revolution in the same terms as the civil rights movement, you don’t have a church that is able to stand up and say, ‘Here is what marriage and sexuality are.’”

Lino agreed, saying the disconnect between the church and the culture has been building for a number of years.

“The gap between our people understanding where culture is and being able to appropriately address culture comes from a lack of proper teaching on the matter over the last 10 to 20 years,” Lino said.

Pastors need to give a more full understanding of the gospel as it relates to human sexuality, Lino said.

“It’s not just homosexuality that we need to be addressing. Homosexuality is a piece of a bigger pie,” Lino said.

“We speak against homosexuality just like we are supposed to be speaking against heterosexual premarital sex. We’re also supposed to be speaking against heterosexual extramarital sex. We’re supposed to be speaking about gender roles. All of these are the same matter. All of these are the picture of Christ and the church.

“Our people are unprepared to deal with these issues in the culture because they don’t think of it along these lines. Until we start equipping them with a more robust gospel they’re not going to be able to address this in culture, and we are just going to fall more behind.”

Creamer noted that for a time the church was “supporting and undergirding cultural norms as if that were the communication of our Christian message and the gospel,” and as a result, many were treated as outcasts by the church.

“It wasn’t that they couldn’t be saved and come into the gospel; it was because they were outside of the norms of American behavior,” he said, noting the church needs to clean up its act when seeking to minister to individuals who are in some ways different than those traditionally served by the church.

“Our presentation of the gospel has in some ways been marginalized in this culture because we held on to some of those stereotypes and language in the same way we held on to racist language,” Creamer said, quickly noting, “Racism and gender identity are totally different issues morally in the world.”

There were those elements of the faith community that “attached their conservatism to the society instead of to the gospel,” Creamer said, insisting those in the church need to be more careful in their choice of words.

“It’s not a compromise of our commitment to the gospel to be more considerate about the way we speak about people in the culture who need to come to the gospel.”

Ledbetter asked the panel how pastors should respond when their religious liberty rights are threatened, as in the recent case in Houston when the city’s mayor subpoenaed pastors’ sermons and notes related to the city’s statute extending certain rights to gay and transgender residents.

Moore said church leaders would be wise in heeding the model set by the Apostles Peter and John, as recorded in Acts 4, who when they were told to cease preaching, refused.

“That’s necessary because the only way they could be obedient to Christ is to refuse to submit to that decree,” he said, explaining at times the state will ask Christ-followers to do things they might not agree with but that are within the “rightful authority” of the government to require.

“But then there are going to be those things that to obey the government is to disobey God,” Moore added, citing instances in which the government tries to dictate what is to be preached or asserts what is and what isn’t sin.

“We have to say to the government, ‘There’s a law higher than your law,’ and refuse to obey,” Moore said.

Moore said one of the more immediate issues in the area of religious liberty doesn’t concern churches but instead children’s homes, adoption agencies and colleges and universities.

“One of the biggest problems we are going to have is those agencies simply laying down, not even fighting for their religious liberty rights, which will then consign everybody else and future generations to a violation of conscience,” Moore said. These institutions need to be willing to face “some cost and some hurt,” he added.

Lino said he grew up in South Africa during apartheid as the son of a pastor. He recalled his father preaching against racism on Sunday mornings. Government agents would record his father’s sermons, even going so far as to come to his house and bully him because of his stance against the government’s racist policies.

“When we left South Africa,” Lino said. “I thought we left that behind.”

“The reaction of pastors to the government in those situations has to be very different than our reaction to culture. When culture is opposing us, it’s a lot different.”

Anticipating a day to come when legal protection for religious rights will no longer prevail, Lino said, “We have to resolve in our hearts that we are men of God, that when we surrendered to the call, we died to ourselves.”

“The government might think we are mercenaries, that we are in this for money, fame and power and that if they bully us we don’t want to lose those things, so we will give in.

“We are citizens of a Kingdom. The day is going to come that we will pay a price. And it’s going to get here a lot sooner than we expected.”

This tidal change in the culture will also impact the legal environment the church finds itself in, attorney Jim Guenther said.

“The constitution simply will not allow the government to interfere with the free choice of religious bodies in the selection of their religious leaders,” Guenther, who has served as general counsel for the Southern Baptist Convention for 40 years, told those gathered.

Yet Guenther noted the ongoing cultural confusion over gender roles and the societal redefinition of marriage complicates laws regarding discrimination.

“We’ve got a lot of untangling to do in this area. All the laws pertaining to marriage were rooted in the traditional notion that marriage was a relationship between one man and one woman. As its fundamental basis erodes, those laws are going to be in transition,” he warned.

