Below is the text of my December 2015 column in our church newsletter. It includes my report on the 2015 Florida Baptist Convention, which is why I post it here:
Hello, FBC Sebring Family!
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are enjoying the holiday season. I am excited about some of the organizations we are partnering with this year in our celebration of Christmas – including First United Methodist Church of Sebring and Sebring High School. We rejoice in the good news of salvation offered to all men through the birth of our Savior!
As promised, I want to give you a report from the trip that I took to the Florida Baptist Convention this past month. Although we were in Panama City, there was no time for the beach! There was a lot going on at the convention gathering, including the best set of sermons I have heard at a state convention, opportunities to connect with Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) agency employees (like Lifeway and the Florida Baptist Children’s Home), and reports given by the many ministries of our state convention.
Most importantly, we unanimously passed a radically new budget for our state convention. This was a moment of incredible encouragement and unity. We voted to send 51% of our state Cooperative Program receipts on to the national SBC cooperative program. This was a major change, and it makes our state convention the pacesetter among the large Baptist state conventions in terms of commitment to international missions. What does that mean in laymen’s terms? It means that we have cut back on how much money given by Florida Baptist churches stays in Florida, so that we can send a greater percentage of our financial resources to help reach the nations. That’s AWESOME news – and it’s been a necessary change for a long time.
Why do I say that? Truthfully, there are still millions to reach with the gospel in Florida. But the primary issue before us at this point in the history of the Great Commission is accessibility to the gospel. Jesus has called us to reach all nations with the message of salvation in Him. The reality is that a lost person in the state of Florida – or in most of the Southeastern US, for that matter – has great accessibility to the gospel, through living near tons of Christians and many evangelical churches. But millions upon millions of individuals living in parts of Asia, for example, live their whole lives and never hear the message of salvation in Jesus. Without Christ, every human is condemned to hell by his or her sins. Jesus has called us to send the gospel to every tribe, tongue, and nation, and it is time that our use of funds reflects that calling. Of course, as we do this, we do not neglect to love and speak the gospel to people in our own community – WE are the missionaries sent to them!
I am extremely encouraged by these developments in our state convention, by the faithful and bold leadership of our executive director, Dr. Tommy Green, and by the hope that this financial trend will spread to other Baptist state conventions. Please be in prayer for Dr. Green, as well as myself, as I was confirmed at the meeting as a member of the state board that governs our state convention. If you have any questions about any of this report, please ask me in person or email me at mcrawford@fbsebring.com.
Have a wonderful Christmas! God bless you!
Pastor Matt
Sermon Illustr8r 