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Bonus Content
June 27, 2013
Create a missions legacy, churches urged HOUSTON (BP) – The importance of leaving a legacy – both financial and spiritual – was conveyed to 900 pastors and church members at a luncheon hosted by the IMB during the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Houston. Chuck Schneider, executive pastor of Sagemont Church in Houston, which funded the event, said the gathering’s theme, “The Last Full Measure of Devotion,” came from President Abraham Lincoln as he acknowledged those who gave the ultimate sacrifice at Gettysburg. For believers, however, there is no fear of death, Schneider noted. “The last full measure of devotion for us is the concept of what are we going to do as ambassadors, as we step off into the Kingdom. What kind of legacy will we leave? ... What will we do as good stewards?” he asked. John Morgan, Sagemont’s senior pastor, talked about “trying to make up for lost time” after he realized that during his 40-plus years at the church only one person had remembered it in her will. After learning that about 70 percent of Americans do not have a will, Morgan decided to make sure everyone at Sagemont had one. When they offered a lawyer’s services to set up wills for church members, Morgan said he thought 500 would show up. But that night more than 1,700 wills, powers of attorney and physician directives were distributed. Soon after that, Schneider attended the Southern Baptist Convention in Indianapolis and heard from PhilanthroCorp, a planned giving services organization and partner of both IMB and the Southern Baptist Foundation. Nine months later, Sagemont leadership invited Philan-
Tom Elliff, president of the Internatoinal Mission Board (IMB), speaks at the IMB “The Last Full Measure of Devotion” luncheon held during the 2013 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting June 11 in Houston. (Inset) Holding a $200,000 check for the Cooperative Program from Sagemont Church in Houston are (from left) Chuck Schneider, Sagemont executive pastor; Elliff; and John Morgan, the church’s senior pastor. throCorp to the church. In about two years, families contributed more than $20 million to the Sagemont’s nonprofit foundation, Morgan said, and nearly $20 million more is pending. God has provided for the church’s needs, he said, since they committed to stop borrowing money in 1975. “When we stopped begging the people and starting praising God and asking Him, the glory came down,” Morgan said. “... All during this time period, we stayed the course of missions, missions, missions.” Then, saying “we have finally come to the good part,” Morgan presented Elliff with a $200,000 check for the Cooperative Program – the first check Sagemont has written from the endowment. “Pastors, you don’t have to save
God any money, He’s got plenty of money – He just can’t find any stewards to entrust it to,” Morgan said. “When your church becomes that kind of a church and, pastors, when you get a vision that reaches beyond where you live, God will open up the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that you’ll not be able to receive.” Sagemont Church has “a heart as big as the world,” Elliff said after receiving the check. “A legacy is something that is left behind,” Elliff told the crowd. “What is your legacy? What will be your legacy?” In a world where nearly 1 billion people likely will die without hearing the Gospel in a way they can understand, Elliff said it is “unthinkable, unacceptable.” The IMB president called himself an “unashamed
beggar” on behalf of the lost billions of this world. “It’s not about just getting money for the IMB,” Elliff said. “It’s about ensuring that the people in your church, in my church, know that all that they’ve accumulated in this lifetime can somehow redound to the winning of lost men and women and boys and girls, to Jesus year after year ... after they pass away.” Dave Clippard, IMB associate vice president of development, urged pastors to first create their family’s personal estate plans and then help church members with estate planning. IMB’s development office has several church legacy consultants who can help churches with planned giving. In estate planning, “we simply ask a question, ‘have you considered missions?’” Clippard said.
Churches urged to prepare for marriage issues HOUSTON (BP) – Pastors and churches need to be prepared to address same-sex marriage in biblically faithful, Christ-like ways, new ethics entity head Russell D. Moore and other panelists said at a discussion preceding the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, moderated the “Marriage on the Line” breakfast panel June 11. The panelists addressed the issue during the same month the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to release decisions in two cases related to same-sex marriage. The event also came in a year when the number of states legalizing homosexual marriage has reached 12, plus the District of Columbia. Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said Southern Baptist and other evangelical churches are not ready – “tragically so,” he said – for a legal redefinition of marriage
or what appears to be the growing cultural acceptance of same-sex marriage. Churches must teach Christians “to be kind and gentle and generous” and to understand there is no “Christian America,” if there ever was one, Patterson told the audience of about 300 at the ERLC-sponsored discussion. “We are now living in a foreign environment, and so we have to adjust to that. We have to be a minority opinion that is a solid biblical opinion,” while “at the same time we respond to people in a Christ-like way,” Patterson said. J.D. Greear, senior pastor of The Summit Church in the RaleighDurham, N.C., area, said there is a danger of Christians either underreacting or over-reacting. Some Christians, especially younger ones, say, “We just need to kind of recognize that [homosexuals] should have equality even if we don’t agree with it,” Greear said of
those who under-react. Government’s recognition and promotion of marriage “has been a great blessing to our society. And so to simply watch that go, I think, is going to have devastating consequences,” Greear said. A “sense of love of neighbor” provides motivation for Christians to defend the biblical definition of marriage if they “really believe that the state doesn’t define marriage,” Moore said. “[W]e would say the state can’t redefine [marriage], and if it tries to, what we’re going to end up with is a sense of something that is morally wrong but something that is deeply disappointing for the people who want it,” Moore said. At the opposite end of those who under-react, Greear said, are some Christians who “tend to over-react as if this one thing signals the end.” The church has a “unique opportunity” as the “world around us is collapsing” in many ways, Patterson
said. “We just have to be sure that we speak about sinfulness and rebellion against God in ways that make it clear that we’re not angry at the people involved.” Moore asked David Platt, pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., how he would respond to a married, same-sex couple with an adopted child who told him they believe the Gospel and want to know what it means for them to follow Jesus. A shepherding process would ensue that would include the call for repentance by the couple, Platt said. Regarding marriage, “[W]hat we are saying is, ‘Biblically, no matter what the government says, this is not marriage,” Platt said. Repentance, Platt said, would mean the two people would need to acknowledge “what we have said is marriage is not marriage.” Moore said he thinks “everybody in this room is going to face that very soon.”