Guenther prepared a question-and-answer document on the law, churches and same-sex attraction that was handed out during the event and is also available online.

When examining the church’s responsibility to stand for truth and also offer grace, Lino said, “To Jesus, absolute truth and loving your neighbor are not mutually exclusive,” adding there is not a third way.

“Silence is not an option; you have to stand on truth. We have to proclaim the gospel with courage from our pulpits,” Lino said, adding that pastors must proclaim a biblical gospel.

“The issue with homosexuals isn’t that they are homosexual,” Lino said. “The issue with homosexuals is that they are in need of Jesus Christ.

“The right gospel is not that the road to salvation for a homosexual goes through becoming heterosexual. The road to salvation for anyone from anywhere is to go directly to Jesus Christ.”

To watch the entire panel discussion, go to sbtexas.com/panel.

One hundred and twenty football players in a locker room. One hundred and seventy mourners at a funeral. Two young women wandering in a parking lot. A classroom full of students in a secular college philosophy class.Not soliciting spiritual answers or seeking out a preacher, these people were simply going about their business—playing sports, grieving the dead,waiting for a ride and earning class credit.

But, because of one North Texas pastor following the Lord’s instruction to lead out in evangelism in his church, each of these people heard the gospel clearly and confidently explained. It wasn’t the pastor, though, who shared with them but members of an ever-growing gospel army rising up at First Baptist Church of Euless.

Last year as pastor John Meador was preparing his message for the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2014 annual meeting to be held in Baltimore, Maryland, the Lord guided him not to select a text or write a message. Instead, he would live the message, and that is what he would share with Baptists in Baltimore. Meador says he certainly did not know what the Lord meant or intended by that all those months ago. Looking back, it is pristinely clear.

Before he was ever invited to preach at the annual meeting, the Lord had already begun working on the substance of that message.

“We needed an evangelism ministry here,” Meador said. “I’d been involved in evangelism ministries over the years, but since I became a senior pastor here… most of that’s delegated to a staff member. But the Lord began to convict me, ‘No, you as a senior pastor need to step up and lead the way. It’s never going to get into the DNA of the church unless you do it.’ So I really began to be convicted in that.”

Meanwhile, the pastor continued his patterns for evangelism and ministry at Euless. In addition to giving clear presentations of the gospel and extending invitations to salvation in each worship service, Meador was and is personally committed to meeting visitors at the church’s guest reception each week following the service. At the reception, known as Guest Central, he tells the two or eight or 20 people who gather that he wants to share with them the one conversation he would have with each of them if he could only have one. In just a few minutes, Meador conveys in a concise and conversational way that faith in Christ—not works or church attendance or good behavior—is the only reason God will ever let anyone into heaven. Hundreds who have listened to Meador’s brief presentation over the years have trusted Christ for salvation.

Somewhere along the way, a church member suggested to Meador that he put the presentation on paper so others could emulate the message and share with people who don’t come to Guest Central. So, he did just that and began training church members to share, resulting in a ministry that now bears the name Can We Talk?, which Meador leads each week. The pastor and his church had found God’s answer to the need for a pastor-led evangelism ministry, and Meador had the message he needed to share and did share at the 2014 annual meeting.

“We saw God raise up a community of people in the church that believed the gospel was going to change the world and that he was going to do it from right here,” Meador said.

Nearly 600 church members—from teenagers to senior citizens—have been trained to share the gospel with confidence and are now qualified as Can We Talk? trainers. Each semester, Meador casts the vision, equips the people and then leads them in going out in groups of three to share the gospel in the community. Meanwhile, prayer partners gather to pray the entire time the groups are sharing, directed by live requests sent via Twitter feed to a television screen at the church.

When tweets come in showing real-time answers to those prayers, the prayer team celebrates.

“When [the Tweet] came through and said [Sofia] had accepted Christ, it was like someone scored a touchdown at a football game,” said John Briere, a deacon at First Euless and a Can We Talk? team leader.

Briere says Can We Talk? has revolutionized his life by equipping him to confidently engage lost people—both strangers and those he knows well—with the truth of the gospel. Watching his pastor’s evangelistic example and repeatedly listening to a Can We Talk? CD has significantly helped Briere feel prepared to strike up conversations that he can direct toward the gospel.

“In the beginning I was fumbling my way through it,” Briere said. “Now [I’m] sensitive to when God is putting those opportunities in front of [me]. I’ve had countless conversations with colleagues that I never would have before.”

Briere even used what he learned through Can We Talk? to share the gospel with about 170 people at his father’s funeral—something he says he never would have done before the training.

