Just a few miles south of Fairbanks, Alaska, is the town of North Pole, Alaska—not the North Pole—the town of North Pole. There, on St. Nicholas Drive, you will find the Santa Claus House. Picture a Christmas superstore where everything on sale in the huge facility is about Christmas. Millions of tourists from around the world, and even local residents, have visited the Santa Claus House to purchase ornaments and Christmas decor of every conceivable kind.

Would you like to see 5,000 years of art ranging from Egyptian statues and a pharaoh’s sarcophagus to paintings by the Dutch Masters? If so, visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. One of the largest art museums in the world, the Met boasts a main building of more than two million square feet, located on some of the most expensive real estate in the country, devoted exclusively to thousands of years of the world’s most famous art.  

What does the Santa Claus House have in common with the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Not much really, except for one obvious thing—they both intentionally create culture. Once you enter either place, you are immediately aware of their particular focus. Can our churches be as intentional about creating culture as the Santa Claus House or the Met? 

We can all be more effective in evangelism if we decide to intentionally develop an evangelistic culture in our churches. How can that be done? There are many ways to create culture. Here are a few: 

First, evangelism is a spiritual battle; therefore we must pray! We can never hope to find the favor of God if we attempt to separate the supernatural element out of evangelism. Evangelism is, after all, more than a series of well-reasoned propositions punctuated with understandable illustrations. Those things are certainly important; but, ultimately, only the Holy Spirit can convict and transform a soul. Prayer connects us to the spiritual power source necessary to save the lost. That’s why Paul, as he pushed farther west to evangelize unreached people, urged the Romans “to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf” (Romans 15:30). 

The ministries of evangelistic intercession may take on a variety of expressions. For
instance, a pastor friend of mine has built an impressive prayer room in his church where intercessors gather regularly for hours every week to pray. One entire wall is a nearly floor-to-ceiling blackboard where names of lost family members and coworkers are written with fluorescent chalk in bright colors. Those names are the central focus of hundreds of man-hours of prayer every month. One by one, as those prodigals come home and the lost come to Christ, they are individually invited into the prayer room to erase their own names from the prayer board! Prayer is essential to creating a powerful evangelistic culture.

Next, evangelism is a discipline and requires action; therefore, set the example by doing it. We’ve frequently heard that evangelism is more “caught than taught,” and I believe it. If the pastor and staff don’t set the example, the people are unlikely to lead themselves. A simple principle for pastors to consider, related to leading an evangelistic church, is this: “If we don’t—they won’t.” In other words, pastors and staff must lead by example when it comes to sharing Jesus if we expect the people of our churches to do the same. That’s one reason why I encourage pastors and staff to attend the Empower Conference at the Irving Convention Center, Feb. 24-25. Pastors need motivation, encouragement and the tools to lead the way. Our SBTC Empower Conference provides all of that and more. 

Finally, evangelism is for every believer, so train the people! To be most effective, churches should offer multiple training opportunities every year. In addition to the frequency of your training, don’t be afraid to mix it up a little. Train the people in different methods, because people are different. Give them options. The message of the gospel remains the same, but the delivery system should be flexible, just as the settings where we present the gospel are frequently unpredictable and always unique.  

Evangelism training is actually a leading indicator of how effective a church will be in reaching people. In 2016 the North American Mission Board analyzed evangelism practices in the SBC and found a direct link between evangelistic effectiveness and training. For example, in the Georgia Baptist Convention only 23 percent of churches offered evangelistic training, but among the most highly effective evangelistic churches, an astounding 87 percent of them provided personal evangelistic training. The evidence is undeniable. Evangelistic culture is created, in part, through training. An effective schedule of training helps fulfill Ephesians 4:11 where Paul encourages us “… to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”

Creating culture doesn’t happen overnight or by accident. These suggestions are clearly not exhaustive and much more can be said, but churches can create a culture where evangelistic passion permeates the church. When evangelistic culture gains traction in a church, we should expect more people to be saved as a result of that church’s ministry. So let’s pray; let’s train; and let’s go! 

