I was traveling this last week and found myself at Lebanon, MO on Sunday morning. I decided to go to First Baptist Church. There wasn’t much to it. It was a normal, Bible-belt traditional service. They had a later contemporary service, but because we were traveling we went to the early, traditional service.
The music was fine, the people were nice, and my son seemed to enjoy the nursery. Looking at the surface, most people would of probably thought, “This is a pretty nice church.”
When one gets beyond the surface they see something very different. They seem something better. One thing they might of thought is, “This young, very passionate pastor doesn’t seem to fit in real well with this traditional congregation.” I would respond, “Oh no, he fits perfectly.”
Churches like FBC of Lebanon, MO is one example of why I have great confidence in the future of the Southern Baptist Convention. When a person looks at that church they will see a young, passionate pastor leading and shepherding his congregation on what it means to live “on mission” for Jesus.
After church my wife made the comment, “I think the only thing I really liked was the pastor.” I don’t remember the pastors name and I am in no way trying to promote him as a person. What I am promoting is what he is doing. Church planting is great. What is equally important and often forgotten is young pastors going into old comfortable churches and leading them into missional living. It was great. The heart of the pastor was easily seen and received by his congregation. They are a church that is embracing what it means to be a gospel-community that cares most deeply about the world coming to know Jesus.
As I said before, the music was okay, nursery was fine, and the people seemed nice. What was great was the willingness of this young pastor to patiently lead, by word and example, his church into missional living.
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I agree with you Matt, it is important to have young pastors transforming older, traditional churches to missional living. Without it, the SBC would have no future.
My big concern with the SBC is this: what will the future relevance of the convention be if we are not actively planting churches and aren’t giving ourselves to support missions?
If more and more churches are focusing on missional living, then more and more churches will be devoting themselves to missions (foreign and local), but do we have enough time?
Matt,
I encourage you to check out my Idea #2 post. I address church planting there.
This is a great testimony and I hope it is even more prevalent than most of us realize.
this was a great post to read, matt. and i certainly don’t think there should be any divide whatsoever between revitalizing older churches and planting new ones. the church has the responsibility to help its own (2 Cor 8-9) and reach the lost. great post.
mf
Interesting comments. The underlying theme is “now that they have a new young pastor they might become a missional church.” It seems a big leap and presumtuous attitude to suggest that the church has existed all this time and “just now” they might become a missional church. Sounds a little “generationist” to me.
Thats not the underlying claim.
Its not, “now that they have a young new pastor.” It’s, “now they have a missional pastor.” He just happens to be young.
I’m not sure if you live in the woods, but a majority of SBC churches have no idea what it means be “missional.” Most SBC churches thinks missional=send check to the CP. This is no secret.
I wish we could hear more of this testimony. Love, share, llearn, lead, and keep repeating! It will work. It is not always easy but who said ministry should be or ever would be? Ask Jesus and the Apostle Paul!!!
i’m so glad you were able to come and enjoy our church. i happen to be a member of the first baptist church of lebanon. my husband and i did a lot of church hoping before landing here, and since our first visit back in jan. of 08 we’ve never felt anything but led to be here. we used to go to a church across the street and they were all nice people, and all relavent messages, but we just got too comfortable. we needed a church to motivate us while encouraging and convicting us all at the same time. thats what we found at FBC. we live 30 miles away and come into lebanon twice on sundays.. thats 2 hours of driving. it will be two years in jan. that we’ve attended here, and we’ve only missed 1 service. dont get me wrong, i’m not trying to pat our backs or anything. we love Pastor Matt, the congregation and the staff. the sermons are so uplifting and spirit filled that we feel less prepared for the upcoming week without them. we definately feel that this church family is worth our time and gas!
and youre right about us being a “missional” church.. relationships and missional living are two subjects that find themselves into almost every sermon!
thanks again for coming to visit. i’m glad you enjoyed the service, i wish you could have hung around for the second service… the choir is good, but the praise band rocks!
blessings
Heather Ferrier