Jenna Milleson, Meador’s executive assistant, and college student Morgan Wilson—both active in Can We Talk?—led a young woman to Christ in the church’s parking lot just a day before talking to the TEXAN. Milleson said two weeks prior to their sharing with the woman in the parking lot, their pastor also led someone to the Lord in the same parking lot. She said Meador’s involvement and accessibility has helped make evangelism at First Euless not just a top priority at the church but a pervading culture.

Meador says he, too, is immensely grateful for the increased church member interaction afforded him by Can We Talk? each week.

“I get to know these people. I get to love on them and laugh with them and communicate passion to them and watch them grow,” Meador said. “I get to know the John Briers who are out there sharing the gospel at their dads’ funerals.”

Wilson also had the opportunity to share with her college philosophy class when she disagreed with the professor’s appraisal of Jesus and Christianity and was ready to defend her beliefs with grace and confidence. Wilson says Can We Talk? has shown her that God has given her a mission field in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Another unexpected blessing, Wilson said, is seeing all ages from across the church catch a passion for sharing the gospel.

Meador said a 13-year-old boy who had been through the class multiple times with his dad approached him at church to say he is ready to be a team leader. Milleson said a 13-year-old girl from Can We Talk? pulls her teachers out into the hallway during free periods and study halls to share with them at the Spirit’s prompting. A football coach asked another student involved with Can We Talk? if he had anything inspirational he could share with the football team before they ended their practice on Good Friday. The student jumped right in and shared with the team the record book of sin illustration that Meador taught him.

“These are just normal kids that have gotten excited about the gospel,” Meador said.

Meador said other churches and pastors are beginning to catch the excitement and model their own evangelism efforts after Euless’. In 2015 First Euless will offer 10 conferences across the state of Texas to equip pastors. Information is available at johnmeador.com/canwetalk.

Briere and Meador agreed that the conversational approach of Can We Talk? equips and emboldens church members to share throughout the course of their day-to-day lives, often with people they already know well. From locker rooms and funerals to parking lots and classes, daily life provides many divine appointments just waiting to be kept by believers, they said.

“Can We Talk? is not a program where we enlist more and more people to go out together to share the gospel one night a week,” Meador said in a July 2014 blog post. “Can We Talk? is about equipping people to share the gospel in their everyday lives.”

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—While the War on Christmas generates more headlines, Thanksgiving has been taking a beating, but some customers and stores are fighting back.

In contrast to many major retailers who have decided to open on Thanksgiving Day, others, like LifeWay Christian Stores, are maintaining their commitment to give employees—and customers—the day off.

“Just as we do every Sunday, we believe it is important to set aside Thanksgiving for our employees to spend time with family and friends thanking God,” said Tim Vineyard, the vice president of LifeWay Christian Resources Stores.

Apparently at least half of Americans agree. A nationwide survey of U.S. consumers found 50 percent say shopping hours on Thanksgiving Day are a bad idea that detracts from the traditional celebration. The research from LoyaltyOne, a customer analytics firm, found only 33 percent believe open stores are beneficial.

A growing number of those Americans opposed to shopping starting on Thursday are making their feelings known. An online petition started by a Target employee asking the fourth largest U.S. retailer to give employees the day off has garnered over 90,000 signatures. Over 100,000 people have liked the Facebook group “Boycott Black Thursday.

Vineyard believes LifeWay customers will appreciate the stance to remain closed and could give them another reason to spend time with loved ones. “We hope our being closed will encourage families to enjoy Thanksgiving together and find respite from the busyness of the holiday season,” he said.

Instead of opening their doors on Thanksgiving Day, LifeWay Christian Stores’ 186 locations will have three sales surrounding the holiday, including a traditional Black Friday sale on November 28 beginning at 6 a.m. and continuing Saturday, November 29, with stores opening at 9 a.m.

That seems to work just fine for most shoppers. Despite the push to start the sales earlier and open on Thanksgiving, most do the bulk of their purchases later. Deloitte University’s annual holiday survey found 65 percent of consumers plan to do the bulk of their shopping after Thanksgiving.

For more information of LifeWay Christian Stores holiday hours and sales, visit LifeWay.com.

Politics in Texas grew to a fever pitch in recent months in the wake of the ongoing saga over Houston Mayor Annise Parker’s subpoena of pastors’ sermons and mid-term elections that produced a new governor, new lieutenant governor and new attorney general for the Lone Star State.

The political involvement of Christians ranges across the intensity spectrum from fanatic to oblivious. Regardless of which political party you align with, the right to vote is a privilege and a responsibility that every Christian should take seriously.

