Great Commission Resurgence Video

Were you impacted by that message?

Did God speak to you that day?

How many have already forgotten this powerful challenge from the Word?

Jesus entered a time that was very similar to our world today. But instead of deeming one of the four groups correct He had the same message for all four: Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Isn’t it interesting how we, you and I, probably think we will be the one Christ deems right today? The truth is that He has that same message for us: Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is near. What is it that you need to repent of? I’m looking closely at my own life to figure it out as well. Let’s see what can happen when we seek His Kingdom above all else in life.

(Adapted from Detox…for the Overly Religious – David Putman)

FB_GenerosityHighlights from Ronnie Floyd on Vimeo.

What the report below and please continue to pray for the SBC and our future as a denomination.

Great Commission Resurgence Report

Read about what this powerful time for Men is all about here.

I Love My Church Day will be February 14th

Both Campuses: On Sunday February 14 we are celebrating “I Love My Church” day. It’s a day for us to remember all the incredible things God has done in our church. A day to celebrate God’s faithfulness to us as believers. It is also a day that we will emphasize the adult ministry of our church. We will be having breakfast in all of our adult connection groups and each group will be striving to bring new people. If you are not connected to a connection group this would be a great day to reconnect. You can find a group by clicking HERE. We would love to see many new people join us on this day. Make a commitment to join us on February 14 and bring somebody new with you to worship and connection groups.

Student Day will be February 21st

Springdale Campus: Watch this video promo for Brock Gill and the Student Day event.

Pinnacle Hills Campus: Leadership Rocks will culminate on this Sunday Morning. We invite you to experience a world-class, high-energy event that will allow you to see beyond today and seize your future. This conference is offered to students in grades 6th-12th and the cost is $55. The speakers are Brent Crowe and David Nasser. You will be challenged and stretched to reach and exceed your potential with interactive, dynamic speakers, great bands, and real-world leadership systems.

Men at the Cross 2010 – Men’s Conference February 26-27

Both Campuses: Watch the video promo here.

The Northwest Arkansas Men’s Conference is excited to be partnering with Joe White, Rick Rigsby, and Men at the Cross for the 2010 NWA Men’s Conference. MATC is a revolution that seeks to answer the call of the great commission in America and the world by equipping and empowering every committed believer to “Love a man to Jesus until he’s ready to love another man to Jesus.” Read more an get Sign-up info here.

I hope you can be a part of all that is happening this month at First Baptist Church and the Church at Pinnacle Hills. As always, for more information about events and services you can check our main site.

Over those three weeks God answered my prayers. He spoke to me and taught me much about myself, and His priority in my life. I am thankful for all that God did over that 21-day period and it is my hope that, as a church, we will continue to seek His face just as we did during the journey.

The greatest take-away I got from this 21-day fast was a simple word: time. We talk about it a lot. We are all aware of it and we all know we ought to spend it wisely, but during this 21-day period God really drove home the importance of time in my life.

How do I spend each minute of the day He has given me as a gift of grace and mercy? Do I have a right to do with it as I choose or is it imperative that I focus my time on His purposes? Can I call it “my” time at all? Not really, it is all His and it should all be returned to Him with a thankful heart.

21-days without something you love (food in my case) will make you weak – physically. And when the flesh is weak the spiritual truths of life resound. I now look at the time God has gifted me in a new light. I don’t take for granted even one second with my family or one moment at my job. I know that God has a purpose for me and it is to bring Him glory. If I can fill each moment with that truth then I will experience the joy that God intended for me as His creation.

Did you join us on the Journey? IF so, what did God teach you?

Take a moment to read this post from the Great Commission Task Force Chairman, our Senior Pastor – Dr. Ronnie Floyd. It was sent to the just under 6000 prayer partners who have committed to praying for this Task Force:

“The Crucible of Decision-Making

Your Great Commission Task Force has listened to Southern Baptists, gathered as much information as possible, asked the tough questions, gone through volumes of information, and has really sought to hear what Southern Baptists desire to do to advance the Great Commission in our generation. Equally, we have been before God to seek His will. Now we enter the season and the crucible of decision-making. The pressure is on and the test is real. For the past three months, these decisions have been in process, and in our next meeting we will finalize and make many difficult decisions. This is why we need you.

