How to Change the World

"Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don't take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me again the joy of your salvation and make me willing to obey you. Then I will teach your ways to sinners, and they will return to you." (Psalm 51:10-13)

Our primary mission as a church is to reach people with the Gospel.  Like David's prayer in Psalm 51:13, we want to teach God's ways to sinners and see them turn to God.  Jesus commands us to, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you." (Matthew 28:19-20) 
As I've prayed over Psalm 51 this morning, I'm wondering if God isn't giving us direction in terms of preparation we can make in our own lives in order to effectively teach sinners and see them return to God.

1. Create in me a clean heart.  We begin with confession. We will have a difficult time teaching people to confess their sins if we don't make it a regular practice.

2. Renew a right spirit within me.  There is nothing sadder than a Christian with a bad attitude.  Who wants to hang around a bunch of bitter people?

3. Do not banish me from your presence.  We are transformed in the presence of God.  Miracles happen in the presence of God.  How do we come into the presence of God? The Bible says, "God inhabits the praise of His people." (Psalm 22:3)

4. Don't take your Holy Spirit from me.  We effectively teach and reach only in the power of the Holy Spirit.

5. Restore to me again the joy of your salvation.  Joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and something the world is always looking to find.  Joy is a contentment not based on circumstance.

6. Make me willing to obey you.  How can we possibly teach others to obey God if we haven't learned how to obey God?

7. Then I will teach your ways to sinners.  How will they hear without a preacher?

8. They will return to you.  Here is a promise!  If we will practice the first 7, then we will experience the promise of #8.  There's no better time to get started than right now.

Discovering Communion...

This past Sunday, I was setting up the communion table in the back of the middle school cafeteria where we meet each week.  One of our new ladies approached with curiosity and asked, "What's that?".  I answered, "Communion--we're going to receive communion today".  She immediately asked again, "What's that?".  I gave her a brief explanation of the Lord's Supper and what it was all about.  She then asked, "Can you show me where that is in the Bible so that I can read about it?".  Almost immediately, the best friend of this lady also walked into the room, saw the table, and asked, "What's that?".  Within minutes both ladies were seated at a table, Bibles opened, reading for the first time about Jesus' gift of communion.  Later, during the service when we were gathered as a church around the table, I couldn't help but watch with wonder as these two ladies received for the very first time these symbols of Jesus' sacrifice.  This coming Sunday, we will celebrate another first for these ladies when both of them will be baptized, along with others, in a backyard swimming pool.  We met these ladies, when in the sovereignty of God, our church was led to meet at the Severance Middle School.  You see, one of the ladies is the person who opens and shuts the building for us each week.  At first she would open the building, leave, and then return to lock up when we were finished.  Gradually she began staying longer and returning earlier until after several months, she began staying for the entire service.  And then she brought her best friend--and now they both have been attending every week ever since.  To me, the story is absolutely miraculous!  I've told them that most people go and find a church to attend.  However, they must be very special to God, in order for Him to go to all of the trouble of bringing a church to them!  These ladies illustrate the purpose and mission of Grace River--to be a safe place where anyone can come as they are and find hope and healing.  They also clearly illustrate the great love that the Father has for each of his children.  I'm glad that God has allowed Grace River to be a church without walls so that He can take us wherever we are needed.  More are waiting...

109 Baptized in less than 24 hours...

By Mark Edlund
Colorado Baptists Executive Director

On Monday morning (February 23rd) I received a phone call from Charlie Jones, pastor of Fellowship of the Rockies (FOR) in Pueblo. He started the conversation by saying, “Mark, you need to sit down.” I had no idea what was coming – had there been a tragedy? So I said, “I’m sitting.” Charlie then said, “We baptized 109 people this weekend! 89 adults and 20 youth.” As I caught my breath, I asked him to tell me what happened. Charlie said he had become more and more frustrated with people (especially those out of the Catholic background so prominent in Pueblo) becoming believers but refusing to be baptized for fear of family or community reaction. Being bothered, he decided to preach a special sermon in all three of FOR’s weekend worship services beginning Saturday night. He preached on the mandate and meaning of baptism. He emphasized that baptism was not optional for the true believer – that it publicly marked the believer as a follower of Christ. He was rather blunt – if you are truly a follower of Christ, you will follow Him also in baptism. Charlie ended the service by saying that the baptistery was full and ready and any believer that had not yet been baptized was invited to the front after the service and Charlie or the other staff would baptize them.
There was immediate response. Many came forward. Many crying and celebrating. Many came as families. Charlie said, “It was simply a Holy Spirit thing.” A couple of the families from the Catholic background left Saturday night and then showed up at the first Sunday morning service with other family members they had led to the Lord and who were ready to be baptized. Charlie said that it was beautiful chaos. They had people running back and forth to the Laundromat to wash and dry towels and baptism robes. Staff and other church leaders counseled all to make sure that legitimate and fully informed decisions had been made. It was a miracle. And now the task of discipleship begins. Praise the Lord. He is a God of miracles.

