AM24: ‘On mission together’: Panelists talk about importance of connections

HOUSTON—A capacity crowd of 450 filled Sagemont Church’s Student Building Worship Center on Tuesday, Nov. 12, to hear four pastors speak about the challenges of ministry during the President’s Lunch Panel held each year at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Annual Meeting.

The panel was moderated by SBTC President Danny Forshee, lead pastor of Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin. It consisted of Gregg Matte, senior pastor of Houston’s First Baptist; Jason Crandall, lead pastor of CityView Church in Pearland; Joe Ogletree, lead pastor of Image Church of Cypress; and Levi Skipper, lead pastor of Sagemont Church. Ogletree and Crandall planted their churches, while Matte just celebrated two decades at Houston’s First. Skipper was called to Sagemont earlier this year.

The need for pastors to connect and encourage one another was discussed at length. Forshee began by reading a social media post by Champion Forest Senior Pastor Jarrett Stephens congratulating Matte on 20 years at Houston’s First.

“It was awesome,” Matte said, noting the love shown by the church and also by fellow pastors like Stephens. When contemplating the next 20 years of ministry, Matte said he couldn’t imagine doing it without the support and friendship of fellow pastors.

“We talk, we hang out. Levi [Skipper] and I are part of a group that meets quarterly,” he said.

Forshee praised Crandall for his “heart for planting churches and reaching people” and asked him about the importance for planters to have strong relationships and receive encouragement from other pastors.

“It is vital,” Crandall said. “We can’t do this alone. We can’t be on mission together [yet] alone. It just doesn’t work. … Planters desperately need relationships. They need to know that they are loved, cared for, prayed for.”

Forshee commended Ogletree on the disciple-making emphasis at Image Church, a plant in the Fairfield neighborhood of northwest Houston. Ogletree, who is bivocational, admitted opportunities to connect with other pastors can be rare.

“At this season, [relationships] are not about the quantity but the quality,” Ogletree said. Even so, he stressed the importance of finding a few people with whom “you can talk about life” and said encouraging texts always seem to come at the right time.

“If you don’t have people in your life, you’ve got to get them,” Skipper said. “Jesus had them. Paul had them. All of us need people in our lives who are strong encouragers.”

Offering a personal illustration of the importance of having people to come alongside, Forshee told of the near loss of his unborn son 32 years ago. “I don’t remember much about that night,” he said, but he vividly recalls the two men who sat with him in the hospital as his son received a risky and, at the time, rare in utero blood transfusion.

“God works when we are vulnerable,” Ogletree added. “The enemy works through shame.” He said he answers honestly when asked how he is. “Be vulnerable,” Ogletree urged.

The audience had questions, too, such as how to encourage yourself in the Lord when there’s nobody to come alongside you?

Crandall said he journals about things for which he is grateful, reflecting on Scripture and keeping a record of how God has acted in the past. Ogletree praised pastors’ wives and said his wife is a constant source of encouragement. Pastors’ wives, he said, “do not get enough credit.”

Panelists also emphasized the importance of rest—physical and emotional.

Regarding spiritual warfare, Ogletree cautioned pastors to maintain awareness of the devil’s schemes, to learn to prioritize, and to avoid distraction.

“I have to get Scripture in my heart first,” Crandall said. Matte described his routine of sermon preparation in which, before Sunday, he places his sermon notes on a prayer bench at home in a symbolic offering to the Lord.

Forshee urged pastors to not forsake personal time with the Lord.

“Suit up. Resist the devil. Put on the full armor of God,” he said.

Nathan Lorick, SBTC’s executive director, closed the meeting in prayer and offered a final word of encouragement.

“We are in this together,” Lorick said, “side by side.”