Does Acts 16:31 mean that if I am saved my whole family will become saved too?

A Bible passage without its context is a pretext to say anything you want. The Bible is full of many different types of literature. There is poetry, prophecy, narrative, discourse, letters, proverbs, and parables to name a few. Acts 16 is a narrative passage recording an event in the life of Paul and Silas. When you come to a passage, it is either prescriptive or descriptive. Prescriptive texts are instructive, and they are commands either of what to do or not to do. Confusion often sets in when we bring in the idea of modeling or examples. The Bible is filled with people who modeled great things, and we want to emulate them. But the question is how far do we take it? Should we make rash vows like Jephthah in Judges 11:30-32 or sacrifice our children to prove our faith in God like Abraham (Gen. 22)?

I believe that what we have is a descriptive passage which records an amazing event of salvation for the jailer and his household. A descriptive passage is one that is describing what happened, which may not be emulated or encouraged. Acts 20:9-11 records a young man named Eutychus falling to the ground from the third story to his death. Acts 20 records Paul bringing him back to life. This is a fantastic event for bringing life from death, but it is a unique event to the life of Paul. The story of the jailer and his family is the same. It was unique to that setting and time. While we can certainly walk away with the truth that we must preach the gospel to all households, this is not a passage that guarantees salvation to everyone in our family or household. In fact, look at these passages as well:

· Jeremiah 31:29 & Ezekiel 18 both point to the separating of the destiny of parents and children. A godly parent may have an ungodly (unsaved) child; an ungodly parent may have a believing and faithful child. The destiny of fathers and sons is independently determined.

· 1 Corinthians 7:14 – We are told that an unbelieving mate is "sanctified" by the believing mate (7:14), but please note they are still called unbelievers. A believer in the household will bring blessings to the home that all will benefit from, but that does not always mean salvation for everyone.

· Luke 12:53 – Records that Jesus will divide some families.

· Luke 14:26-27 – Perhaps one of the most difficult passages for many believers. The call is to hate our fathers, mothers, wives, children, and siblings. I believe the call is to love Jesus more than our families.

Bottom line, all are individually responsible for our eternal destiny. And we must love Jesus, obey Him and serve Him, above all others, including those closest to us!

Why Don’t We Pass the Plate in the Common Ground Worship Service?

“Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
-2 Corinthians 9:7

Each Sunday morning during the Common Ground Worship service we sing praises to God, pray, read scripture, hear the Word of God preached, and have a response time. But one thing we don’t do is pass an offering plate. Offering boxes have been installed just outside the doors of the Oasis. For some this is hard to imagine a worship service without passing the plate, let me give you four reasons to consider on why we did this:

•    To emphasize giving, not the process. Giving in various cultures differs. In some cultures, church members dance down front and place their offering in a bucket or barrow. In our culture, offerings are most often passed around. I wouldn’t feel comfortable dancing my tithe or offering down the to the front! It is similar to the plate; some feel put on the spot. The desire to empathize giving and not the process by which we give.
•    To allow more options for giving.  The addition of the boxes allows church members to give anytime they are in our building.  The boxes give a much-needed degree of freedom for volunteers, those who have to leave before a service starts, or our guests. Jesus reminds us that the right hand shouldn’t know what the left hand is doing (Matt. 6:3). Some prefer this privacy in giving, and there is nothing wrong with demonstrating humility as we give.
•    To duplicate an Old Testament example. There is nothing new under the sun! 2 Kings 12:9, “Jehoiada the priest took a chest and bored a hole in its lid. He placed it beside the altar, on the right side as one enters the temple of the LORD.”  Notice the box was placed for worshippers to drop their gift in as they entered! We now have the same ability!
•    To simplify. I am a big fan of K.I.S., Keep It Simple! Not only does this take one more item of the lengthy Sunday Morning order of service, but it also frees up manpower!

That all sounds good pastor, but isn’t giving an act of worship? Yes, of course giving is an act of worship with visiting members, feeding the hungry, taking care of widows and orphans. But we don’t do every act of worship when the church gathers together. So these are the reasons why we don’t pass the plate. As a side note, I have heard it said by church critics that church cares too much about money. The boxes instead of passing the plate take away at least one bulletin from our critics. We want to communicate that we care more about them than their money!

Common Ground Launch a Success!

    I am glad to report that after months of preparation, the launch of Common Ground was a success. It was a success on three levels regarding attendance, decisions, and new faces. The chart below shows the attendance from the preview service until August 28, 2016. The green line indicates the attendance of Common Ground; the Blue line is our 10:30 am worship service, and the yellow line shows the total between the two. The largest attended service for Common Ground was the launch. I thought we would have between 35 and 45 attendees, but we were blessed with 61 in attendance. The total capacity for the Oasis in this services is currently 87 worshipers, meaning that we saw the Oasis over 60% full on launch day! In addition, we have seen three decisions made over the course of the last month one for baptism and two for being apart of our church family.

    Also, we have seen many new faces since the launch of Common Ground. I would estimate at least twelve guests were visiting with us on launch day! This is incredible because the overall visitor flow of our church has increased, meeting one of our goals in laughing the new service. More visitors means more visitor retention, which in turn means more members become part of our church family! To say that in short, Common Ground is working in reaching new people. Our goal in beginning this was to widen our nets to reach more for the Glory of God! I am very excited for what the future holds at Grace Baptist Church.












