Posts from 2025

Weekly Update – June 5th, 2025  Every year, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) meets in June for its annual meeting.  The convention contains just over 47,000 churches with an average of 10,000 messengers attending this annual meeting on behalf of member churches.  The SBC was formed in 1845 with the singular purpose of, “eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the Baptist denomination of Christians, for the propagation of the Gospel.”  First Baptist Church is an active member of the…

Weekly Update – May 29th, 2025  As you all know, Vacation Bible School is just around the corner.  Every summer our church has a week where we specifically focus on teaching the children of our church and the community the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This week always requires a lot of effort, resources and time.  Therefore, for the sake of simply doing something because we have always done it, I want to remind you, just as I do every year,…

Weekly Update – May 22nd, 2025  In Luke 9:51, we see an interesting phrase that will set out for us the rest of Jesus’ ministry on earth.  Luke says, “he (Jesus) set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  Now, on the surface of it, this may seem like Luke is only giving us the physical direction as to where Jesus is going.  He is now headed to Jerusalem.  In actuality though, I believe that Luke says this phrase with a…

Weekly Update – May 15th, 2025  As Christians, we are all called to a type of ministry.  There is no such thing as isolating ourselves from other believers, just as there is no such thing as inactivity when it comes to serving the Lord.  We are to be actively investing ourselves into the lives of others, younger and older, mature and immature, similar to us or different.  Ministry isn’t only a call to those who are paid or to those…

Weekly Update – May 8th, 2025  The Biblical command issued by Jesus throughout the gospels to those who would be his disciples is, “Follow Me.”  We saw this clearly last Sunday in Luke 9:23.  Here Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Now, every passage in the New Testament in some way or another gives us this command.  As we have seen so far in the…

Weekly Update – May 1st, 2025  Summer is often a great time for ministry, as people are outside, kids are on break and church programs take a different pace.  Though many of us will take vacations, trips or take time to simply relax, the mission of the church continues to press forward.  Therefore, as we are now in the month of May, I want to update you on a couple of key opportunities that will be happening in the life…

Weekly Update – April 24th, 2025  On a regular basis I will have conversations with people who claim to be Christians, but don’t know the gospel message.  One conversation may be a man telling me that he needs to do more in life to please God, like the discussion I had a few weeks ago.  Another might be a man who walks me through an entire system of works that the Catholic Church requires, like the conversation I had a…

Weekly Update – April 17th, 2025  One of the hardest parts about sharing the gospel is actually getting into a “gospel conversation” with an unbeliever.  Now sure, understanding the points of the gospel are key, but unless you are street preaching or going door to door, you will probably never have to worry about your outline or your evangelistic method.  This week, I want to share four helpful tips for generating these “gospel conversations” that might open up for us…

Weekly Update – April 10th, 2025  On Sunday at our mini conference titled, Taking Every Thought Captive, Marshall Adkins gave us a sort of grid to interpret how it is that we can evaluate the popular therapies of our day.  In our culture, it is becoming increasingly common to undergo some sort of therapy.  Many psychologists and psychiatrists will have their own thoughts and methods that they will bring to the table, with the mindset that they can give their…

Weekly Update – April 3rd, 2025  In just a few weeks, we as Christians celebrate the cornerstone of our faith.  As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14, “if Christ has not been raised, then our faith is in vain.” What this means is that the resurrection does matter.  We can’t simply resort to saying that Christianity is about doing good for others or living a morally pure life. If Christ has not been raised, then he is just like…

Weekly Update – March 27th, 2025  For the most part, I think that I am a pretty good listener.  Maybe some will think differently, but overall, I don’t think there is a lot that I miss.  But there is a difference between listening to something and truly hearing.  The same is true with seeing.  Have you ever looked inside the refrigerator for something that you wanted and not been able to see it, even though it was right in front…

Weekly Update – March 20th, 2025  If you were to ask a group of people to describe the love of God, you would likely get a different definition from every single person.  Our culture would describe the love of God as anything that is accepting of their way of life.  Christians might even have a difficult time trying to describe what it means for God to love.  But listen to how the apostle John describes the love of God in…