05/29/18 AN ISSUES PREACHER, REALLY??
I WAS GOING TO ADD THIS AS A COMMENT TO AN EARLIER POST, BUT I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT FIND IT INTERESTING.
Though there are people who attack me as though all I do is address a few peripheral ISSUES, such accusations are not consistent with the facts of my ministry from the 1970s until today.
During my years as pastor, I was involved in preaching, teaching, counseling, visiting, jail and prison ministry, cross cultural ministry, led a large youth ministry, camp ministry, led church growth classes and conferences, headed up a very successful foreign missions ministry, preached missions services and conferences, discipled young men and prepared them for ministry, headed up our own church camp ministries, worked as the vice president of our denominational missions society, worked on the youth board of our denomination, preached at youth camps, taught eschatology classes and cult classes, taught jr high and high school classes in our church school and in other Christian schools, taught Bible college courses in theology, doctrine, church history, homiletics, hermeneutics, Old Testament and New Testament, missiology, Christian/Biblical counseling, cults, pastoral theology, preached revivals, youth camps, missions retreats, went on missions tours to England, Norway, Holland, Mexico City, Colombia, Ecuador and I planned and led a two week missions outreach to the 1976 Olympics in Montreal (involving about 100 different people) and worked on a missions outreach program to the Calgary Stampede in Canada.
I stood against government intrusion and persecution in North Carolina and Texas and traveled to other states (taking men from our church) to stand with churches being oppressed by their own States.
I appeared on TV News and Newspapers, addressing various social and church issues and promoted the ministry. I did chaplaincy work for the trucking industry at one of the busiest trucking hubs in the country.
I carried on a street ministry in Myrtle Beach during Harley Bike Week and Black Bike Week, as well as street witnessing throughout the tourist season.
I have done online ministries since the 1990s, while living in Tennessee, South Carolina and North Carolina. I have had radio programs and TV programs in North Carolina and Texas and I have had my name displayed openly in various states (sometimes on major thoroughfares) yet people still claim I was "in hiding." There are people I spent years in leading to Christ, leading them in Christ, marrying, dedicating their children, counseling, preparing for ministry, taking around the country in training and ministry trips.
Still, I get blamed for being an ISSUES preacher, supposedly abandoning the gospel. I do admit that I address a lot of areas that are unpopular with pastors today, but they are basic areas of teaching in the New Testament, which are usually shied away from because they are controversial or because they are unpopular concepts. BUT THE PREACHING OF CHRIST AND SALVATION HAS NEVER TAKEN A BACK SEAT TO ANY MINISTRY I PERFORMED.
NOW, I ASK YOU, since you read my messages and see my life displayed all over FACEBOOK AND MY BLOG, does it look like I have abandoned the gospel or been in hiding.
This is to point out that regardless of a man's faithfulness and openness and record, Satan is going to try to discredit him, because Satan can only advance through deception and corruption. Choose your church, choose your pastor carefully.
By the way, I was the one blessed by being called and allowed to do the work of God. Recounting my ministry life is not to to lift me up, but to point out that even when a person spends his life doing the will of God there will be people who will attack and attempt to defame that person.
My disappointment is that I actually would like to have more opportunities and do more of the work of God. DON'T SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRITY. God has great things for you to do. It is not your ABILITIES that matter to God as it is your AVAIL-ABILITY. God will provide the abilities and God will sustain you when the enemies of the cross attack you for your work.