Here are a few things that you can do to ensure that efficiently reach more people:

1. Pray- Pray for Great Commission Fulfillment at our Church. Pray that we will have God’s heart for the people in our area!
2. Carpool- Our parking can get a little tight at times. In fact, we need to free up about 30 more parking spots on campus. Will you give up your parking spot for a Great Commission fulfillment?
3. Invite your friends and family- Now with two options to encourage them towards, what prevents you from asking your unchurched family and friends to Grace Baptist!

Excitement Builds as Common Ground Worship Service Launch Approaches!

 Excitement continues to build this week as we prepare for the Common Ground Worship Service Launch Day on August 21. Launch a new ministry in August just as school starts back is an excellent time to begin a new ministry. The Sunday Morning Worship time exists as a front door to the church. Often a Sunday Morning worship service may be an individual’s first contact with a church.

As families begin to fall back into rhythm, what an excellent time to become part of our church family. We are seeking To Glorify God and targeting to reach unchurched families in a 2-mile radius who do not know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. All are welcomed to join us!

In his book Surprising In sights from the Unchurched, Thom Rainer defines the unchurched as those who do not attend church at all. The unchurched may be dechurched, individuals who once attended church then stopped, or a person who is a second generation unchurched. In this book he looks as the formally unchurched, and amazingly the unchurched looked carefully at the doctrinal issues before they become Christians, and they were attracted to a church that held strong convictions about biblical matters. We are beginning this ministry with a faithful heritage to the gospel and doctrine. Our church has a rich heritage of Biblically faithful preachers and teachers.

The Common Ground Worship service will be praise band orientated and Gospel-centered. There are several ways that you can help in preparing for this service: Pray for us as we prepare, pray for those the service will reach, volunteer to help in the praise band, or in other needed areas of the service.  We are hoping to see a 10% increases in both services across the board in baptisms, attendance, ministries, and financial resources. Most importantly, we aim to see lives touched and transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Pray for those who are far from God that God will use this Worship Service to draw them to Himself.

Your Invited to Our New Contemporary Worship Service, Common Ground!

As the Pastor of Grace Baptist Church, I wanted to take a moment and invite you to our new contemporary worship service called Common Ground!

We are excited to launch this service on August 21, 2016. A great time to start something new!

Common Ground will be praise band-oriented with a focus on Honoring God and drawing those far from God back to him.

If you show this page from my blog, we will give you a free book when you visit either our traditional 10:30 am service in the main sanctuary or the new contemporary worship service, Common Ground, at 11:00 am. 

So to Summarise:

• Who is in invited? Everyone.
• When? August 21, 2016
• What time? 11:00 am
• Location? Grace Baptist Church, 1114 Broad Street, Elizabethton, Tennessee in the Oasis.
• Dress? Come as you are.
• Anything else? Show this on your iphone, ipad, or andriod device to a greeter, and get a free book! Note: The greeters will be wearing a name badge.

VBS 2016 A Great Success!

We just recently completed VBS 2016. We had a great week. We had a traditional morning VBS on our church campus, and we had the same themed backyard bible club meeting in the evenings from 6 to 8 pm. Here is a breakdown of VBS by the numbers:

·      Morning enrollment of 99 kids

·      Evening enrollment of 57 kids

·      Morning Workers total of 40 during the week

·      Evening workers total of 15 during the week

·      Total average attendance in the mornings of 83

·      Total average attendance in the evenings of 38

·      Mission offering of $46.19 collected to aid West Virginia Flood Victims

·      The children were given a clear accurate gospel presentation everyday Monday though Friday

·      No salvation, but as Paul reminds us that sometimes we are planting seeds, sometimes we are watering (1 Corinthians 3:6)

I want to thank all our VBS workers. I would like to give a special thanks to Kathy and Richard Taylor, who worked tirelessly for their planning, organizing, and encouragement. And to Danny Birkner who always is a help and encouragement to our church family and to me.

Why do I need to be a member of a church?

"…Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her" – Eph. 5:25

Several years ago, I took a mission trip to Romania. Romania continues to recover from a communistic rule. One thing that stuck out to me when I came back stateside was the amount of advertising here versus over there. Seeing this overload of advertisement reminded me of how individualistic oriented our culture in North America has become. The ethos of individualism has leached its way into the local church. While you will not find any passages that say, "Thou shalt be a member of a local church," here are some biblical reminders of why church membership is necessary:

• In the Old Testament, God made a clear distinction between his people and the world (see Lev. 13:46, Num. 5:3, Deut. 7:3).
• Christ says that entering the kingdom of God means being bound to the church "on earth" (Matt. 16:16-19; 18:17-19). Where do we see the church on earth? The local church.
• The New Testament explicitly refers to some people being inside the church and some people being outside (1 Cor. 5:12-13). Church membership is much more than a casual association. It means being a covenant community, similar to a marriage covenant.
• The church in Corinth consisted of a definite number of believers, such that Paul could speak of punishment inflicted by the majority (2 Cor. 2:6).
• Not only does the New Testament speak of the reality of church membership, but its dozens of "one another" passages are written to local churches, which fill out our understanding of what church membership should practically look like.

The conclusion on church membership is that it is a biblical concept. Even though it lacks direct biblical commands, like the Trinity, the concept exists and remains an expectation for God's people. We must not approach the local church the same way we shop for cell phones, moving around when somewhere else has a better deal of us individually. We should view our local church as a family (Ephesians 1:5), we don't leave just because the family is going through a difficult time. We also don't leave our families because we don't like something someone said. There may be times to leave a local church, which I have about previously, but overall it is always in the best interest of Christians to stay in a covenant commitment to one local church. It is what brings maturity and accountability into our lives.