Children of the Con-vention

I am not in the habit of disciplining other people’s children. I am tempted, often. When I do my children’s message during the early part of the service kids often act up. Usually they can be dealt with in a kind manner. If fact, I have been known to use humor and work interruptions into the message. But occasionally I am confronted by the repeat offender, on a bad day, and the temptation to reach out and touch someone rises close to the surface, but not quite.

Christians are not immune from the human desire to sit in judgment of each other. Politics are politics, whether they are secular are religious. Our differences make us interesting. During times of controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention I never missed a convention. Then I got involved in short term missions and decided my money was better spent going overseas to win people to Jesus and help local pastors develop new churches.

This year a controversy has risen over some new rules at the International Mission Board. Both of the new rules involve issues I thought were decided and dismissed a long time ago. The SBC is interesting again but I am still not convinced that it is worth spending the money to attend. Last year I really wanted to go to the SBC. The controversy included someone at the board whom I knew personally to be a man of integrity, and whose integrity was being questioned simply because he thought we already had enough rules for new missionaries. I agreed with him and wanted to go and support him.

I already had a commitment to lead a group to Malawi, Africa. So, instead of attending the debates, where nothing more was actually decided, our group of fifteen led over 600 to faith in Christ, baptized 20, started a new preaching point, and trained around 200 to be soul winners and leaders in local churches. I think I made the right decision.

I think God is big enough to discipline His own children. We just need to reach more of them. John 1:12

Dr. Robin