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Pastors' Conference in Indianapolis: Prepare for revival

Pastors planning to attend the SBC Pastors' Conference in Indianapolis June 8-9 will need to leave earlier this year, according to Pastors' Conference President Michael Catt. In an unusual move, the Pastors' Conference will open early -- on Sunday afternoon -- to screen "Fireproof," a new movie on unconditional love and covenant marriage produced by Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga, reports Baptist Press.

"The SBC pastors will be the first large group of people to see a screening of Fireproof before it is released in September in about 1,000 theaters around the country," said Catt, pastor of Sherwood Baptist, which produced two earlier movies, "Flywheel" and "Facing the Giants." "This is the first time the Pastors' Conference has screened a movie and we've only started the conference on Sunday afternoon a handful of times in the last 40 years."

This year's Pastors' Conference will focus on a call to prepare for revival -- and the outpouring of witness and ministry that results. Gathering under the banner, "Prepare for Rain," participants will focus the role of prayer and brokenness in spiritual renewal.

"What we've done at times is we've hit our preachers over the head and said we need to be more evangelistic, but the reality is we don't have praying churches that are longing for revival," Catt said. "If there's not prayer and brokenness in revival, our churches are not going to do a better job of evangelism because carnal people don't have a burden for lost people."

Working from that premise, each of the four conference sessions will focus on an element of that process: prayer, brokenness, revival and evangelism, Catt said.

Hosea 10:12 -- "Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord…" -- will set the stage for the Sunday evening session on June 8. Featured speakers will be Johnny Hunt of First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Ga., Daniel Simmons of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Albany, Ga., and Tom Elliff, senior vice president for spiritual nurture and church relations at the International Mission Board.

The three June 9 sessions will begin with a morning focus on Jeremiah 18:6 -- "Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand ...." Alan Day of First Baptist Church in Edmond, Okla., Hayes Wicker of First Baptist Church in Naples, Fla., George Harris of First Baptist Church in Kerrville, Texas, and Ed Litton of First Baptist Church in North Mobile, Ala., will be the featured speakers.

During Monday afternoon's session, James T. Draper Jr., former president of LifeWay Christian Resources, Southern Baptist evangelist Bill Stafford, Stuart Briscoe of Telling the Truth Ministries and James MacDonald of Harvest Bible Chapel in Rolling Meadows, Ill., will speak on the theme of revival. The scriptural context for those messages will be Isaiah 64:1 -- "Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down...."

Matthew 9:37 -- "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few" -- will final session's theme Monday evening. Charles Lowery, president of the Lowery Institute for Excellence, Kerry Shook, pastor of Fellowship of the Woodlands in Houston, and evangelist Jay Strack will deliver messages on evangelism.

Beginning April 29, a 40-day prayer guide will be available at www.sbcpc.net to help pastors prepare spiritually for the conference.

Catt hopes the conference will be a time for renewing the spirits of pastors who are struggling.

"The Pastors' Conference needs to be for guys who are rolling into town on four flat tires, ready to resign," he said. "I'm praying that God so moves in that room that it's no longer about where are we going to eat but it really stirs the hearts of every man and woman in that room toward doing something different for God. What would happen if 5,000 pastors -- who influence between 2.5 and 3 million people each week -- got desperate before God and walked into their pulpits different men the next Sunday?"

To encourage pastors in their ministries, Catt is planning to distribute various resources in each session: two new books on evangelism, one edited by Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the other written by evangelist Scott Dawson; a message on prayer preached by the late Ron Dunn at Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn.; a reprinted edition of a Life Action Ministries magazine on preparing a church for revival; and a leader's resource DVD for "Fireproof" (fireproofthemovie.com).

Music for the conference will be led by Mark Willard, worship leader at Sherwood Baptist Church, accompanied by a praise team and a 16-piece band.

[04/29/2008]

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