September 14, 2024
WARNER ROBINS, Ga. – Christians need to continue sharing the gospel even when the people seem to be resistant to it, preachers told Georgia Baptists at an evangelism conference on Sunday.
Mark Croston Sr., national director of Black church ministries at Lifeway Christian Resources, said church members can become frustrated when those they invite to accept Jesus say no.
“The truth is none of us like hearing no,” Croston said. “Just remember, it takes a lot of noes to get a yes.”
Croston was one of more than a half dozen speakers at a Georgia Baptist Mission Board evangelism conference that began Sunday evening and will continue through Monday afternoon at Central Baptist Church in Warner Robins.
It’s the first of two such conferences scheduled over the next two weeks to fan the flames of evangelism across the state. The next is set for March 12-13 at First Baptist Church in Cumming.
Georgia Baptist Mission Board Executive Director W. Thomas Hammond Jr. said the evangelism conferences are intended to inspire and prepare church members to share the gospel.
“I have heard all my life that evangelism is more caught than taught,” Hammond said Sunday. “But when we have the skills to share our faith, we can do it in a way that is relevant and effective.”
Croston pointed to the Apostle Paul as a great example for modern-day Christians because he refused to stop telling people about Jesus, even when they violently reacted to his preaching.
“Paul was stoned,” Croston said. “He was whipped. He was locked up in jail. He was left for dead. … The stuff we go through as we share the gospel isn’t nearly as bad as the stuff Paul went through.”
Croston said the Lord will strengthen Christians today just as He strengthened Paul.
“God will give you the power that you need in order to handle the task,” he said.
Georgia Baptist churches have been stressing evangelism and, as a result, have seen a significant increase in the number of new believers baptized over the past year.
A partial count shows 14,333 baptisms in 2022, up from 12,865 the previous year. The latest numbers account for slightly more than half of the state’s 3,400 churches, so the total number of baptisms could be far higher.
Last year was marked by a number of spontaneous revivals across Georgia. Already this year, churches are experiencing similar events that have resulted in an outbreak of salvations.
Steve Davis, lead and founding pastor of TrueNorth Church in North Augusta, S.C., challenged Georgia Baptists to consider whether they feel an urgency to reach the unchurched.
Davis told about the day he lost his Airpods and about the great effort he undertook to find them and how he had enlisted others to help him find the ear pods.
“We need to have that kind of urgency for those who are lost,” he said.
At TrueNorth Church, Davis said, he encourages his members to share the gospel with the people they interact with most.
“Go fish your pond,” he said. “Reach out to the people who talk like you, who look like you.”
Brad Marchman, an evangelism consultant for the state Mission Board speaking Monday morning, said churches can be successful in reaching the unchurches only when their members get a passion for sharing their faith.
“We have a problem in our churches as a whole,” Marchman said. “The problem is this: As churches of the Lord Jesus Christ, called to be witnesses in this world, we are not reaching lost people in the way we should desire. I believe the root of the problem, though, is that we are not mobilizing our members to out with the gospel.
Surveys suggest, Marchman said, that only about 5 percent of church members actively share their faith on a regular basis.
“That has become the accepted norm,” he said. “Here’s the thing: I don’t want to accept that.”
Mark Clifton, senior director of church replanting for the North American Mission Board, told Georgia Baptists that, in the current culture, their churches will grow only by evangelism.
The days when people would move into town and the first thing they’d do is look for a church to attend are past, Clifton said. The result, he said, is that median Sunday morning attendance has fallen in Southern Baptist churches from 130 in 2000 to 67 in 2023.
Clifton urged church leaders not to lose hope.
“It is His church, and He will glorify Himself in it if we will just listen to Him and follow Him,” he said.
Crawford Loritts, president of the ministry Beyond our Generation and former pastor of Fellowship Bible Church in Roswell, said evangelism isn’t simply about giving and framing the right arguments. Instead, he said, evangelism is about the transformation of lives through the power of the gospel.
“The greatest challenge we face today is the absence of power,” Loritts told Georgia Baptist leaders. “We’re assuming if we have the right thinking, the right people, and the right approach, then I ought to produce results. That’s not so.”
Loritts said Christians have to be empowered to have success in sharing the gospel.
“The power is not our power,” he said. “It's about the power of the Spirit of God in and through us to glorify Christ.”
Loritts warned than Christians have wandered away from their power base, and he told them where to go find it:
"Your power is found in being dependent and being transformed."
