2009 Southern Baptist Convention, Observations and Personal Reflections (Part 1)

Joyce and I were privileged to join with more than 8,700 messengers attending the 152nd session of the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting on June 23-24 at the Kentucky Exhibition Center in Louisville, Kentucky. Others attending from our Association included: Dr. and Mrs. Michael Lewis and Dr. and Mrs. Bill Clark, messengers from First Baptist Church, Plant City. We did not have opportunity to visit each other in the sea of messengers and various opportunities and responsibilities of the week. Michael Lewis serves through 2009 on the Administrative Committee of the SBC.

Mrs. Lewis served on the committee to organize a minister’s wives luncheon and program. The luncheon event was held Tuesday, June 23, with 1700 minister’s wives attending. Joyce and my daughter, Lisa, were able to be among the 1700 attending the lunch.

My eight-nine year old uncle, W.H. Morris, attended as a messenger from his Louisville, Kentucky Baptist Church, He is a faithful deacon and a tremendous inspiration.

We had the joy of staying at their Louisville residence with my daughter and son-in-law, Steve and Lisa Yates, during the convention week. Steve is completing his PhD in ministry and administrative leadership. He plans to go to work with Southern Baptist Lifeway, and may move to any of the nationally located 150 stores. We are grateful for answered prayer as he begins this job, Wednesday, July 1, by having an eight week training at the Louisville Lifeway store.

We concluded the week spending some time with my mom who lives in a retirement home in Campbellsville, Kentucky. She continues to weaken physically and suffers from loss of memory and other mental abilities. It is wonderful that she knows us and enjoys our visits and has good care.

Here at home, Pastor Hal Sexton shares that members of Berea Baptist Church (James Redman Parkway) were able to hear and watch parts of the Convention on the I-Max screen. An opportunity provided by the new technology of SBC internet. Bro Hal indicated that he looked forward to having the entire convention available in the coming years.

Our Association has a copy of the audio CDs of the Convention and Key Note preachers of the Convention. Pastors and church leaders are welcome to check them out of the Library here at the Resource Center.

Pre-convention events began for us on Sunday as we attended the two day National Director of Missions Conference. I estimate that there were approximately 300 of the 950 national Director of Missions attending. Key note speakers included Dr. Ken Hemphill and Dr. Thom Rainer, president of Lifeway. Their messages focused on building relationships, developing fellowship, offering forgiveness, and doing Kingdom priorities as servants exampled in the New Testament Church. The second day included break-out seminars on subjects such as: competence and future directions of Director of Missions, Prayer Ministry, Changing models affecting Association ministry, and new services offered by NAMB for the Association. It was an enjoyable time of fellowship and opportunity to network with leaders across our country.
The major goal of our Convention this year was finding ways for Southern Baptists to “work more faithfully and effectively" together in fulfilling the Great Commission. They, like all of us, have to look at doing more with less. The messengers to the convention's annual meeting affirmed asking a task force to examine the denomination for one year and report back to the 2010 meeting in Orlando Florida.

Welcome Dr. Michael Lewis

This week we are inviting our Association pastors to come to a fellowship at South Florida Baptist Hospital to meet First Baptist Church of Plant City's new pastor, Dr. Michael Lewis. The fellowship will be on Wednesday, June 17th at 7:30 am.

Dr. Lewis came to Plant City from Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, Texas. The church membership at Great Hills is approximately 5,500, averaging 1,993 in worship and 1,730 in SS. He also served as Vice Chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee and on the Southern Baptist Convention Committee on Committees, and the Southern Baptists of Texas Committee on Order of Business.

Education:

Honorary Doctor of Divinity, Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary; Master of Divinity, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; Bachelor of Arts, Major in Bible with minor in pastoral ministry, Columbia International University.

Evangelism and Missions:

Michael has led mission teams to India, Mexico, Africa, Brazil, and Romania. He has been committed to leading one international mission trip each year. Michael is featured as the FAITH pastor in the new filming of the LifeWay revision of FAITH Evangelism and Discipleship. Michael has preached at many conventions and conferences around the United States and in Romania.