On Tuesday through Thursday, January 26-28, our Great Commission Resurgence Task Force will be meeting for our our most significant moment in this journey. As our process goes forward, we will be presenting our report to the upcoming meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee on February 22-23. While additions or revisions to this report are probable before the final report is made in June at the Orlando Southern Baptist Convention, the release of it in February will give Southern Baptists four months to gain clarity and have their questions addressed.

Therefore, I am asking you to give some concentrated prayer time for this upcoming meeting. Please ask your prayer ministries to pray for us. Our need for prayer has never been greater. Please consider even praying for us during the various segments of our meeting. Our meeting begins on Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. and concludes on Thursday at 2:00 p.m. We will meet in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings of each day. We would appreciate various groups within your church having continual prayer for our GCR Team during these hours.

How can you pray? We need God’s leadership and will to be manifested. We need the wisdom of God regarding every situation. We need complete clarity on presenting our convention of churches a compelling vision for the future. We need to abound in spiritual unity as we move through this significant meeting. We need courage to make the decisions that will truly advance the Great Commission through the ministries of Southern Baptists. We need God’s protection upon our own lives, our families, and the ministries we are a part of, because dealing with major Great Commission issues brings strong spiritual warfare.

Please continue to enlist people to be a part of our www.pray4gcr.com prayer team. We have just under 6,000 people who are prayer partners with us daily. We would love to see hundreds more join us in this daily commitment to pray for a Great Commission Resurgence to occur in and through the Southern Baptist Convention.

Additionally, please share with your congregation that Dr. Johnny Hunt, the President of our Convention, has issued a “Call to Prayer” for Sunday, January 31. He is appealing to every Southern Baptist Christ-follower and church to pray for the future of our convention of churches on this day.

May God bless you wonderfully for being our partners in prayer.

Dr. Ronnie Floyd
Chairman, Great Commission Resurgence Task Force”

How to start a Crossover Group

1. Pick one of our online experiences that best fits your schedule:
• Sunday at 9:15am, 10:55am and 8pm Central
• Wednesday at noon Central
2. Invite some friends and/or family to join you for the service
3. Use the Sermon notes as a starting point for discussion as you and your group interact with the service and each other as well as others online through the live chat

It is actually pretty simple and a great way to grow deeper in your walk with Christ as well as invite new people to get involved.

If you are thinking about starting a Crossover Group or would like more information or help please let me know via email.

Have a blessed week and tell someone about Crossover!

The problem was that he held the balloon while trying to eat, drink and anything else a two year-old does. All limited to one hand because the balloon had to be grasped tightly in the other. This made eating difficult, it frustrated him and it made my wife and I a bit edgy. Regardless, he wasn’t letting go of the balloon.

It really isn’t his fault though, see – he’s lost a balloon before – outside, with no ceiling to keep the thing from flying away. You can’t get those balloons back. And having learned that lesson he holds on to any balloon he has for dear life. Even when his father tells him it’s OK to let go.

Spiritually we have all been there, oh the balloon is something else, like a person or a possession or even a feeling like love or hate. Whatever it is, we cling to it with all our might and just like the balloon it inhibits our ability to experience the fuller life that Jesus promises us.

The Father assures us that it’s OK to let go, He is in control, but we simply hold tighter. Oh, we might let it slip a little bit but at the first sign of it being out of our hands we clutch it again, tighter.

Because we have all lost something we really, really wanted. And to let go again would require trust.

As the Father calls you to release some things over the course of the Journey what will your response be? If we truly desire to grow spiritually from this period of fasting and prayer we will have to trust the Father. After all, it is His desire that we experience a fuller life, beyond even what we can imagine.

Please look into my heart today. I am asking us as a church, and you as a Christ-follower, to set aside a 21-day period of time to get serious before the Lord. We are setting the dates of Sunday, January 3, beginning at sundown until sundown on Sunday, January 24, for this corporate time before God in prayer and some level of fasting. I realize that scheduled events or other matters may not permit you to join us the entire time. This is not a legalistic challenge we are placing upon you. You can come in and out of those 21 days as you believe you must or you can create your own 21 days early in 2010, but just seek the Lord about joining us at whatever level possible on this spiritual journey.

This 21-day Spiritual Journey will involve a time of prayer and fasting, with many of our people consuming only water, juice, and broth. It may involve fasting from one meal a day, or for others, just having one meal a day. It could involve a daily meal of only vegetables and not any meat at all. For others, it may not involve a food fast at all, but perhaps a time of fasting from social networking on the Internet, from television, or from whatever you believe is a true sacrifice for you. The list of possibilities is endless and we are going to share some ideas with you. Click here to view these.

