Great Commission Resurgence Task Force Report

I would like to call your attention to the preliminary report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. The full report both in both video and print form can be found at the web site: http://www.pray4gcr.com/

Dr. Ronnie Floyd, Chairmen of the GCR Task Force, made two important statements in his introduction to this report. First, he referenced Joel 2:12-17 “Yet even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments." Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep and say, "Spare your people, O LORD, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?'"

A Call to Repentance…
Then he commented, “The urgency and call from God was for His people to return to Him in total surrender, complete humility, and with a new attitude. God told them it was not good enough to simply rip your garments when something is not good. God wants our hearts broken before Him, returning to Him with praying, fasting, weeping, and mourning. The call from God was to return to Him now and they would realize that He was full of compassion and grace, willing to release them of judgment, and once again bless them. He called them to respond to Him individually and together. He called them to fast together, to worship together, and to come before Him together. He called them to do this now, with urgency, even calling newlyweds to leave their bridal chamber before they consummated their marriage so they could repent and return to God.”
“I believe with all my heart that God is calling us to return to Him now in deep repentance of our sin, in brokenness over our sin, denying our pride and selfishness and returning to God with complete humility. The boasting, ego, and pride that goes on in our lives, our churches, and our denomination is unacceptable to God. The disunity in our churches and in our denomination is so wrong and sinful. We need to repent and return to God.”

A Call to Evangelism…
Dr. Floyd also challenged us with the reality that we live in a lost world when he said, “Please understand: To the degree we grasp lostness will be the degree we are willing to do whatever is necessary to penetrate it. If we do not understand lostness intellectually and theologically, we will not change nor will we do what must be done to penetrate it. I am convinced we have not only forgotten what it is like to be lost, but we act as if lostness does not exist, there is really no hell, and many times conduct ourselves as Universalists. Concerning lostness, it seems we have developed theological amnesia or theological Alzheimer’s disease.”

The final report will be finished in May and presented to the June 2010 SBC meeting in Orlando, Florida. Be in much pray as we seek the Lord in these days!

More thoughts later...