By Mark Edlund
Colorado Baptists Executive Director

If you ask them...they will come!

I want to share with you some encouraging news that comes from a recent survey of 469 “formerly churched adults”—those who in the past regularly attended church but no longer do so. This survey was conducted last summer by LifeWay Research. According to the survey, 59% of formerly churched adults left their church because of “changes in life situation”. The top life-changing situations that were submitted included, “simply got too busy to attend church”, “family/home responsibilities prevented church attendance”, “moved too far from church”, “work situation”, and “divorce/separation”. That’s why they left!

Now here’s the good news! More than 2/3 of formerly churched adults are open to the idea of attending church regularly again! 4% of these adults are actually looking for a church to attend right now and the majority of the others are open to returning to church! Now keep in mind that the survey indicated that these people on average have not attended church regularly in 14 years.

Now here’s the really good news! What would motivate the “formerly churched” to return? The top reasons why people would want to return are, “in order to get closer to God”, “in order to be around those with similar values”, and “in order to make friends”.

Now get this, when asked what would inspire them to regularly attend church, the following answers were given: (more than one answer could be given by each respondent).

• 58% said that they would attend if they felt like it was time to return.
• 41% said that they would attend if a friend or acquaintance invited them.
• 35% said that they would attend if they knew there were people like them at church.
• 31% said that they would attend if they felt that God were calling them to visit a church.
• 25% said that they would attend if their children asked them to go with them to church.
• 25% said that they would attend if an adult family member invited them to go to church with them.
  

Easter is an awesome opportunity for us to reach out to the "formerly churched" and the "unchurched". Make sure that you don't celebrate Easter this year alone!

Evangelism Support Group...

I met with two other pastors today and our Director of Missions to begin a "Personal Evangelism Support Group". The purpose of the group is to simply provide accountability and motivation to be involved in sharing our faith on a more regular basis. Each of us has admitted that we hardly ever witness outside of our profession. In other words, we would be hard pressed to find someone that we brought to Jesus that wasn't somehow related to our work. We will be meeting every other month and exchanging email updates every week. We're focusing on intentionally sharing our faith with people we meet and developing ongoing relationships with the unsaved. My goal is to simply share the gospel this week with someone who doesn't know that I'm a pastor. Secondly, I am developing a relationship with the parent of one of my son's wrestling team members. I'll let you know how it goes.

Evangelistic Greatness...

I attended an "E-coaching" retreat on Monday and Tuesday hosted by the Colorado Baptist General Convention and the North American Mission Board. E-coaching is a simple idea of creating personal evangelism support groups. The ideas is for four or five pastors to voluntarily hold each other accountable for personal evangelism goals. The support groups will meet every couple of months and check-in through email on a weekly basis. Our retreat was held at the beautiful Glen Eyrie Retreat Center in Colorado Springs.

The highlight of the retreat was Dr. John Avant, a NAMB Vice President and former pastor of Coggin Avenue Baptist Church in Brownwood, Texas, where a powerful move of God occurred some years ago. Dr. Avant spoke with great conviction and was a refreshing and optimistic representative of NAMB leadership. He spoke in two different sessions, sharing first on "Leading Your Church to Evangelistic Greatness". Dr. Avant's presentation leaned considerably upon Thom Rainer's new book, Breakout Churches, which is required reading for participation in E-coaching.

Dr. Avant shared ten keys to Evangelistic Greatness:

1. The pastor is the key. He shared that studies show that only 41% of pastors are open to change while 89% of churches are unhealthy.


2. Most "good" churches only minister to those already there (see page 23 of BC).


3. It is important to see and know what great evangelistic churches are not (Two important must reads: Ed Stetzer--Breaking the Missional Code, and Ed Stetzer--Comeback Churches)


4. What is your level of leadership now and what can it be (See BC)?


5. Have you and your church faced the ABC moment (see BC)?


6. You must develop allies with in your church who will take this journey with you.


7. Discover your VIP factor (see BC, p114).


8. Effective Evangelism is the key change agent in your church, which is why our journey together is so important (BC, p177).


9. Do you want to make a difference in your life (p189, BC)?


10. Commit to lead a breakout church to evangelistic greatness.