William “Dub” Henry Jackson Jr., the “pioneer” of partnership missions that would result in one-half million professions of faith in Christ, died on Jan. 19 in Fort Worth after an extended illness. He was 95 years old.

The 1998 distinguished alumnus of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary began his life on the school’s campus, where he was born in 1924 while his father was a student, and his last years were spent on Seminary Hill, where he lived investing his passion for missions in students.

A World War II P-38 fighter pilot who saw combat in the Pacific, Jackson would later go on to become a missionary to the Japanese people he once fought and develop a new strategy of missions work – partnership missions, in which lay people were encouraged to become short-term missionaries themselves, rather than only those called to full-time missions.

Southwestern Seminary leaders offered praise of Jackson as news broke that the longtime “Southwesterner” had passed away.

“Dub Jackson was one of God’s choice servants who was mightily used to bring the hope of the gospel not only to his beloved Japan and across Asia, but literally around the world through his work,” said President Adam Greenway.

Mike Morris, associate professor of missions and also a former IMB missionary, published an article in the Southwestern Journal of Theology in 2014 noting Jackson’s pioneering missions work.

“Dub’s most amazing and effective partnership campaign was in April 1963 in which 549 Americans went to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore at the nationals’ invitation, and they witnessed more than 45,000 people praying to receive the Lord during the six weeks of the campaign. About 25,000 of them were Japanese,” Morris wrote in the fall 2014 issue of the journal. “Through partnership missions as an FMB [Foreign Mission Board] missionary and as leader of World Evangelism Foundation, Dub led one hundred nationwide campaigns in more than fifty countries with more than 500,000 people praying to receive the Lord.”

Former Southern Baptist Convention president Jimmy Draper, reflecting on the 1963 Texas Baptist Evangelism Conference in which Jackson made the appeal for the Japan New Life Crusade, said he “electrified those who attended. I still tingle just thinking about that night and his remarkable challenge.” For many years, Draper served as board chairman of the World Evangelism Foundation, founded by Jackson after leaving the then Foreign Mission Board, which initially resisted the partnership missions strategy.

Noting the International Mission Board later embraced partnership missions, Draper added, “I often contemplate what our convention would be like if Dub Jackson had not been God’s chosen vessel to arouse the conscience and compassion of Southern Baptists to the strategic importance of partnership missions.”

In a November 2015 interview with Dub and Doris (who would die less than a month later) the Jacksons reflected on their life of missionary service. The interview was conducted by Keith Eitel, former dean of the Fish School, and is available in the W.H. Dub Jackson Digital Materials Collection in the seminary’s digital archives.

Jackson compared his time in the military to his missions work, saying in each “you have to be ready to go all out. There’s no partial commitment to missions. There’s no partial commitment to combat. You’re either for it or you’re not. You either go all out or you don’t.”

At the end of the war, Jackson was stationed in Japan during the U.S. occupation, where his firsthand observation of the destitute people turned his heart toward reaching them for Christ, although he initially opposed the idea of being a missionary to Japan.

“We were fresh from the jungles, where we were trained to destroy. And I don’t know specifically how the Lord did it, but he sure changed my feeling” toward the Japanese people, Jackson said. Reflecting on an experience with the impoverished people in Tokyo, he recalled during his time in college and seminary the “Lord kept in my mind … to get me back to Japan.”

After the war, Jackson completed his undergraduate degree at Hardin-Simmons University and seminary at Southwestern, during which time he led his first mission trip to Japan while a student in 1950, which saw some 2,200 Japanese became Christians.

That student mission trip was the beginning of what would become known as partnership missions.

“If we can do that, so could somebody else,” Jackson said. “So, we started asking other people to go, telling them what God had done [during the mission trip to Japan]. … And that motivated other people to go, and we didn’t have trouble in those days getting people to go. The Lord impressed them that it was urgent.”

