My familiy is spending a few days this week at the Annual Meetings of the Baptist General Conference. It is always a great time for us. I really enjoy not just our annual meetings, but I also really respect our leaders in the BGC.
This year, our meetings are in Denver, so we are enjoying the meetings during the day and hanging out with some old friends at night.
Anyway, I thought I’d use my blog here to post some of my notes from the sessions of the Annual Meetings.
Theme: Fire & Reign
The theme for this year’s conference is Fire & Reign which means that we are seeking God for a renewed experience of the fire of God’s Spirit for the sake of the Kingdom Reign of God’s Son. This conference is launching a year long spiritual renewal project among participating BGC churches to fast, pray, and seek God for spiritual renewal in our churches. I’m truly excited.
The highlight of the campaign for any individual church will be a 10 week study similar to the 40 Days of Purpose program put out by Saddleback Community Church in Lake Forest, California. For 10 weeks, the pastor of the church is to preach messages on spiritual renewal while the members of the congregation go through daily studies, small group studies, and a few special renewal meetings.
I’m planning to look into it more closely for my church.
Day 1, Morning session
The worship service this morning was really encouraging. Damaris Clairbaugh presented special music, and Henry Blackaby brought the morning message. Basing his message on a couple phrases from Psalm 97, Henry taught us that before the presence of the Lord comes, he always sends his refining fire. He challenged us to realize that the refining fire of the Spirit needs to work in our lives.
What was really great, though, was the fact that he invited us to spend some time in prayer after his message, and that time of prayer really blossomed into a full prayer meeting. Dana Olsen called people to come forward to kneel in the front and pray for God to move in our meetings and in our denomination. It was really encouraging to realize how passionate the pastors in our denomination are to see God move in our midst.
Day 1, Afternoon mini-conference
I went to hear a lady named Marilyn Laszlo during the afternoon mini-conference, and she shared some amazing stories from her 30+ years in Papua New Guinea as a Bible translator with Wycliffe. It was really cool
Day 1, Evening Session
Before Dr. Blackaby spoke this evening, we had a time of worship and a report on some of the church planting efforts in the BGC. One fellow stood up telling us of a friend of his who had planted two different churches that ended up failing. He told us how his friend was still making plans, “The next time I plant a church…” In amazement at his friend’s persistence, he said, “I thought to myself that he’s either stupid or someone who knows that Jesus is Lord.”
That actually was a great synopsis of the theme of Dr. Blackaby’s message. Dr. Blackaby made a couple key points that I’m just going to quote here:
The rule of God can go no further in your life than the level of his convincing you in your heart who Jesus is.
In response to the passage in Matthew when Jesus told Peter that he would build his church on the “Rock” of Peter’s affirmation of Jesus as the Christ:
He will build his church on the activity of those who are convinced by the Father that Jesus is the Christ.
No power of hell can stand against the church—those convinced by the Father that Jesus is the Christ.
His main point was that the full power of the church will never be revealed until the people in the church become convinced by the Father that Jesus really is Lord. If we have the faith and confidence that Jesus really is Lord, our churches will be amazing in the experience of the power of God’s Spirit.
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