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PHOENIX—Texans were prominent on the platform of the 2011 SBC Pastors’ Conference, with Houston’s Greg Matte, Frisco’s Afshin Ziafat and Keller’s Bob Roberts among the preachers addressing the conference under the theme “Aspire: Yearning to Join God’s Kingdom Activity.”
Grant Ethridge, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church in Hampton, Va., was elected conference president for 2011-12. Archie Mason, pastor of Central Baptist Church in Jonesboro, Ark., was elected vice president, and Philip Burdin, pastor of Cropwell Baptist Church in Pell City, Ala., was elected treasurer. The Pastors’ Conference always immediately precedes the SBC annual meeting.
GREG MATTE
Preaching on Jesus’ miracle of water made to wine from John 2, Matte, pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church, urged pastors to be servants drawing on God’s power to turn proverbial water in their ministries to wine.
Matte addressed the Monday morning session of the SBC Pastors’ Conference, which preceded the annual meeting.
Noting the crisis at the Cana wedding celebration when the wine ran out, Matte emphasized that servants, already tired from their duties, were tasked with the burden of filling six stone jars—each holding 20 to 30 gallons.
Following Mary’s command to “Do whatever he tells you,” the servants filled the water to the brim.
“When God asks you to do something, when Jesus asks you to do something, do you do 51 percent, or do you fill it to the brim?” Matte asked. He warned pastors against a 75-percent effort in their ministry when such effort can often carry them on their talent or giftedness.
In filling it to the brim, “your heart for God will shrink” if the pastor in his weariness doesn’t rely on God to do the filling. Rely on God, Matte said, and he will enlarge the pastor’s heart.
Matte also noted the importance of “facing the facts” as the wedding servants did. All they had was water in large containers, but they needed wine. They understood their lack.
“When did the water change into wine? The water in my opinion changed to wine in the walk,” he said.
“Church planter, you’ll never have enough money. It will always feel like water. You walk with God. Missionary, it will always feel like water. You walk with God. Pastor, the sermon should always feel like you don’t have enough. You walk with God. Walk with God, and Jesus Christ will change water into wine and you’ll look back and go ‘Wow, look at what God’s done. He’s done something I could not have done. He’s brought the change.’”
AFSHIN ZIAFAT
Ziafat, lead pastor of Providence Church in Frisco, told pastors that a “proper understanding of the gospel will be the greatest fuel for missions.” In contrast, he said, “When our appreciation and understanding of the gospel—the grace that we’ve received—wanes, then our heart for missions suffers.”
The Iranian-American pastor preached from Jonah 4, warning pastors to heed God’s words to the prophet and to see people as God sees them. Ziafat said the gospel reminds Christians that prior to Christ saving them, they were once enemies of God, spiritually blind and separated from God. This recognition, he said, should fuel compassion for those who do not know Christ.
“Do you understand that it’s by mercy and grace that you even know the truth of Jesus?” Ziafat asked. “If you understand that, I say to you that entitlement goes out the door, your rights will go out the door, and you will lay your life down so that others who don’t know will know.”
Ziafat, who came to Christ as a teenager after he read a Bible given to him by an English tutor, understands what clinging to the gospel costs. His father disowned him for his faith. Additionally, he now trains Iranian pastors who have experienced imprisonment and persecution daily for their faith.
Still, Ziafat challenged pastors to recognize the sending nature of the gospel: “The gospel didn’t come into our hearts to terminate with us. If you have really grabbed hold of the gospel, it will send you out to others who do not know.”
BOB ROBERTS
Roberts, pastor of Northwood Church in Keller, said that with the decline of Christianity in the West while the developing world “is exploding” with a spiritual awakening, our challenge is “figuring out how to be a part of that.”
“I don’t want to just hear what [God] is doing in China and hear what he’s doing in India and hear what he’s doing in the Congo and hear what he’s doing with college students in Iran—I want to be a part of seeing God doing something massive here. I don’t want to miss out on that.”
Reading from Colossians 4:2-6, in which Paul pleads for prayer so the gospel may be preached and calls on his readers to walk in wisdom, making the best use of time and speaking “with grace, seasoned with salt,” Roberts said with global technology the Great Commission would be fulfilled in 10 years. He then listed six things he said are essential for that occur.
First, “We would seize an open world,” he said, noting that “there is no such thing as a private conversation” in the electronic age.
“If Muslims want to know what Southern Baptists think about them,” they can watch live streaming of his sermon. “We live at a time like no other in history.” He encouraged the audience to not vilify people or their religious beliefs. Instead, exalt Jesus, he said.
Second, Roberts said, “We going to have to connect with the global church,” even receiving missionaries to American if needed.
Third, “We’re going to have to release the body of Christ” to do missions. “We are talking about a different kind of believer,” Roberts said. “We are talking about a disciple” who hears and obeys.
Fourth, the church in the West must grapple with global theology and realize that our formulations must be uncompromised, “but it’s got to be clear and simple.” He added that the Trinity is the most important doctrinal position to be defended in the 21st century because of interaction with Muslims and other religions.
Also, “start with the hand, not with the head” in evangelism. For example, he told of his budding friendship with the imam of the largest mosque in Dallas-Fort Worth.
“I love that man. I want him to know Jesus and I’m not going to give up.” Roberts has visited his mosque, and the imam has visited Northwood, Roberts said.
Finally, “American evangelicals need to become close friends even with Muslims,” Roberts urged. There is no greater prejudice right now, therefore “evangelicals need to be at the front of the line saying ‘We love you in Jesus’ name,’ amen? Listen, there are Muslims watching this thing on the Internet. Let me say it again—We love Muslims.”
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Others to address the conference included best-selling author and California pastor Rick Warren, Minnesota pastor John Piper, and Passion Conferences founder Louie Giglio, formerly of Texas and now a pastor in Georgia.
Piper told pastors that believers must be radically God-centered for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of God’s name and for the sake of the nations, Giglio praised the Trinitarian work of God the father through Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, and Warren called on churches to reproduce by planting a church or sponsoring a church planter in America and among the 3,800 unreached people groups worldwide.
“For the last 30 years, we have rewarded attendance,” Warren said. “If you have big attendance, you get invited to speak. Friends, I have more respect for a church of 100 that’s planting churches than a church of 1,000 that hasn’t planted any. What we need to reward is not attendance but reproduction … not size, but sending capacity.”
Warren said it takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people, and all kinds of people to plant all kinds of churches. The defining mark of a mature church, he said, is whether it reproduces.
—Baptist Press contributed to this report.