Reflecting on the single greatest lesson God taught him in ministry, Jackson said in the 2015 interview with Eitel, “There’s no place God cannot give the victory. Don’t ever feel like you’ve hit a dead-end wall. God is able to give victory anywhere, anytime we look to him and ask.”

Jackson’s comments late in life are reminiscent of something he said in a 1954 letter written from Sapporo, Japan, after two years on the field as a missionary.

“[W]e would not choose this pulpit because it could approach any of the good ole Texas Baptist churches, for it cannot as yet do that, but the place where God would have us serve has everything in its favor, if he is there and we will follow. That is our desire.”

Jackson was preceded in death by Doris, his wife of 68 years; his son, William H. (Bill) Jackson III; grandson Jered Jackson; sister May Bond; and brother-in-law, Colonel Vic Lipsesy. He is survived by his children, Shirley and Randy Roberts, Lynda and Mike Hughes, David and Darlyne Jackson, and Juanita and Steve Hayden; and daughter-in-law Susan Jackson; sister Annette Lipsey; 15 grandchildren; and 18 great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be held Thursday, Jan. 23, 6-8 p.m. at Laurel Land Funeral Home, 7100 Crowley Road in Fort Worth. The committal service will be held Friday, Jan. 24, at 9:15 a.m. at Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery. The memorial service will be held Jan. 24 at 11:30 a.m. at Laurel Land, with a reception to follow.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Dub and Doris Scholarship Fund at Southwestern Seminary.

Walter McMillian is a middle-aged black man in Alabama who is sitting on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. 

Years earlier, an 18-year-old white woman was brutally murdered, and McMillian—despite having multiple alibis who said he was at a church fish fry—was convicted and sentenced in a trial that lasted but a day and a half.

With his appeals having been exhausted, McMillian needs a miracle before he dies for something he didn’t do.

Enter Bryan Stevenson, a young black attorney who shares McMillian’s belief that the legal system is biased against poor people who aren’t white. Just out of law school, Stevenson wants to move from Delaware to the Deep South and fight for people who have been wrongly accused — and who need an advocate who understands their plight. 

His first client: McMillian.

“It could have been me, mama,” Stevenson tells his mother, explaining why he’s willing to risk his safety to defend convicted criminals. “.. You always taught me to fight for the people who need the help the most”    

But can Stevenson find new evidence to free McMillian before it’s too late?

The movie Just Mercy (PG-13) expands to theaters nationwide this weekend, telling the true story of an attorney, Stevenson, who defended McMillian and who founded an organization, the Equal Justice Initiative, that fights for the wrongly accused and also works to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment. It stars Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther) as Stevenson, Jamie Foxx (Ray) as McMillian, and Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) as Stevenson’s assistant. 

It’s a gripping film that raises troubling questions about the legal system and the application of the death penalty. 

McMillian faced racism within the legal system when he was convicted in the 1980s, and Stevenson received death threats and pressure for wanting to free a supposedly guilty murderer. 

Just Mercy, based on Stevenson’s book, makes a strong case for criminal justice reform. 

Warning: minor/moderate spoilers!

(Scale key: none, minimal, moderate, extreme) 

Violence/Disturbing

Moderate. The film includes discussion of various crimes, although we never see the murders committed. We twice see a black man pulled from a car and a gun pointed at him. We see an arrest in the courtroom. The movie’s most troubling scene involves a man being placed in an electric chair. (We don’t see the actual death, but we hear the loud jolt.)  

Sexuality/Sensuality/Nudity

Minimal. The phrase “sexually abused” is mentioned. Stevenson is forced to strip down naked before entering the prison, although we see only his upper body.

Coarse Language

Moderate. S–t (14), h-ll (7), d–n (6), n-word (4), a– (4), b–ch (1), GD (1) SOB (1).

