The Lord helped His people at Calvary yesterday. We had great attendance in both services. And the presence of the Lord was very evident. Last evening the people of the Lord worshiped and praised the Lord with singing, shouting and testimonies for the entire service. It was good to be in His house on Sunday.
The events of yesterday made me thankful that I am a part of a old-fashioned Baptist church that still believes in preaching, praying and praising the Lord. I am also thankful to be a fundamentalist. Some people cast dispersions on that name these days, Every body, it seems, wants to be hip, cool and embrace the latest trends.
On one side of the equation you have the people in the contemporary movement. They try to reach the world by becoming more like the world. The preaching, the music and the ambiance are all designed to make the world feel more at home in the church. It is assumed that by making the Gospel message more appealing, more people will be attracted to it. What they fail to remember, in my opinion, is one simple truth: the Gospel needs no adjustments. It is fine like it is. Present it like the Bible declares it and the Holy Spirit will do the work.
On the other side of the coin you have people who get consumed with some branch of orthodoxy. Be it those in the Reformed movement who live and breath the five-points of Calvinism, or those who fixate on their pet doctrine to the exclusion of all others. In my mind this mindset is as dangerous and damaging as the other. People are put off and turned away from the church by those who get trapped in the morass of single minded devotion to their favorite creed or movement.
Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful for the emphasis on grace in the Word of God. I know that everything flows from and is an expression of the grace of God in our lives. I am also thankful for the fundamental doctrines of the faith. I know that they are the bedrock upon which the church stands,. I am not advocating an abandonment of orthodoxy in favor of some contemporary form of worship and expression. I am advocating keeping Jesus Christ at the center of everything we do. I am advocating loving Him; preaching Him; living for Him and like Him, so that the world might be drawn to Him. I am advocating a return to the Word of God as the centerpiece of our walk, our work and our worship. I am advocating keeping Jesus at the center of everything we do!
What do you think?
Alan Carr
Fat Baptist 
Hey Brother Alan,
I have been using your thoughts on Revelation on Sunday Nights. But when I came to Laodicea I knew it needed to be heard by the “Sunday Morning Crowd”. We live in a time when people don’t go to bed hungry, don’t worry about where they will sleep, what they will wear, how they will pay the bills, etc. So we have come to the place in life where we don’t think we need the Lord. We would never say that out loud, but that is the attitude of the heart. That attitude has filtered into our church and our worship. We can come in and go through the motions. We can preach, pray and praise and never have God show up. There are too many empty services and empty churches. Unfortunately, most of the time we don’t even realize Jesus was never there.
We had an altar full at the end of the service. I pray that it was real repentance for empty worship. Pray for us that we will keep Him at the center of His church and His worship. There have been better churches than ours that went the way of the world. Also, thanks for the thoughts on Revelation.
Randy Howard
Community Baptist Church – Roxboro, NC
Amen Brother Randy! I praise the Lord for what He did in your corner of the vineyard on Sunday. Please keep us in your prayers!
Alan Carr