Calvinists and Evangelism -- What Some Arminians are Saying

Here is an interesting quote about Calvinists and evangelism I came across in an article from the Assemblies of God home page.

"Certainly there are true Christians who believe and teach Calvinism; there are also true Christians who believe and teach that men and women have free will. Unfortunately, both sides have spent more time arguing doctrinal terminology and interpretations of theology than reaching out to a lost world. The irony of the disagreement is that Calvinists, who believe in predestination, are sometimes more active in witnessing and evangelism than Arminians who believe that man has a free will and should be encouraged to accept Christ as Savior."

Reflecting the Love of Christ

Well, I'd like to introduce my first ever guest blogger: my wife, Heidi. Last night, Heidi was asked to speak at our church's mother/daughter banquet. With her permission, I am reproducing her speech here. I hope you will see Heidi's heart for the mission of God and her desire to serve Him in her everyday life. Here is her speech:


Tonight I would like to share a little of my passion for reflecting the love of Christ to others. I believe God has given me a desire deep inside to share his love with both my brothers and sisters in Christ and those who don’t know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

When Sheila asked me to speak I immediately thought , no I can’t do that, I don’t’ speak in front of people. I’m the person who hated speech class in high school and come college looked for a major that didn’t, once again require a speech class. But upon going home and telling my husband Sheila asked me to speak at the Mother/Daughter banquet, he lovingly said, you have to! So tonight I stand here before you a little out of my comfort zone but I pray that some little thing I may share will minister to your heart.

After committing to speak tonight I then began worrying first and then praying, I told God, I need a verse and faithful as He is He gave me one about a week later. I Peter 4:11 says “If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves he should do it with the strength God provides so that in ALL things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever Amen. “ I found this verse in my journal, I had written it there months before and God brought me right back to. This verse is meant for all of us here tonight. If anyone speaks! I know that I can speak, not always comfortably in front of a large group of woman but I definitely do my share of speaking and I’m sure y’all do as well. When we speak it’s as one speaking the very words of God, wow!!! I find that both a huge responsibility and challenge on our part, we are reflecting something when we speak, is it the love of God? The second part of the verse says , if anyone serves! Do it with the strength God provides - I have to say I like that part, the part that says I don’t do it alone - God provides the strength for us to do the things He calls us to do. In I Thess 5:24 God reminds us that He who calls us is faithful and will also do it. And why do we speak the words of God and serve others? So that in ALL things God may be praised through Jesus Christ and get the glory! So tonight I stand here before you to encourage you to look at your own life and see How you are reflecting Christ’s love to others?

I’d like to briefly share from my own personal experience that no matter how young or how old you are tonight God can and will use all of us if we allow Him to. I will share some examples from my own life. One thing that I have always loved to do when I have time is bake a large batch of Sugar cookies. One day I decided we would put them on plates and deliver them to the neighbors, all the way down the block. This was something my children loved to do, the knocking on the doors part especially, and delivering cookies,. This small task was something that allowed us to get to know our neighbors and begin relationships with them. This past year I mindlessly sent one of my children outside to give some cookies I had just freshly baked to a maintenance man who I saw outside. Months later I ran into this man and God opened a door to talk about spiritual things such as church and a relationship with God, and this man mentioned those cookies! I had completely forgotten about the day I shared those cookies, but he hadn’t. He mentioned that people just don’t do that anymore. God’s love was reflected.

A cookout is also something we have tried to do each year as a family. We invite neighbors again and try to build relationships with them. A baby girl can share the love of Christ when a Senior adult in the store stops to admire and we choose to slow down our pace and just be friendly and visit a moment. My daughter, Ashley, can reflect Christ’s love at school when she chooses a good attitude and chooses to make godly choices even when her friends and teachers don’t understand and give her a hard time. I can reflect Christ’s love by helping out a mom who needs a break, or a family who is struggling. I can reflect God’s love by stopping long enough to really listen to a person who just needs a friend and a listening ear. I can reflect God’s love by praying with that person. On a daily basis God gives us opportunities to share Christ’s love. I came across these words while I was reading a few weeks ago and they spoke to me and I want to also share them and I hope they will challenge you as much as they did me -

“He [Jesus] was fully present with people, whether they were religious leaders or lepers. He responded gently to the inevitable interruptions in life. Do you see interruptions as an opportunity for ministry? Are you mindful and unhurried enough to discern what people really need and whether you can give it to them? Are you humble enough to listen to what is really going on before you tell them how to fix themselves? I sometimes have to admit that my frustration with interruptions is mostly about my desire to be in control. . . .

I’ve found it easier to see interruptions as opportunities to love other people if I can keep my own agenda very short. Not that I ignore my own needs, not at all. But I seriously evaluate everything on the list and make sure it really needs to be done.” *

As I read these paragraphs shared in this book, I thought wow, am I that person, Am I mindful of others, am I unhurried? Not very often, if I’m honest. Am I humble, do I listen? Interruptions in our days are often opportunities to minister God’s love to others. So I challenge you, Choose to make interruptions great opportunities to share Christ! Choose to actively take part in others lives. As much as I’d like to stand before you and say that I always have time for others and I’m always ready and mindful of sharing Christ in every situation it’s not true. I believe we must choose to actively make these choices and remember I Peter 4:11 God provides the strength so that in all things He may be praised. I have had three opportunities in the last year to share Christ with others and I had to pray for courage and choose to do it. So I challenge you to think of maybe just one person, a sister in Christ or someone who comes to your heart that needs the Lord and start praying for them. God will open doors and I stand here before you tonight as an example of Yes, with God’s strength and through Him we can step out of our comfort zones, we can speak and we can serve and God will get all the glory. If you are here tonight and don’t have a personal relationship with Christ, it is easy and I just know that someone near you would be thrilled to share Jesus with you so I pray that you will not leave here tonight without finding Christ’s love, because He truly loves us and gave His life for us. Thank you!