Family:

Michael and his wife, Liliana, have three daughters - Charity, Faith and Hope. Liliana is a graduate of Columbia International University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Bible and Elementary Education. She enjoys homeschooling her three girls.

A New Opportunity for Renewal & Revitalization for Pastor and Church

Hal Sexton is pictured here with his wife, Denise, and their four children, Emily, Melanie, Gracie and David. He comes to a church which began a revitalization process twenty-one months ago. Pastor Hal recently served ten years as pastor of West Thonotossasa and resigned to take a renewal sabbatical. God has called a pastor and a church in which both are in a renewal or revitalization process. It will be exciting to continually report what God will be doing in their lives as God guides in their renewal process.

One of the things Pastor Hal has brought to our attention that made such an impact on his renewal was the "Exchanged Life Conference" led by John Woodward of Grace Fellowship International out of Pigeon Forge, TN. Hal and Denise attended this conference during his sabbatical and found it to be life changing. Pastor Hal and Berea are bringing this conference to our community on July 17 & 18. It sounds very exciting as it is set to bring joy and renewal to the lives of God's ministers and their families. We pray the Holy Spirit would use this time to bring renewal to all of us. (Information about the conference is on a brochure prepared by the Sextons and is available on our web site, http://www.shilohba.org/ .

A Vision to Reach East Hillsborough County
I invite all of our churches to join in the launching of the vision to witness to every Resident of East Hillsborough County and beyond by members of the churches of our Association.

Let us join with the vision of witnessing to every resident of East Hillsborough County and beyond! Dr. Michael Lewis announced to his congregation Sunday evening that launching the Sunday School Faith Evangelism emphasis begins in August. Michael has been one of the leading pastors in the SBC using the FAITH evangelism approach. A few of our pastors are using or are trained in FAITH. Dr. Benny Keck, pastor FBC Dover, has used it continually in his leadership. Their church has effectively grown and reached new people for Christ over his nine years as pastor. Michael shared with me that he would love to have all pastors interested in beginning the program in their church to come to a getting acquainted lunch, on Thursday, July 23, at FBC Plant City. Doug Williams will be guest for the lunch. Michael and Doug will be leading a FAITH Training event July 23 - 25th. He invites any pastor interested to come and be trained in FAITH. This is an exciting local opportunity to get to know and use this evangelism approach in our churches. I remember when Pastor Bobby Welch, FBC Daytona, launched this new evangelism method at his church and made it available for pastors in the 1990's. It was most costly to travel and get the training. Now it has been brought to Plant City. Even Bobby Welch, former president of our SBC and founder of FAITH Sunday School Evangelism will be coming, August 16th at 6:30 pm to challenge people in the Sunday School Evangelism. What an opportunity for our churches to share the vision of witnessing to every resident of East Hillsborough County and beyond!

Vacation Bible School

We are excited that several of our churches are having Vacation Bible School this month. This week Bethany, Northside, West Thonotosassa. We are preparing for a mission VBS in our Association building. We had a work day this past Saturday from 9:00 am - 6:30 pm., and next Saturday, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm our Mission Church, Free Riders Fellowship, will have another work day getting ready for VBS.

Why is VBS so exciting even with all the tremendous work involved? Southern Baptist research has revealed that Vacation Bible School is the most strategic outreach tool for our churches to reach children and young families for Christ. In 2008, 2.8 million people were enrolled in VBS. Eighty-eight thousand decisions for Christ were reported. Thirty-seven thousand were enrolled in Sunday School. Twenty-six percent of baptisms were the result of Vacation Bible School.

A part of my journey is to get pictures and reports from the different VBS's going on in our churches. Thanks for helping by e-mailing pictures and updates to me at dmorris@shilohba.org .