The purpose of this journey is to encourage you to spend extra time before the Lord, making special petitions to Him regarding things you are concerned about. We are going to lead you to make a special Spirit-led prayer list that you can use in this 21-day period of time. We will lead you to pray for “8” matters before the Lord. Again, the website has a guide for you as you seek God’s leadership.

Most weeks in January and February, I will be doing a series from the Old Testament book of Joel. God put this on my heart last summer, and I have waited until this moment in 2010 to do it. Friends, God is up to something. We must prepare. The time is now. We must rise up in a new way as God’s people. Prayer and fasting is God’s gateway to spiritual breakthroughs. We want to see the floodgates of God’s power and Spirit upon us in 2010.

Jesus Christ – the Word – became flesh and dwelt among us. What a wonderful savior, what a privilege it is to serve such a God.

Years ago I was talking with a lady about Christmas. She did not think it was proper to celebrate Christ as a baby. She felt that we should never “reduce” God to being a baby for a celebration and only worship Him as risen savior.

I see her point but I also think she was missing something. The reason we celebrate Christ’s birth is because it set our God apart. It was something that no other religion can boast. That all-powerful God entered our world and walked among us and faced the same temptations and issues that we face. He didn’t just say – this is what you ought to do – which by the way as almighty God He obviously has the right to do – but He chose to be the perfect example and provide the perfect sacrifice.

We do indeed have reason to be merry this Christmas and it isn’t all the shiny new toys we will open on the 25^th. It is the God who loves us, even enough to go to a cross and die for us. Our God is great and worthy of all praise.

Merry Christmas – let the masses exalt Christ.

I have felt for several months that 2010 will be a pivotal and strategic year for us individually, as a church, and yes, even as a nation. Desperate times call for desperate measures. As early as late spring and the early summer of 2009, I felt there would be a need in 2010 for us to call our church to a major time of being before God.

Please read carefully and peer into my heart today. I am asking us as a church, and you as a Christ-follower connected with our church, to set aside a 21-day period of time to get serious before the Lord. We are setting the dates of Sunday, January 3, beginning at sundown until sundown on Sunday, January 24, for this corporate time before God in prayer and some level of fasting. I realize that scheduled events or other matters may not permit you to join us the entire time. This is not some hard-core, legalistic challenge we are placing upon you. You can come in and out of those 21 days as you believe you must or you can create your own 21 days early in 2010, but just seek the Lord about joining us at whatever level possible on this spiritual journey.

This 21-day Spiritual Journey will involve a time of prayer and fasting, with many of our people consuming only water, juice, and broth. It may involve fasting from one meal a day, or for others, having just one meal a day. It could involve a daily meal of only vegetables and not any meat at all. For others, it may not involve a food fast at all, but perhaps a time of fasting from social networking on the Internet, from television, or from whatever you believe is a true sacrifice for you. The list of possibilities is endless, and in December we are going to share these with you.

Additionally, let me be more than clear—any sacrifice is not to be made in and of itself for selfish reasons. The purpose is to spend that extra time before the Lord, making special petitions to Him regarding things you are concerned about.

We are going to lead you to make a special Spirit-led prayer list that you can use in this 21-day period of time. We will lead you to pray for “7” matters before the Lord. Three of these will be personal matters, three we will give you related to our church, and one other one you will create under God’s leadership about our church. Therefore, begin right now to get before God about these things. As we begin seeking Him about those three things for our church, you begin to seek Him about those three personal things He may want you to come before Him about seriously.

Prayer and fasting is God’s gateway to spiritual breakthroughs. We want to see the floodgates of God’s power and Spirit be upon us in 2010. We want you to join us “at whatever level God leads you” in this 21-day journey.

Most weeks in January and February, I will be doing a series from the Old Testament book of Joel. God put this on my heart last summer, and I have waited until this moment in 2010 to do it. Friends, God is up to something. We must prepare. The time is now. Even now, we must rise up in a new way as God’s people.

You will begin to hear about this more throughout the entire month of December. Just begin to see how God is speaking to you about your role in this 21-day journey. More to come on this soon.

Read more from Pastor Floyd at www.betweensundays.com