Other Positive Elements

Family is a major theme. We see Stevenson’s father and mother tell him goodbye before he travels to Alabama. We see McMillian, in prison, looking at photos of his family. 

Brian prays with an inmate on death row. We see Brian in McMillian’s church alongside McMillian’s family, who are singing and clapping. 

Other Stuff You Might Want To Know

Characters drink and smoke.

Life Lessons

Do what’s right, even if it’s difficult: Stevenson faced bomb threats and death threats for representing McMillian.  

Live a life of service: Stevenson could have used his law degree for more popular ventures. Instead, he chose to represent those that society views as outcasts.  

Truth and justice matter: The legal system tossed McMillian in prison and forgot about him. Stevenson, though, wanted to right a wrong. He knew an innocent man was set to die. 

Worldview/Application

Just Mercy soars when it’s promoting justice and opposing wrongful convictions. It’s an idea grounded in Scripture and specifically the Mosaic Law, which says the death penalty should only be applied upon the evidence or two or more witnesses. A single witness isn’t sufficient (Deuteronomy 17:6, Deuteronomy 19:5). 

For the modern world, this means the death penalty should only be applied when the evidence is clear-cut — and not, as was the case of Walter McMillian, when the physical evidence is non-existent and the lone witness cannot be trusted. (In the film, that lone witness was pressured by police into lying. Racism also apparently played a role)

God is a God of justice and truth who hates false accusations. The Ten Commandments, after all, say, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16). The government is to bring “punishment on the wrongdoer” (Romans 13:4) — not the innocent. 

Although McMillian’s case forms the core of the story, the film nevertheless takes a position on the death penalty itself.

“A girl is dead because of me,” a guilty man on death row says.

“That don’t give nobody the right to kill you back,” McMillian tells him.

Later, we watch the excruciating moments leading up to an execution via the electric chair — minus only the death itself. The film’s message is clear: This shouldn’t happen in America.  

The Equal Justice Institute claims that for every nine people who are executed, one person on death row has been exonerated. It’s a horrifying stat that should cause every attorney within the system to tremble, knowing that an innocent person may have been executed. (The Institute points to errors, inadequate counsel and racial bias as problems.)

The death penalty itself is supported in Scripture (Genesis 9:6; Romans 13:1-7), but society must ensure it is being applied properly. 

Stevenson, in the film, asserts that truth—and not a tally of wins and loses from each side in the legal system—should be the driving force for both the prosecution and defense. It’s wise advice. 

“Your job isn’t to defend a conviction. … It’s to achieve justice,” he tells the district attorney.

Final Verdict

Just Mercy is as inspiring as it is gripping and troubling. Thumbs up.

Discussion Questions

1. Do you support the death penalty? Why or why not?

2. What are the answers to fixing America’s troubled criminal system?

3. Has America changed since the 1980s? Explain your answer. 

Entertainment rating: 3 out of 5 stars. Family-friendly rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Rated PG-13 for thematic content including some racial epithets.  

IRVING—Next month’s Empower Conference will kick off on the afternoon of Monday, Feb. 24, with one of the most diverse slates of plenary speakers and workshop sessions of any Christian leadership conference in the country in 2020.  

“There’s literally something for everyone,” said Shane Pruitt, who is the next-gen evangelism director at the North American Mission Board and is coordinating the conference on behalf of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. “During that time, you have the Classics session going on with the music of Charles Billingsley. You have the preaching of Mac Brunson, Herb Reavis, and Fred Luter. That alone is a whole conference, those four guys.”

As Brunson, Reavis and Luter preach at the Classics session, author Jen Wilkin will lead the women’s session. Eleven different breakout sessions will take place at that time as well. All of the training during the two-day conference is designed to help Texas Southern Baptist church leaders be more effective in evangelism, missions and missional living.

The conference is supported through Cooperative Program gifts and costs nothing for attendees, who only need to pay for their meals. 

Fred Luter has served as the senior pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans since 1986. The New Orleans native became the first African-American president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2012. 

