Great Commission Conversations

This week, Dr. Chuck Lawless & Dr. Keith Whitfield sit down and discuss a topic very close to their hearts. When it comes to how we serve in ministry, it's important for every believer to understand how God has uniquely gifted them and placed a certain calling on their lives to serve Him & His Kingdom. Often, we can talk about our calling in such a generic way that it loses some of its force, but the reality is this is one of the most crucial things we need to ponder as Christians. In this episode, Keith & Chuck talk about how they discovered their own personal callings and how people should seek to discover their role in God's ministry on Earth.

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This week, Dr. Chuck Lawless and Dr. Keith Whitfield dive deep into their theological understanding of prayer and how it plays a crucial role in accomplishing the Great Commission. They also discuss prayer in the context of our personal lives as well as in the local church and why it is an essential part of the Christian life to be obedient to God's call to make disciples among the nations. 

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The privilege of being in Pastoral ministry is unlike anything we've ever seen. In the same day, you can rejoice with people as you see them grow in their faith and the next moment can yield deep grief as you walk someone through loss in their life. Whether it's perseverance or difficulty, ministry remains one of, if not the most difficult roles to play in the world.

This week, we had Dr. Tate Cockrell who teaches Counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and also heads up their DMin program. Dr. Tate Cockrell travels throughout the United States and speaks internationally in conferences on marriage, family, grief, parenting, divorce, recovery, and men’s issues. Today, he talks about the issue of the pressure of ministry and how we can think more productively about the pressures that ministers are feeling right now while navigating them in a healthy way. 

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With so much negativity out in the world currently and considering that ministry is hard enough as it is, leadership can seem unappealing after awhile. But for those called to the cause of the Great Commission, we hold onto a deeper purpose and that's to advance the church's mission of making disciples among the nations. So how do encourage leaders to discern their calling in ministry while being faithful to what the Lord teaches about leading His people? Dr. Chuck Lawless and Dr. Keith Whitfield sit down and discuss leadership lessons they've learned over the years and how one can sense or discern their responsibility to lead. 

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When it comes to the difference between great leaders and those who seem great, it's HUGE. The bottom line is that leaders who are great are people of integrity are ones that you respect even more the longer you get to know them. However, for those who seem great, they actually begin to show their true selves as those who lack integrity and transparency. They aren't who they claim to be. Today, Dr. Chuck Lawless and Dr. Keith Whitfield discuss leadership today and what characteristics they've seen in great leaders that they've known throughout their lives.

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Today, we have the privilege of having the President of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), Kevin Ezell on the show. Kevin Ezell has served as the President of the North American Mission Board (NAMB) since September 2010. He provides strategic vision, direction, and leadership as NAMB works to help Southern Baptist churches send the hope of the gospel to North America. Previous to his work for NAMB, he was a Pastor in Louisville, Kentucky where he personally pastored both Chuck and Keith at different times. He's on the show this week to talk about church planting, engaging the lost in North America, and some of the things that they've seen happen over the last 10 years.

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When it comes to preaching, we always want to help people dwell in the Word and engage them in every aspect of their lives so that they may dwell intellectually. But we also want to engage them emotionally and effectively. So in terms of self-introspection, we desire that they look out into the world through the lens of God's Word so they respond to it. Change brings about transformation and the number one responsibility as a preacher is discipleship. What this boils down to is a fundamental, cultivating call for faith as your congregation encounters the living God through the revelation of His Word. God gave us His Word so that we might know Him and the task of preaching is to proclaim Him so that the people of God would see Him. 

Join the conversation this week as Dr. Keith Whitfield and Dr. Chuck Lawless expand on their discussion about discipleship and how it's focus is shifted when it's being delivered from the pulpit.

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Sometimes we put people in the leadership of small groups that are great teachers. Their skills are top-notch and they actually really enjoy teaching. Once that person heads up that small group, they move towards listening to this person teach all the time. However, there might be somebody that's more effective at constructing, building, encouraging, and nurturing community as well as facilitating discussion. So what does a successful small group filled with community and biblical discussion look like? How do we ensure that we don't overlook the right leader?

This week, Dr. Keith Whitfield & Dr. Chuck Lawless talk about the characteristics of a faithful small group and also discuss five traits of people who are genuinely following Christ in their lives. 

The greatest burden you can carry as a pastor is when you don't have a burden. That's our greatest burden. When we realize we've lost our burden, we've lost our passion. When it comes to the character of a pastor, it isn't just something, it is everything. The best way to develop character and to maintain it is to keep to accountability partners in your life. There are dots to connect between character leadership and the church's effectiveness and mission in evangelism and accomplishing the Great Commission. How do you see those connections working out your own life in ministry? Even if you've been pastoring now for decades, how do you see that working out? Anyone who is a powerful preacher and propagator of the Gospel is a man of character with a passionate, fiery burning love for Jesus. 

This week, Dr. James Merritt joins the show with Chuck and Keith to discuss how crucial character is in the leadership of the pastorate and how a pastor can reignite their desire for evangelism and their burden for the lost. 

Revival can actually be very problematic. It creates as many problems as it solves because if we don't know the difference between revival and awakening, we'll completely miss the point. The reality is that this mysterious work of God that we can't really explain refreshes and renews the hearts of believers and ultimately propels the mission. This is a prime opportunity for God's people to pray a dangerous prayer and see this COVID crisis as an opportunity. What this pandemic is exposing is what we really believe about churches which is the fear that we really cannot exist without a building and what God is proving to us is that the church was never a building. 

In this episode, Dr. Ed Litton joins Chuck and Keith to discuss how the pandemic has shaped how he runs his church and the different forms of idolatry that are being exposed in churches all over the country.