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* Keri Wyatt Kent, quoted by Tina Cole and Nocona Koenig, “Never Enough Time” in My Husband Wants to be a Church Planter . . . , (Alpharetta, GA: North American Mission Board, 2007), 69.

Thoughts on the analysis of Paige Patterson on the ACP

Paige Patterson has offered what I believe is an insightful analysis on the ACP report and the wealth of punditry that has followed. Patterson concludes by suggesting four real reasons for the numeric decline. I believe Patterson is spot-on (Patterson’s words appear in italics with my comments following).

1. The first failure is the busyness of the age, which has robbed churches of serious prayer . . . Prayerlessness is foe number one.

Two comments: First, one unintentional aspect of the church growth movement has been a dependence on methods rather than on the power of God. This, of course, was never the attention of McGavran or of the second generation of CGM leaders. Nevertheless, more than fifty years later, McGavran has been largely forgotten and his God-dependent principles with him. I am personally an advocate of Church Growth and its emphasis on removing manmade barriers to the gospel and church growth. However, as McGavran would agree and Patterson alludes in his column, no method can advance the kingdom apart from absolute dependence on God. To the extent that prayerlessness is a characteristic of our churches, we should not be surprised at a decline in our numbers. Patterson rightly calls Southern Baptists to a return to prayer and complete dependence on God for success in ministry.

Second, prayer is not the only casualty of the busyness of the age. Christians have, by and large, abandoned the mission of God for other pursuits. It is time that Christians reject the busyness of the age that centers on the mundane and get consumed by passion for God’s mission. We must reorient our lives around the Great Commission rather than our own self-interests. This leads to Patterson’s second point.

2. The second culprit is our failure to witness. We are so adept at "marketing" and "programming" that we have failed to share Christ individually on a consistent basis. In fact, because meaningful church membership has been traded for numerical addition, most of our people hardly witness at all.

Again, another unintentional and non-McGavranite consequence of some modern mutations of the church growth movement. Numerical addition was never intended to replace meaningful church membership. In fact, McGavran argued for numbers that were meaningful. McGavran states,

“It is not adding mere names to the roll or baptizing those who have no intention of following Christ. Roll-padding, aside from being dishonest, is useless. The numerical increase worth counting is that which endures from decade to decade. Roll-padding and dishonest baptizing will never produce lasting growth.”[1]

To the extent that numerical addition has replaced meaningful church membership, churches ought to repent and return to the growth principles centered on abundant, unhindered, contextual evangelism.

Second, as Patterson has so rightly reminded us, we must return to the actual practice of witnessing. As many have noted, the conservative resurgence has not yet resulted in a Great Commission resurgence. In my opinion, part of the problem among conservative evangelicals, is that we have pursued Christ-likeness in terms of character but not in terms of mission. Certainly, we must pursue the one without abandoning the other. We have forgotten, however, that to become truly like Him, we must allow God to work not only in us, but also through us. How can we know Christ and truly be like him without pouring out our life for his mission to reach the lost? Baptists must renew our commitment to evangelism, not only in theory, but in practice.

3. Third, the shallow state of preaching has exacerbated the lethargy of the church and left the lost with no real Word from God. The pastor ought to be the major source of theological understanding and the most able teacher of the Bible. Anemic pulpits create anemic churches and denominations.

I’ll let Patterson’s words stand on their own here. I will only add to my last point that we must return to preaching the full counsel of God so that our preaching is God-centered, cross-centered, and mission-centered rather than merely self-help, self-actualizing, felt needs preaching. Certainly, we need to preach those texts that help believers become better Christians, but even then the preaching must be centered in Christ and his cross.

4. Finally, our churches, in their hot pursuit of cultural adaptability look more and more like the culture and the world. Even at its best, the church is not good at being the world. In looking like a faint imitation of the world, the holiness of God and a thirst to be like Him have apparently been lost. And with the loss of holiness has come the corresponding loss of power and appeal!

Hear Patterson correctly here. I do not believe he is saying that we must abandon contextualization. He is, however, saying that not all contextual methods and models are God-honoring and faithful to him. We must approach contextualization critically and approach evangelism in away that both communicates to the culture and at the same time remains faithful to the biblical gospel. To the extent that churches have capitulated to the culture and abandoned the offense of the cross, we must return to the true gospel and to biblical models and methods.

In the final analysis, Patterson has offered wise words that should be considered by all Southern Baptists. We must recommit ourselves to the prayerful, powerful, critically-contextual, abundant proclamation of the gospel. Until we do, we should not be surprised when our statistics are not what we wish them to be.

Lord, send a revival and let it begin in me.

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[1] Donald A. McGavran, How Churches Grow: The New Frontiers of Mission (London: World Dominion Press, 1959), 16.