Southeastern gathers to celebrate pastors at the Southern Baptist Convention
January 19, 2017
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) hosted a breakfast for the Charles Haddon Spurgeon Center for Pastoral Leadership on June 10 at the 2014 Southern Baptist Convention in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Spurgeon Center guest speaker was Ronnie Floyd, senior pastor of Cross Church in northwest Arkansas and the newly elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention. He spoke on “Finding Time to Pray” and encouraged the audience to give the first hour of their day to God because there is “no telling what God will do.”
“One thing I wanted more than anything else, I wanted to know the power of God in my life,” Floyd said. “Sleep … you can do that in heaven.”
“If you want a ministry that has a chance to penetrate the culture with the power of the Gospel, you must become a man or woman that becomes committed to the power of prayer in your life,” he emphasized.
“No one else determines your spiritual walk,” Floyd said. “I hope you will give your very best to Him because He can do more in a moment than you can do in a lifetime.”
Floyd urged the audience to pray for revival. “It’s time we get a hold of heaven, beg God, ‘You did it before, and you can do it again.’”
The Center serves as an intentional bridge between Southeastern and the local church. It seeks to encourage pastors to lead healthy, disciple-making churches for the glory of God around the world.
The four key strategies of the center are ministry to pastors and churches, on campus and online ministry preparation and continuing education for pastors and churches, specific field based training for pastors and churches and research and writing for pastors and churches.
Approximately 100 guests were in attendance.
“We want to be known as a pastoral seminary,” Ewart noted.
Chuck Lawless, vice president for graduate studies and ministry centers at Southeastern, shared about “Prayer and Spiritual Warfare in the Life of a Pastor.”
Lawless highlighted Acts 19:13-15, “But the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?’”
“I fear that the enemy would look at us and not be scared,” Lawless said. “The more I long to know that we are sending out men and women that make hell shake … that hell knows by name.”
The Spurgeon Center is designed to be a powerful community of prayer. “I don’t think we get there by following our typical strategies,” he explained. “Strategy apart from the power of God doesn’t get us very far. I want the Spurgeon Center to be a place we can pray together and see God’s face together.”
Lawless added, “May God take us to that place, that in our weakness, God uses us to make hell shake.”
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