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Thank you for electing me to serve as president this year. I am sincerely honored that our LORD and you have selected me for this role. The man who holds this position holds a sacred trust, and I am committed to representing Christ and our churches well. To that end, please pray for me, “that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel … that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak” (Ephesians 6:19-20).
Christ allowed me the privilege of pastoring a small rural church in Normangee while I was a student at Texas A&M. You know the church well—we had a white building with a cemetery and sat right on a county road. For the past 13 years, I’ve had the assignment of pastoring a church on a major parkway in the suburbs of a megacity. The two churches I’ve led have radically different contexts. Hanging out with a deacon in Normangee meant rotating a calf inside its mother so it could birth safely. Hanging out with a deacon in Houston means sitting in NRG Stadium watching a Texans game.
Different, but the same. In both places, my personal life and the two congregations themselves have a lot in common. For example, neither personal evangelism nor prayer come naturally in either setting. They are not my default setting nor that of either congregation. Have you ever noticed that the two hardest patterns to develop in someone’s life are personal evangelism and prayer? As unnatural as it might be to develop a pattern of sacrificial kingdom giving or Bible study, personal evangelism and prayer are even more so. Both require constant intentionality. Both patterns disappear quickly through loss of intentionality. When it comes to personal evangelism and prayer, intentionality is key.
“As unnatural as it might be to develop a pattern of sacrificial kingdom giving or Bible study, personal evangelism and prayer are even more so. Both require constant intentionality.”
One of my 2016 personal goals is greater intentionality in personal evangelism. I came up with a measurable because vision without measurables is meaningless. I am praying for at least 52 personal evangelism encounters in 2016, and I have a log so I can be accountable to the goal. In my plan, any gospel sharing related to being a pastor doesn’t count; I am looking for 52 personal evangelism encounters I’d have even if I were not a pastor. Surely, living in our nation’s fourth-largest city, I can share the gospel with one person per week , on average, apart from my pastoral ministry.
To encourage my intentionality about personal evangelism, I’m purposefully going to the SBTC Empower Conference at the end of this month. This conference is designed for exhortation and equipping in evangelism. The exhortation will come through vision casting and the preaching of God’s Word. The SBTC has cast a great vision in the form of “One In A Million,” to reach a million homes in Texas with the gospel, and is equipping churches through training dates across the state. At the Empower Conference, we will also hear preaching from some preachers especially anointed and appointed for this day in our nation. The equipping will be hands-on, interactive and meaty, adding immediate value to our lives and ministries.
All evangelical believers are welcome at this conference. (In fact, unbelievers are welcome too). To be sure, this conference is directed and funded by the SBTC and publicity is focused on our convention of 2,500 local churches, but this is not a “SBTC only” event. We want as many witnesses of Jesus Christ in Texas as possible to be reinvigorated in personal evangelism. So, get your Presbyterian pastor friend or your Methodist layperson friend and “come on.” You can find out more about the conference at sbtexas.com/evangelism/ec16 and more about One in a Million at sbtexas.com/oneinamillion.
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