The Open Door

For months we have been talking and writing about the WAVE Revivals to begin in February and extend to May. This wave of evangelism would sweep from churches in extreme South Georgia to extreme North Georgia until we see an amazing demonstration of the power of God at work among Georgia Baptists.

This emphasis and plan began in the heart of Dr. Mike Minnix, Vice President for Evangelism. Mike and I talked together about the "What now, America?" emphasis among Southern Baptists which envisioned one million baptisms in one year, 100,000 new units in Sunday School and 2,500 new church plants in one year. Our desire to see revival in Georgia led Mike to suggest a goal of 50,000 baptisms among our Georgia Baptist churches. I have never doubted that we could reach this goal if all of our churches would get engaged in outreach and evangelism.

Whenever there is a vision for doing something great for the glory of God, the greatest challenge to such a vision are those who either do not believe it can happen or do not plan to participate in the vision. To be challenged by a goal of 50,000 baptisms a year in Georgia and then not believe it can happen is to miss the possibility of God doing something beyond our ability or explanation.

Aren't we thankful that God is not limited by our ability? What God desires from you and me is our availability and willingness. An appropriate offering from you to God might be: "God, I don't know what you can do through me, but I want to make myself available to you. I want to remove all doubt in your power to do remarkable things and trust you for the results." I believe that is all God is waiting for from us. It's the same thing that Isaiah did so long ago when he simply said, "Here am I, Lord. Send me!"

We do have pastors and churches that no longer have revival meetings because they do not believe that they are effective as they were at one time. Personally, I believe it is a mistake to discount what might happen when a church commits to engage the lost in its community, to pray for their salvation, to plan additional services for the preaching of the Gospel, to try new approaches to the proclamation of a 2,000-year-old Gospel message. Don't you believe that it just may be God's will to thrill the heart of a church, any church, that believes that if given half an opportunity, God will show up at church and do amazing things?

Two Sundays ago I preached in my first WAVE revival. Randy DeLoach, pastor of First Baptist Church Screven invited me to preach Sunday morning and night as a part of his WAVE revival. He actually began the series of services on Saturday night with the message brought by Herb Reavis from North Jacksonville Baptist Church. Other preachers for the week included Stanley Luke, Bucky Kennedy, Mike Minnix and Randy Lamb.

On the Sunday that I preached there was an outstanding attendance and spirit in both worship services. At one point, Randy DeLoach even had the congregation do the "wave" to promote the fact that they were in the midst of their WAVE revival. We all laughed and enjoyed the moment, but the point was made. This would be a very important time in the life of First Baptist Church of Screven.

Randy called my office this past week to give me the report from the revival. The church saw 24 people come to faith in Christ during the WAVE revival. That is an outstanding number of professions of faith for any revival meeting in any church, but especially so at Screven. While Screven is a lovely town, a beautiful community with many fine people, it is not a large place.

I believe that Randy told me that there are 704 people in the entire community. Keep that population in mind for a moment. There are 704 people in the community; there were 24 professions of faith during the revival. Did God do something great at Screven? He absolutely did! This church baptized 50 last year, which in itself is amazing. Now, in this partial week of revival services nearly one-half of last year's total number of baptisms made a profession of faith in Christ.

We must never doubt that God is ready and able to do exceedingly remarkable things among people of faith who believe He can!