Being the Light

There is a story of a young woman one day who went to here pastor and wanted to talk about her job. She began to talk and told the pastor about how hard the job was and how rude the people she worked with were. She said she was really struggling in her Christian walk because of this job. The pastor looked at the woman and asked, “Where do you put lights?” The woman looked at the pastor curiously, but she did not respond. She went on to tell how her co-workers went out and partied on the weekends and came in and talked about all the things they had done and how draining it was to her spiritually to hear all of that kind of stuff. The pastor again calmly asked, “Where do you put lights?” Again the young lady looked at the pastor curiously but continued on about how her boss and his appalling language that he used in the work place. One last time the pastor looked at the lady and asked, “Where do you put lights?” The lady aghast at the repeated question looked at the pastor and said, “Well, I guess in dark places!” When the last word came out of her mouth she lowered her head and walked away knowing that she was suppose to be the light in the dark place of her work.

Jesus tells us we are, “the light of the world.” We live in a dark world with people that are not very nice and things that rage against everything the bible teaches. In this world we have two choices, one is unbiblical and the other is biblical. The unbiblical thing to do is to run and hide. This is what some do they insulate themselves from everything that is evil in this world and sit back and wait for Christ’s return. But God did not call us to do that! He called is to be in the world but not of it. We are supposed to let our light shine in those dark places of the world and make a difference for His kingdom. We are to be what Paul calls us in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “ambassadors for Christ.” We are supposed to go into the dark kingdom and do the work to promote God’s Kingdom.

Personally I hate Halloween. I wished in many ways it would go away, but the people outside our church are going to celebrate it, so this year we have decided to go into the dark places and see if we can make a difference for God's Kingdom. We are doing a "Light the Night" in our church parking lot. We have secured lights from our local volunteer fire department, two bounce houses, a cotton candy machine, a popcorn machine and some awesome kits from the American Tract Society. Please pray that God would help us as we reach out to our community through this event.

Former Golden Boy of the SBC

With all the things happening at Southwestern Seminary, the institution I hold an Master of Divinity from, I feel I need to respond. Dwight McKissic preached at chapel earlier this semester and spoke of his private prayer language. Obviously SWBTS President Page Patterson did not like his view on the subject because McKissic's message was taken off the website for people to be able to view and then this week President Patterson had the trustees, McKissic is a trustee, vote on a new policy of restriction of anyone that has a private prayer language at SWBTS.

For more info on the story read the letter to the trustees from Dr. Patterson and Dr. McKissic's response at SBC Outpost or this article on Dr. McKissic's sermon at SWBTS at Associated Baptist Press

What is funny to me is that McKissic was the Golden Boy of the SBC back in October 2001. He was a board member of the BGCT and asked the board to affirm inerrancy, BP Article

In a story by BP about McKissic at his resolution that was present the SBTC. About half way down you find this...

"As their first act of business, messengers approved a statement on the reliability and trustworthiness of the Bible written by Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington. "I simply wanted to introduce a resolution on biblical inerrancy that I don't have to read now, but want to make sure it's accepted here. By the way," he added, "this is the same motion that was rejected by the executive board of the BGCT."

SBTC President Ruben Hernandez thanked McKissic for the statement and said, "You're in friendly territory." Messenger Bill Sutton, pastor of First Baptist Church of McAllen, moved the suspension of the rules in order to act immediately on the resolution, receiving numerous shouts of "second" to his motion.

Asked to speak for the resolution, McKissic said, "I want to reiterate the position of the documents as I understand them of the SBTC and to give testimony to Baptists in the state of Texas regarding our beliefs that the Bible is the inerrant and infallible Word of God." The text of the resolution stated, "We believe in the divine inspiration of the whole Bible and the inerrancy of the original manuscripts," adding that the BGCT executive board had rejected his effort to present the motion for consideration at their 2001 convention.

"I bring this motion today because I want to be absolutely convinced that I'm in a room with Baptists that can affirm that if God breathed the Scriptures, they have to be without error," McKissic passionately declared to the applause of convention-goers who cheered and waved their ballots when it was time to vote. "I just need to know there are some Baptists who will take a stand on this issue," he shouted.

Asking if any messenger wished to speak against it, Hernandez joined the audience in laughter at such a thought. "All right. That's beautiful." After messengers voted, he added, "Unanimous. Let it go on record."


Amazing that you are part of the in crowd as long as you agree with us, but when you decide to talk about what you believe that is contrary to what the powers that be believe then you are on the outside looking in.

Personally I am a cessationist that is willing to be proven wrong! But, I can fully cooperate with someone who is a continualist. I was eating lunch with my accountability partner today and we were discussing why churches shoot themselves in the foot so often when it comes to reaching out to people with the good news? I believe the SWBTS trustees have shot the SBC in the foot one more time.

Tragedy in Africa

I was reading another blog about the story of Darfur and that many Christian leaders have tried to bring this tragedy to the light of people in America. Here is the story.

What really breaks my heart is the lack of concern for the most part among those who should care the most. Some estimates have 200,000 people dead while others believe it is closer to 400,000 people. Another 2.5 million have been displaced because of government repression. The Sudan government not only allows a group of Muslim nomads to do whatever they want in villages to people in the northern part of Sudan but also the government gives them support to do it.

These Militia called Janjaweed, which means "devils of horseback" rape the women, kill the men and take the livestock of these villagers. The reason? The Darfur people are black non-Muslim and the janjaweed and the government of Sudan are Arab and Muslim.

If the devastation keeps going the death toll could pass the 500,000 that were killed in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. If you want to see what happened there a good movie is "Hotel Rwanda."

Why should Christians care? Because these are people!!! These are creations of God that cannot protect themselves and we need to do everything within our power to help keep things like this from ever happening to people.

One of the problems cited in the article with the US interfering is that the Sudan government and the Janjaweed could raise up Islamic extremeist to come there and defeat the evil West.

If you would like to help make a call to your Congressman, Senator or the Presidents office. There is an email you can send to President Bush and Kofi Annan at the UN at the Save Darfu website.