Preachers and Preaching

Why are there so many preachers and yet so many churches without pastors? In AR in the state assoc. minute book, the list of preachers is longer than the list of pastors. Could it be preachers are doing other things and considering their ministry a secondary thing? As I understand the call to preach, it includes a desire (burden) to pastor a church. 1 Tim. 3:1. 34 years ago when I started preaching, preachers still believed it was the greatest honor in the world to pastor a church. When young preachers got calls to go preach, they didn't worry how far, how many were attending or how much they would get, they were ready to go preach. Where has such a love for preaching gone? I'm sure all are not that way, but it seems more and more announce a call and find it too much sacrifice to interrupt their good time schedules to go preach. God's Word reminds us all to preach in season and out of season. Preach the Word. Prepare to preach. Go preach. The call of God requires nothing less.

US News and World Report

1 Tim. 4:1, 2 details this exact time in human history as accurately as only the inpsired Word of God can do. "Doctrines of devils" and "speaking lies in hypocrisy" has reached such filthy depths I could never have imagined in the Special Collector's Edition of the US News and World Report on newstands in December 2009. Its false information gives rise to skepticism and casts despicable lies against the Word of God, the writers of the books of the Bible and the contents of the books. P. 19 refers to a book of dastardly words about the life of Jesus Christ in such pornographic terms that I am amazed such could be printed by any magazine wishing to retain its readers. For such horrible lies, innuendoes and false accusations against the very person of the Lord Jesus Christ, I will never purchase another copy of this magazine EVER. I wish I could rally enough support from godly people in the US that they could be boycotted to the point they get into such financial disarray they have to go out of business.

Doctrinal Statements

A doctrinal statement should be limited to doctrine. When practices are included in the list as doctrines, they become a tool used to force the churches in line with the practice in the doctrinal statement or be out of fellowship or thrown out of fellowship of the association. When either occurs, the association infringes upon the sovereignty of the local church. What are the weirdest things you have ever seen in a doctrinal statement of ABA churches in a local association or state association?

Protestant-minded Baptists

I. K. Cross wrote a booklet called Landmarkism: An Update, in which he referred to Protestant-minded Baptists that "want to be free to receive Protestant and other immersions without regard to doctrinal standards." (page 28). Baptism is more than an immersion by a religious group. Immersion does not guarantee a church that the candidate they receive has scriptural baptism. All the SBC congrgeations in our area that I have asked approve the immersion of Protestant denominations.
Some Missionary Baptist church members are Protestant-minded Baptists-they see nothing wrong with joining a SBC congregation even though they practice receiving alien immersion (immersion without a proper authority), pulpit affiliation and open commuion. Pastors, teachers, youth workers need to teach the truth about baptism, the Lord's Supper, local church and church authority. When church members feed on Protestant religious books, TV religious programming and sermons from pastors that go to the internet to "get a sermon," they will be spiritually malnourished. Warning: when a church is not used to a good diet on sound doctrine, it will be hard for them to digest God's truths.
There are probably more Protestant-minded Baptists in more ABA churches than anyone would like to admit.

Calvinism and Salvation

Calvinists believe in the total inability of man to respond to God. They teach that once God grants spiritual life to a person, then they have the ability to respond to God by repentance and faith. This order is life from God, then repentance and faith.
God's Word teaches total depravity, not total inability. Those that are spiritually dead in trespasses and in sins are corrupt before a righteous and holy God. Only by responding to holy Spirit conviction and drawing by repentance and faith does one receove new life in Christ. This order is repentance and faith, then new life from God.
To the unwary, they see the buzz words repentance and faith and accept the rest of the words of Calvinists as sound doctrine.
It has been said that there is a considerable problem with Calvinism in the ABA. According to the best of your knowledge, is there a problem with Calvinism in the ABA? If so, to what extent?

Social Gospel Trend in Expenditures

I recently saw a church sign (central Ar, a SBC) that said, "We support community athletics." The biblical ethics of church expenditures out of the general fund includes the expenses of the church, the support of the pastor, the support of a widow indeed according to biblical qualifications, missions, expenses of messengers, Christian education and general benevolence (for those of like faith and order). When a congregation supports food drives, secular education, medical needs, or financial support for needy in the community out of the general fund, she begins to place emphasis on the social gospel - address the physical needs of the community. The benevolent offering for the saints of Judea (like faith and order) was a special offering - not out of the general fund (Paul reminded the church at Corinth not to wait to take up one when he came). A special love offering for church members that need financial help in extreme situations will usually be more than an amount taken from the general fund by passing a motion. It will promote the spirit of giving by those members that participate. The benevolent offering was not part of the individual member's church offering, it was extra. In these tough financial times, a church could very well get in financial difficulty in the general fund by doing what appears to be a good thing rather than leaving it to a love offering. Some would even use the examlpe of Jesus feeding the 5000 to prove that the church Jesus built did so out of the general fund, even though Jesus multiplied the lunch of a young boy. If true churches aren't careful, we will get caught up in social gospel ideas of funding phsycial things out of the general fund and will not give to missions, etc. as we should.

Casual Christianity

When I go to a religious bookstore, I scan a lot of books while I'm there. That helps me keep up with religious trendy thinking. I saw a book by George Barna (the poll guy) titled The Seven Tribes. It was a book dividing all religious thinking into seven tribe families, one of which was casual christianity. On p. 42, he equated casual christianity with the biblical example of the Laodicean church (rather an interesting concept). He noted those in casual christianity failed to make God a priority, lack love for those that do not agree with them, embrace nonbiblical teaching, tolerate sexual immorality, ignore sin and have only a superficial faith. He concludes that casual christianity falls way below biblical standards. These remarks are not an exact quote, but from notes I took while in the bookstore. I got the gist right. I'm always surprised when someone in print (non ABA writer) makes a statement I agree with.
God was not casual about man's need of a Savior, the command about altar building, Moses' need to take off his shoes at the burning bush, the high priest wearing his accouterments for official duties (can you imagine him in laced up boots, jeans and a casual shirt?), true worship being both spiritual and according to truth, scriptural baptism (a form we might call casual baptism is alien immersion), the Lord's Supper (casual communion would be open), the inspired Word of God preserved by God (casual Bible - new versions) the need for Jesus to shed His blood and die, etc.
Casual christianity is all about reinventing worship - I can best express it in terms of "roll your own." Some cigarette smokers in the 1960's still bought papers, filled one with loose tobacco and rolled their own cigarettes. Some were pretty shabby looking - fat, thin, crooked. We might conclude casual christianity is pretty shabby looking compared to true worship in spirit and in truth.