A New Form of Communication

Today I began a new form of communication, creating a journey blog as a social networking tool of Shiloh Baptist Association and its friends. It's really new for me and I appreciate your encouragement and suggestions in this new endeavor. Change is important today! pastor Michael Lewis is using the theme, "It's a New Day" as a sermon series and the beginning of his FBC Plant City pastoral ministry. That theme applies to all of us each day, whether or not we are beginning a new job or establishing a new relationship. It is important to affirm the value of change. I am reminded that there is going to be a lot of change when God calls me to heaven.

Every day is a new day and we are called to action with each new day's opportunities. Joyce and I have adopted the Serenity Prayer as a devotion thought for our lives in our journey.


The Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him Forever in the next. Amen. -- Reinhold Niebuhr

We are committed to be a friend and give added partnership support to the pastors, church leaders, and all of our churches. Our passion is to improve our mission work each week. If you have needs, suggestions, or information for our web ministry or Blog, let me know. You can email me back.

Our Ministry Assistant, Kim Smith, has left us and accepted a position as Dr. Michael Lewis' Pastoral Assistant at FBC Plant City. We are blessed to have Barbara Grainger in that position each morning from 8:30 am until 12:30 pm. Her major responsibilities, beyond receiving calls and greeting people, includes newsletter publication, promotion of special events, coordinating our calendar events with Florida Baptist Convention, keeping updated information on the pastor and church profiles. Barbara is knowledgeable of graphics and media and will have an added responsibility to help us and our churches with the web ministry, promotion of events, and monthly newsletters. This should advance our partnership-mission work. She will be a blessing in this time when we need to change and improve our communication. This does not change Ginny Diaz's role as our Administrative Assistant, it just adds a new dimension to, and advancement in our team mission work.

Since May 17, Joyce and I have enjoyed getting acquainted with the preaching and leadership of the new pastor, Dr. Michael Lewis, of FBC Plant City. It is one of the few times we have had the opportunity to be in regular attendance. Pastor Michael has a spiritual passion combined with energy to live and preach God's Word making it relevant in today's culture. He has shared with me his desire to partner with us in our Association. He does not see any church as small or any pastor as less important. He spoke to me about the SBC Ezekiel program which encourages a partnership of churches to provide assistance to revitalize our churches with special needs. He spoke of the value he placed on having peer group meetings with fellow pastors. He encourages the value of pastors meeting regularly in a covenant fellowship relationship. His sermon notes, video support, audio mp3 from each Sunday morning and evening messages are available on FBC Plant City web site. He shares his morning prayer/devotion time on blog with members and friends who subscibe to it.

Pastor Hal Sexton has had a good beginning since coming on May 20th as the new pastor at Berea Baptist Church. It is great to see Berea's revitalization and most of all to see Hal's revitalization after taking a 3 month sabbatical following his ten year pastorate at West Thonotosassa. He and Denise took advantage of some special retreats during this leave. I was really impressed with his determination. One of the retreat events that was most meaningful to him was the Exchanged Life program and he will be bringing this to Berea and our community on July 17th and 18th at Berea Baptist Church. We will post more information about this conference on our web site as well as email a brochure to our churches.

Our program committee is beginning plans to think about our Annual Meeting. We want it to be something that is relevant for our pastors and our people as they invest their time in attending. This year it will be held on October 19, 2009 at Eastside Baptist Church. Some of the ideas for the program have been suggested as follows:

1. 
   Key persons to make presentation of the changing church culture here in America and how it is affecting us in the East Hillsborough County area. The knowledge of the new religions influencing our local culture and suggestions related to our missionary response. This would appropriate suggested responses that we as pastors and churches might respond.
2. A key person to present the changing legal issues that is affecting our families and our churches. This would include a call to affirm our testimony and our witness in a changing and uncertain time.
3. A preacher to proclaim our response to these needs of our times with a "Great Awakening and Spiritual Revival"
4. Invite the new pastors to participate in the program this year.

There may be other important issues or topics that you and your people are most interested in having a messenger of God address. If you have a topic or a suggestion, please email that to our office. Even if we are unable to get it on the October Annual Meeting program, we might address it at another time to give support. Let us know.