The Wright Word
January-February 2007

Happy New Year 2007!

It is a great time to begin plans for unprecedented growth and evangelistic ministry through our churches into the community.

Associational Budget Commitment Cards

We have received 27 (out of 108) of the budget cards indicating your church’s contribution to the MBA for 2007. Please return the cards to our office or call Carol with the information. This information is important as we work to be excellent stewards of your financial support for MBA ministry and outreach emphases. We ended 2006 receiving $24,000 dollars less than we anticipated in the budget. Our staff spent accordingly and we ended the year in the black. But it is much better to accurately budget income and expenditures.

Communicate to the Community in 2007

Build into your outreach strategy a plan to communicate with everyone in your community at least five times this year. Let them know where you are located, what to wear, what time to come, and that children are welcome. Send a post card, deliver door to door, and offer quarterly events to let people know they are welcome and you care about them.  Offer them a free New Testament or Jesus Video. Invite every neighbor and every friend to attend church with you. Churches exist to reach the lost! Otherwise we would already be in heaven where the fellowship, worship and discipleship will be better than anything we can imagine here on earth.

Secularism marches forward

We continue to see the systematic attempt to prohibit the influence of the Bible, the Church and Christian theology in the public sector. This is why we insist on wishing people a Merry Christmas and not just a happy holiday. It is why we stand against secularists attempts to remove the Ten Commandments and intimidate conservative believers into silence.

The secular culture is moving beyond trying to remove any influence of biblical truth. The media and entertainment worlds have now begun to blame Christianity for problems in our culture. Elton John and Rosie O’Donnell have included recent attacks against Christianity because we teach the biblical truth about sin and perversion. Every historian sees dangerous parallels to earlier eras of persecuting conservative believers for a moral stand that differs from a secular definition of what is right.

Secular Christians

A disturbing by-product of a secular culture is the number of believers who are assimilating, or accepting, the secularist philosophy. We see Christians making decisions based on popular opinion or personal experience instead of the Word of God. Secularists and secular Christians desire to be autonomous from any authority but their own freedom of conscience. We see politicians positioning themselves to appeal to faith-based voters. They talk about their Christian credentials and then encourage Christians to “become more moderate and more accepting of the current beliefs.” We need to be so familiar with scripture that all of our decisions and activities are driven from biblical truth.

Biblical Interpretation and Creedalism

As your associational missionary I seek to serve every church in the MBA. Recent events indicate it may be helpful to explain creedalism. The MBA is not creedal, meaning we do not use man-made documents to tell churches what to believe or what to do.

The MBA membership committee understands that freedom of conscience should not be defined as more important than biblical truth. It is not accurate to define creedalism as occurring any time biblical truth is applied to faith and practice. It is not creedalism to obey our pre-existing and approved guidelines for affiliation. Freedom of conscience does not give an individual the right to disregard a church’s guidelines for membership. Neither does it allow churches to disregard the associational guidelines for affiliation and expect to remain a member. The MBA has never suggested to Hillcrest or FBC Mobile that they cannot hold to their beliefs. We now have each acknowledged that those beliefs are not consistent for affiliation. We can maintain fellowship even without affiliation.

Our decision that Hillcrest had stepped outside the guidelines for affiliation was made based on scripture, not on a man-made document. The MBA membership committee presented 9 sets of scripture representing 27 verses. We referred to the Baptist Faith and Message to confirm that we were consistent with the historic and approved interpretation of those scriptures. We reminded believers that autonomy/freedom of conscience is not a license for any deviant theology or personal opinion.  

When there is disagreement about interpretation, believers turn to the collective wisdom of the body of Christ for discussion and clarification. The summary of those discussions have been written down as a statement of faith called the Baptist Faith and Message. That denominational connectionalism is helpful to most churches. The BF&M accurately summarizes SBC beliefs in biblical authority. You can read a copy at www.sbc.net/bfm

This is why we can include the BF&M in our guidelines for affiliation, choose to be connected with our denomination, and still not be creedal.

Stand Firm, I Cor. 16:13

In the coming year it will be important for each believer to diligently stand on biblical truth. Be careful not to be persuaded that scripture is “a guide.” Scripture is THE guide for faith and practice and must influence our decisions and actions. Make a commitment to study God’s Word and wield it effectively. The coming of Jesus in John 1:14 reminds humankind that Jesus came in grace AND truth. There is a troubling trend to emphasize the grace without the truth or truth without the grace. John 14:6 provides absolute confidence in 2007 that Jesus is THE way, THE truth, and THE life.

It is a joy to serve together to make an eternal difference in Mobile.

In the Lamb,

Bro. Thomas