Q & A: Rogers on ministry, the SBC, and post-retirement

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story went to press Nov. 10 as news broke a few days before that Dr. Rogers was in the hospital. The Nov. 17 issue of the Witness went to press earlier than normal in order to have the paper available for distribution at the Florida Baptist State Convention meeting in Ocala. Please click here for the news story about Dr. Rogers’ death.

NAPLES (FBW) – The day before leading a preaching conference at First Baptist Church of Naples, Adrian Rogers gave an exclusive interview with Florida Baptist Witness Executive Editor James A. Smith Sr. The Oct. 6, hour-long interview covered a wide array of topics with Rogers, 74, who retired as pastor of the historic Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn. earlier this year.

A former, three-term president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Rogers is a Florida native who “immensely” misses the Sunshine State, but is remaining in the Memphis area where Love Worth Finding Ministries – his radio and television ministry – is based.

Rogers’ first pastorate was at First Baptist Church in Fellesmere, and later pastored First Baptist Church of Merritt Island.

“I love Florida. … I told people I was Florida born and Florida bred, and when I die I wanted to be Florida dead. But our friends now are all in Memphis and the old crowd here has gone. So we will stay in Memphis and make visits to Florida.”

In addition to the radio and television ministry, Rogers has begun the Adrian Rogers Pastor Training Institute (www.pastortraining.com), offering a three-day course covering the basics of pastoring, and the new one-day preaching course, held for the first time at First Baptist Naples. He serves as distinguished professor of preaching at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Memphis.

The following are excerpts from the interview.

On his health. (For the latest news on Rogers’ health, see the related story on this page.)

“I cannot say that I know God is going to fully recover me, but I can say I believe He will. I really do, and I’m not just blowing smoke. ... I have a good confidence in my heart. In the meanwhile, I am not morose or unhappy. I don’t dwell on this. I just do the best I can and enjoy life.”

On life after the pastorate.

“Well, you know, I thought I would miss it more than I do because it is all I have done, Jim, for over half a century. But I have been so busy there has not been a vacuum. … I will be in the ministry until I draw my last breath, but there are certain burdens I don’t bear now. … I have a joy in my heart that I am able to do some things now that I really should have done prior to this, but I can do now, and that is to download some of the things that God has put in my heart for half a century about ministry. … God has, by His grace, taught me a lot of things – in small churches and big ones. I am in what I call now the transfer zone. Where if you are running a relay race, there comes a time, Jim, where you are running side by side with another runner and getting ready to hand the baton off. That is where I think I am with some of these younger preachers. I want to run side-by-side with them, and then slap that stick in his hand and say, ‘You got it, bud. Go!’”

On churches being relevant.

“I tell these youngsters, adapt yourself to the means you can use – the Internet, you can Google, you can cell phone, you can email, you can use image magnification, all of those are fine, but they are only means to get the job done. The means change and we ought to be wise … The methods don’t change. The methods are in the Bible by precept, example. … What are the methods? Prayer, evangelism, truth, integrity, labor, fellowship; these things are, in the first century and twenty-first century. … I am trying to say to these guys, learn the methods. Yes, use the means, but there are a lot of men, Jim, who are trying to stay up, to be ‘relevant,’ who are messing with the methods. Don’t mess with the methods. They are jettisoning the methods. You can’t do that. Use all the means you want, but you had better be certain, that your ministry is biblical.”

On his part in the SBC “controversy.”

“I look back on my life and there are a lot of things that have happened. I have written books, pastored churches, preached on radio and television around the world. But I think the part that God allowed me to have in the turning of the SBC may have the longest-lasting effect and be the most significant. Really, Jim, it is part of church history. We think of the ancient councils of the church in decisions and so forth, but this thing is not small; it is big.

On the role of the SBC in American society.

“As I look now at the world situation as it is, I am so grateful for the Southern Baptist Convention. I shudder to think what America would be like without the Southern Baptist Convention. Now that may sound like megalomania, but we are A, the largest evangelical denomination in America, and B, we are taking a clear stand against same-sex marriage, for the primacy of the home, for the headship of the father and the husband, against homosexuality, and against abortion, which means that we are a gigantic boulder in Satan’s super highway. They have to reckon with us. They like to ignore us, but they can’t.”

On the importance of the 2000 revision of the Baptist Faith & Message. (Rogers chaired the study committee which recommended the revision.)

“That is hard for me to say, but I do believe that it is a very, very significant piece of work. … I think that a lot of the things in the Baptist Faith & Message that have been nuanced and changed are not nearly as significant as that one statement concerning how the Bible is to be interpreted. The only Jesus we know is the Jesus in the Bible, and the Jesus in the Bible believed in the inerrancy of the Scripture. How can a man claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ and not believe what Jesus Christ Himself believed about his Word?”

On the importance of his wife and family.

“There is no way to estimate the importance of a man’s relationship with his wife and family. I have more people speak to me about my relationship with my wife than any other aspect of my ministry. They say, ‘I appreciate the way you love and honor Joyce.’ Joyce and I are a team.”