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I recently came across this short video by Paul Washer addressing Pastors. At the end of it, Paul [himself a Southern Baptist] says,

“I’ll tell you what was going on. If you had been baptized as an infant, you are in the church. Even though you are unregenerate you were in the church. You got in. Why? Because you went through some man-made superstitious thing. Southern Baptists are no different. It’s just we don’t have infant baptism, we have that silly superstitious prayer at the end of a Roman Road that has sent more people to hell than every brothel in this country.”

Jesus was an itinerant prophet who traveled from town to town proclaiming that the kingdom of God was near. Furthermore, he commanded that people within reach of his voice repent because of this nearness. In the past it has been hard for me to make sense of this because I understand the kingdom to be paradise. Just imagine someone coming up to you saying, “repent because the earth is about to be regenerated to paradise.” This would more likely inspire expectation on par with a child who just finds out that her parents are going to take her to Disney Land in a few days. If the kingdom means joy and eternal life then it will likely not inspire repentance but expectation and curiosity. Yet, it has become increasingly clear as I have mulled over Jesus’ gospel proclamation that his message was more like a double edged sword than a wispy promise of eternal happiness.

I was reading through Matthew yesterday and I stumbled across chapter 9 verses 36 through 38.

Seeing the people, he felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a sheperd. Then He said to his disciples, ” The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.”

Our sister, Erica (a missionary student at Atlanta Bible College) found this video and sent it out on email a couple of days ago. It is powerful and shows the vastness of the world and how much work remains to be done in evangelism and deeds of compassion. Any thoughts? (The video is about 10 minutes long)

It has happened almost every Sunday. There is a fresh face in church and we rejoice to see them. We begin to embrace them as newfound a brother or sister in Christ and speaking to them as if they have been a Christian in a worldly body there whole life. WE invite them to the the next social event and if they liked the teaching. This might happen at a home fellowship, church or social function. What basis do we have to treat people this way? Why do we assume that people have heard, received and accepted gospel because they are at church? This attitude of “repentance assumed” was pointed out to me recently and its wasn’t a new or profound idea, but it did stir up concern. I think its very dangerous and bizarre to treat people this way.

This short video (6 min 21 sec) is hilarious yet it makes a profound point. One person lists off eight reasons for not preaching the gospel. This video helped me to see how silly my objections really were.

click here to watch the video

• Did you enjoy this video? Why or why not?
• Can you think of other reasons why we don’t share our faith?
• What can we do to overcome these objections?

This past weekend we went on the 2nd annual Weekend Evangelism Road Trip (WERT). The mentality we adopted for the weekend was that we were fulltime missionaries–we were to talk to everyone we could about the gospel of the kingdom and the cross. It was an incredible and exhausting time of adventure, mourning, conversation, and rejoicing. I thought I’d share some of my personal memories of the trip and I was hoping that any of the other team members (there were eight of us) could add their stories in the comments.

Without a doubt, the main message of Jesus’ preaching of the gospel was the Kingdom of God.  Had we been in 1st century Palestine, we could have asked Jesus just what his purpose was.  I believe this was his answer:

Luke 4:43 - But He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.”

But what about the apostle Paul?  Many churches today look only or first at Paul and then look at Jesus’ words to know what should be preached as the gospel.  Many will use I Corinthians 15:1-3 to define what Paul’s message was:

Rick Warren’s book of the same title has drawn a lot of press and attention. Many claim that it is doing the church a great service. Here is Warren’s gospel presentation in the form of the sinner’s prayer:

Dear God, I want to know your purpose for my life. I don’t want to base the rest of my life on wrong things, I want to take the first step in preparing for eternity by getting to know you. Jesus Christ, I don’t understand how but as much as I know how I want to open up my life to you. Make yourself really to me. And use this series [40 Days of Purpose] in my life to help me know what you made me for.
Now if you’ve just prayed that prayer for the very first time I want to congratulate you. You’ve just become a part of the family of God.

Just before Jesus ascended he had the following conversation with his apostles:

Acts 1:4-6
4 Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” 6  So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”