“He’s been so faithful through the years,” Pruitt said. “He’s a great preacher of the Word, a great illustrator, and he’s incredibly passionate and excitable. He will have you on your feet saying ‘amen’ without even realizing it.” 

Mac Brunson became the senior pastor of Valleydale Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 2018 after more than a decade as the lead pastor of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida.  He also has served as the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas. In 2003, he was the president of the SBC Pastors’ Conference.

“Mac Brunson is an incredible expositor of Scripture and an incredible illustrator with stories,” Pruitt said. “He’s a guy that has ‘done it,’ so it’s not theory for him. The Lord has used him for a long time.”

Pruitt calls Herb Reavis a passionate, funny and inspiring preacher who makes listeners “want to run through a brick wall.” Reavis has been the pastor of North Jax Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, since 1991.

Bible study teacher Jen Wilkin will lead the women’s session at Empower. Wilkin, who serves on the staff of The Village Church in Flower Mound, is the author of None Like Him, Women of the Word and In His Image, along with numerous Bible studies.

“She has the unique ability where all ages enjoy her, from the twenties on up,” Pruitt said. “I think it’s because she sticks so closely to the Word and explains the Scriptures really, really well.”

Pruitt also notes that a diverse slate of workshops will take place at the same time as well. 

“Some of those breakout teachers will also be teaching on the main stage,” Pruitt said. “I think it’s a unique opportunity. Twenty or 30 years ago, if you wanted to hear someone, you had to do it live. But now you can pull them up on YouTube. But what’s intriguing is that in a breakout you can sit in a small room with dozens of other people and be able to ask that speaker questions.”

The breakout sessions will be held in rooms that hold between 30 to 75 people. Some of the Monday afternoon breakout sessions include:

• The High Impact Team: How to Attract and Motivate Young Leaders in this Changing World (Carey Nieuwhof) 
• Pray Big Things: The Surprising Life God Has for You When You’re Bold Enough to Ask (Julia Sadler)
• How to Reach Men with the Gospel (Ronnie Gaines)
• Preaching and Teaching to the Next Generation (Grant Skeldon)
• Reaching People Through Worship/Creative Arts (Logan Walter)

To register for the Empower Conference visit and to see a full schedule of the event, visit sbtexas.com/empower.

IRVING—Ronnie Floyd will be the special guest speaker at the annual Cooperative Program lunch during the upcoming Empower Conference at the Irving Convention Center at Los Colinas on Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 11:45 a.m.

The lunch will highlight ways Texas Southern Baptist churches are engaging the state, North America, and the world with the gospel through their gifts to the Cooperative Program. 

“We want to celebrate what God did last year [through the Cooperative Program] and prepare to praise God for the prospects of what he is going to do through us this year,” said Kenneth Priest, the director of convention strategies at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. 

Floyd became the president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee in 2018 after serving for more than three decades as the senior pastor of Cross Church in Northwest Arkansas. He also served as SBC president from 2014-2016. He has authored more than 20 books on prayer and discipleship. In addition, he was the president of the National Day of Prayer Task Force for two years.

Joseph Crider, who is the dean of the school of music at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, will lead music during the lunch. Passionate about training the next generation of worship leaders, Crider has three decades of ministry experience and is a frequent speaker and clinician at worship conferences and churches throughout the country.

“We’ll be hearing from entity leaders during the lunch who benefit from the Cooperative Program, therefore they have a passion for this as much as we do,” Priest said. 

During the lunch, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention will recognize the top 10 Cooperative Program givers within the convention, both in terms of actual dollars and per capita giving. The convention will also recognize its top giving ethnic churches with “Looks Like Heaven” awards.

The Grand Ballroom of the convention center, where the lunch will be held, has a capacity of 450 to 500 people, which will limit the number of tickets available. Tickets are typically sold out by the time the conference begins but are available now at sbtexas.com/empower.