I’ll admit, I considered skipping long lines at the polls on Election Day. However, something I heard regarding last year’s Houston mayoral election prompted me to reconsider.

As more than 6,000 gathered Nov. 2 for the I Stand Sunday rally in support of the five Houston-area pastors subpoenaed for their sermons, one of the participants mentioned that only around 10 percent of registered voters in Houston turned out for the 2013 election, where Parker was re-elected.

Even if this number was approximate, it’s still telling. Imagine what might have happened if conservative Christians in Houston had exercised their right to vote last November. The outcome of the mayoral election likely would have been different, and the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance likely would have never been on the docket in May.

Yet, now, Christians are up in arms over the city’s infringement on religious liberty, and rightfully so. However, there’s no doubt that many of them are at least partially to blame because they abstained from the ballot box last November.

Certainly as Christians we realize that our hope is not found in government, and the state of Texas—as glorious as it may be—is not our true home. However, in the United States we have the freedom and obligation to let our voices be heard, which is best done proactively at the polls rather than reactively after elected officials pass legislation we dislike. We should do both, but the latter without the former seems disingenuous.

This article is not meant to make you feel guilty if you didn’t vote. Hopefully, it will encourage you to make sure you exercise your right to vote in future elections and to consider how you can be both a good citizen of the state as well as a good citizen of the kingdom of God.

It’s growing increasingly apparent what happens when Christians remove themselves from the public square. We must not cower in fear nor should we be obnoxious revelers. There are ways you can be a responsible citizen, maintain your Christian convictions and make a difference. Here are a few suggestions to consider:

• Look for ways to be involved in the public sector. This could include running for a position on your local school board, city council or other civil office.
• Volunteer in your community. City officials are always looking for individuals to help organize or serve at community events. I know of many church planters who have found serving their city in these ways gives them credibility in the community and opens doors for ministry.
• Get to know and pray for elected officials, even if you disagree with their positions. What might it look like if your local city council received consistent notes of encouragement letting them know that you care about them and are praying for them? Who knows, those prayers may go a long way in turning their hearts toward God.
• Vote in all elections, not just the “big” ones. You never know what ordinance or decision may have a significant impact down the road.
• As much as possible, without violating the Word of God, submit yourself to those in authority over you. Peter’s words to fellow sojourners is helpful here: “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” (1 Peter 2:13-17)

Imagine the impact convictional kindness and community involvement can have in your city, in Texas and in the United States. In this way, Christians can be “in the world but not of the world.”

FORT WORTH­– The issue of religious liberty is one that confronts every single believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, said Russell Moore in an address to the 2014 Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Annual Meeting, Nov. 11.

This is a tension seen clearly in the book of Acts, Moore said, drawing the messengers’ attention to Paul and Silas’ experience in the Philippian jail detailed in Acts 16.

“It is a tension of living in a world with legitimate, rightful state authority but living in another world as the people of God in which we have a greater authority in the Lordship of Jesus Christ,” continued Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

“Paul finds himself in prison because he was on mission for Christ,” Moore said, noting religious liberty is a matter of global mission, as well as a matter of gospel witness and public justice.

In casting the spirit out of the slave girl, Paul quickly discovers the town’s citizens preferred this girl enslaved physically and spiritually because for them she was a “means of great gain through her fortune telling,” Moore said.

Noting this incident was a common theme in Paul’s ministry, Moore explained, “The gospel becomes a public threat. The gospel becomes something that must be silenced.”

“The gospel of Jesus Christ comes in with a message that if it is understood is always, in every single era, going to seem strange and crazy and freakish and dangerous,” Moore said, explaining Paul was not surprised his preaching of the gospel would upset the status quo.

“That has everything to do with religious liberty. If you get the gospel wrong, you will get religious liberty wrong. If you get the mission wrong; you will get religious liberty wrong.”

Referencing Houston Mayor Annise Parker’s attempt to force a group of pastors in the city to hand over their sermons and other papers, Moore said the mayor’s decision to subpoena sermons was “shocking and audacious and reckless.”

“But you know what is worse than a mayor audacious enough to subpoena sermons?” Moore asked. “Sermons that aren’t worthy of being subpoenaed,” he answered.

Moore said to avoid such governmental interference is to become the kind of people “city hall doesn’t have to worry about.” But that is the wrong direction to go, he insisted.

“It is a terrible thing for the government to put the church in jail,” Moore said. “But it is worse if the church isn’t willing to go to jail for anything.”

For religious liberty protections to remain in place, it is critically important the church raise up a generation that fears God more than they do governmental authorities or any other outside force, including death, Moore concluded.