A few months ago I attended the Pacific Union Conference Ministerial Meetings in Ontario, CA.. While there I attended a seminar by Pastor Carlton Byrd has in the very near past become the speaker/director of Breath of Life Ministries and also just recently became the new Senior Pastor of the Oakwood University Seventh-day Adventist Church in Hunstville, Alabama.
I attended the seminar because I wanted to learn from Pastor Byrd, not about preaching, which he is a great preacher, but about how wherever he has gone his churches has grown (yes I know part of that has to do with great preaching)? I believe it was last year at the church he is now transferring from Berean Church that they baptized 800 folk. Their membership is now 4077 people, they have three sevices, they have a closed circuit feed into their basement for the overflow of folk, and all of this without being attached to a Seventh-day Adventist school of higher education (in the United States our mega-churches have typically only existed next to our colleges).
So I was curious…people come to your church for great preaching, but 800 in one year don’t get baptized without first of all the Spirit of God, but secondly some intentionality.
The following are the notes I took. I didn’t edit them or pick and choose what I thought was great or not. I am simply sharing with you the thoughts I wrote down from him in this seminar.
“I’ve never had a vision for ministry I could afford; If I did, it wouldn’t be from God.”
“Do good (pardon my English) just to do good and God will bless you.”
“If worship is to contribute to the growth of your church, three things must be true:
“The greatest advertisement for your church is word of mouth.”
“Intentional careful selection of parking supervisors, greeters, ushers, and worship leaders must be done!”
“Don’t let people box you in!”
“Sabbath needs to be a celebration!”
“We can’t do music just to please older generation.”
“We’ve kept our hymnals but lost our children.”
“Should the church be held hostage over someone picking at the instruments? NO!”
“The Senior Pastor should be involved in decision of what songs we are going to do.”
“Singers sing, preachers preach. Don’t let your singers get up there and think they can preach a sermon or share something they think is just so wonderful. They are there to sing.”
“Don’t let your minister of music say, ‘I am running this (worship). LET’S BE CLEAR, there is ONE leader! If there were multiple leaders in Israel the children would still be slaves in Egypt. God gives the vision of the ministry to the leader and it is not a compromise of your idea and my idea.”
Evangelistic Outreach:
“An evangelistic cycle throughout the year with good worship, a friendly environment, and strong leadership will grow.”
“Build database from EVERYTHING done at or through your church. I have over 8,000 names in our database that are not members but have attended one of our events.”
“Send communication by Monday to every visitor within two days of their visit.”
A Bible Workers work six weeks before the evangelistic meetings:
“When folk come to our public campaigns and become interested or are baptized they are assigned a Spiritual Guardian. We don’t want to just baptize people, we also want to keep them. We don’t want people going out the back door where we wouldn’t notice, especially in our large church.”
“Singers sing & preachers preach” (seriously he said it again, must be a pet peeve)
Typical length of meetings 2 weeks 5 & 5
I always cover and usually go in this order:
“I always then do some special midweek. Why? I don’t want someone that just was convicted of the Sabbath or true church or something like that to then go back to their church and be discouraged from our message. I don’t want them at their old church I want them at Berean!”
“I do two to three public campaigns a year.”
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And those are my notes from Pastor Byrd. Some powerful stuff. He is a dynamic individual that beleives 100% in what he is doing and Whom he is serving!
“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” –Exodus 20: 5 & 6
As I said yesterday we make idols not through a lack of belief in God, but a lack of faith of God. This happens in the everyday living of our lives (which is worship), but often times it happens in what we specifically as followers of Jesus refer to as “worship” what we do Saturday mornings (or Sunday mornings). We create idols in “worship” when God isn’t enough. What do I mean by this? Worship for many is not successful unless the music was to the standard they desired, or the music was not of the genre they prefer. It is not successful if the speaker they like to listen to isn’t the speaker or if the speaker did not finish by 12 or 12:30. Even if truth, clear and direct truth from scripture was presented if the above were not up to their standard then worship by them would be deemed as not successful. Why because worship has become about what they prefer and not the truth of God’s Word! When this happens idols are created because we are no longer worshiping the Lord, but rather our own desires for worship!