December 9, 2024
STATESBORO, Ga. — A trio of speakers exhorted Georgia Baptists to ‘Answer the Call” at the 2024 Preaching Conference at First Baptist Statesboro on Monday. That call, listeners were told, can take different forms.
Evangelist Rick Coram, Tim McCoy, pastor emeritus of Ingleside Baptist Church in Macon, and Southern Baptist Convention President Clint Pressley exhorted pastors to be ready and willing to answer the call with the goal of reaching lost people for Jesus.
Coram, the former pastor of Springhill Baptist Church in Fernandina Beach, Fla., led off the afternoon, telling listeners they need to answer the call to revival and focusing his message on “the room where revival starts.” Coram read from Acts 2 verses 1-8, saying, “All revivals have to start somewhere. Some start in a tent, some start in a trailer. Some start on a campus, some start in a closet. Some start in a schoolhouse, some start in a jailhouse. And some revivals can start in a room just like this.”
There are three characteristics that are common to all revivals, Coram said. First, the room has to be filled with saved people. Coram explained that revival comes from two Latin words and means “to live again.” You can’t live again, he made clear, “until you’ve lived the first time. In other words, you can’t have revival until you’ve been saved.”
Second, the room where revival starts has to be filled with supernatural power. “Revivals,” he said, “are prayed down, not worked up.” God, through His power, refreshes Christians.
The third element of revival is strong priorities. Those priorities are to share Jesus with the world, and to show Jesus to the world.
McCoy followed with a message on what the call looks like.
For some, the calling may be to vocational ministry. But most believers, McCoy explained, are called to other vocational assignments or roles. “Our work, regardless of what it is, becomes worship when it is dedicated to God,” he emphasized, “and when it is performed with an awareness of His presence.” That, he told listeners, is why you should “be the best you can be at whatever God has called you to do.”
Regardless of where we are called to serve, God calls believers to holiness, McCoy said. That holiness is both positional, because of the holiness of Christ, and practical as we grow in Christ-likeness.
Ultimately, McCoy described the heart of our calling as being fellowship with Christ, and giving God all the glory for our calling.
Clint Pressley, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., closed out the preaching by encouraging listeners from Ezekiel 37:1-10. He told fellow pastors facing difficult situations not to be afraid, saying, “God takes what is seemingly impossible and He makes it a reality.”
God will bless our obedience, Pressley said. “Success in church, success in ministry, and in the life God has called us to is wholly 100% dependent on what you do with this book,” he said, pointing to the Bible. “Open it up, read it, explain it, apply it, and watch God work.”
In his closing, Pressley stressed that God always fulfills His purpose. That purpose, Pressley said, comes from verse 6, “that they would know that I am the Lord."
