Evangelistic think tank instills practical insights, passion for soul winning

JACKSONVILLE (FBC)—A group of Florida Baptist pastors whose churches lead the state in baptizing new believers met March 31 to analyze their evangelistic efforts and determine how they can encourage fellow churches.

“We wanted to know what is working humanly, but even more what we are doing that God is blessing,” said Hayes Wicker, pastor of First Baptist Church of Naples who called the meeting. “We came away with excellent ideas that we hope will have a ripple effect to encourage other pastors.”

The informal “think tank” held at First Baptist Church of Brandon included pastors from traditional and innovative churches of various sizes who baptized more than 100 new believers in 2004.

David Burton, director of the Florida Baptist Convention’s Evangelism Division and meeting facilitator, said these pastors have a “passion for intentionally sharing Christ, being soul winners and instilling that in their people.”

Among other questions, the group was asked, “How are we to accomplish the challenge goal of 100,000 baptisms for the year with only six months remaining?” Burton said.

The challenge of 100,000 baptisms in 2005 was issued by Wicker, president of the Florida Baptist State Convention when he took office in November 2004. It echoed one by SBC president Bobby Welch, pastor of First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach, who urged Southern Baptists to baptize a million in 2005.

In preparation for the pastors meeting, Wicker said he met with Welch “to pray and plan how we could increase baptisms in the state.”

Florida Baptists’ 2,800 churches baptized 34,534 persons in 2004, nearly 3,000 below the convention’s record baptisms of 37,559 in 2000. At the time he offered the challenge, Wicker called it “audacious and miraculous” in an interview with Florida Baptist Witness (Nov. 25, 2004).

“The only way we will see 100,000 baptisms is to see revival break out,” Wicker said.

Wicker said increases would be seen if more experienced pastors mentored younger pastors, something he is willing to do himself. After recently preaching at a Gulf Stream Baptist Association meeting, Hayes offered to meet with pastors one-on-one or in small groups for encouragement or fresh ideas.

Scott Yirka, pastor of Hibernia Baptist Church in Orange Park, attended the March 31 meeting and took three pages of notes. “For a young pastor like me who has only been a pastor for four years, I was like a sponge soaking it all up.”

“I believe everyone took back some things in common—sticking to the basics, emphasizing evangelism, the importance of baptism and calendaring evangelistic emphases within the church.”

Yirka said he returned to the church and looked back at the staff calendar to determine how to reorder priorities. “I took the ideas and immediately put them in place. The suggestions made were not novel or clever, they were fundamental.”

The pastor of the seven-year-old upwardly mobile congregation said he made a personal commitment to reach a less affluent Hispanic community that lives just south of where the church plans to build.

Rodney Baker, pastor of the rural Hopeful Baptist Church in Lake City that recorded 155 baptisms in 2004, called the gathering the “most informative and helpful meeting I have attended. It was a blessing, gleaning creative ideas of outreach from pastors who have a passion for souls.”

Baker advocated holding a similar meeting statewide where the original group can discuss practical insights. Saying that he took back several ideas he could transfer to his own rural setting, Baker said, “It was divine appointment orchestrated by God and bathed in prayer. We spent time crying for God to bring revival.”

Located in metropolitan Fort Lauderdale, Coral Baptist Church in Coral Springs recorded 247 baptisms in 2004, an increase of over 100 from the previous year. Pastor David Hughes said the evangelistic meeting “was such an encouragement to find a group of guys with a heart for winning people to the Lord in different ways.”

Hughes said many of the pastors there were “guys I’ve looked up to, yet they were open to find new ways to reach the lost. I was amazed at their humility and godliness.”

When Hughes was called to the church
in 1997, the congregation had baptized 37
persons. The young pastor said he has used simple techniques to reach people for Christ in the “secular and non-Baptist Broward community.”

Nearly half of the church’s 2004 converts were baptized at the beach, which Hughes said makes a dramatic statement to the non-believer. Saying “the unchurched have no knowledge of basic church doctrine,” Hughes preached a series of sermons on baptism with creative titles such as “FAQ’s on Baptism” and “The Clorox Question.”

Using an immediate application technique borrowed from other innovative pastors, Hughes baptized 70 persons one Sunday. After preaching he simply asked, “What better time than today?”

These pastors will be asked to host similar meetings “to motivate, exhort and encourage” others around the state, said Burton. “We believe God will use them to stir Florida Baptists to step up to the challenge of baptizing 100,000 people before the end of the year.” (Chart information supplied by the Florida Baptist Convention.)