Keep ‘dream stealers’ at bay, keynote speaker urges lay leaders & ministers

Posted: 3/30/07

Keep ‘dream stealers’ at bay, keynote
speaker urges lay leaders & ministers

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

PLAINVIEW—Pastors and lay church leaders should “recognize those things that are dream stealers” and exercise mountain-moving faith, keynote speaker David Mahfouz told participants at Inspire ’07.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas and Caprock Plains Baptist Association sponsored the inaugural Inspire event March 24 at College Heights Baptist Church.

Mahfouz, pastor of First Baptist Church in Port Neches, encouraged nearly 100 pastors, Sunday school teachers and youth and women’s ministry leaders to avoid church members who spew pessimism or negativity about outreach efforts. He called statements such as “Well, some things you just can’t change,” or “You can’t expect the impossible,” troubling impediments to reaching others for Christ.

Keynote speaker David Mahfouz, pastor of First Baptist Church in Port Neches, calls on Texas Baptists attending Inspire ’07 to renew their faith and reach the lost because “millions are in hell because the church has not been urgent in the harvest.”

Mahfouz urged church leaders to get people to move past their “dream stealers” and go share the gospel.

“Millions are in hell because the church has not been urgent in the harvest,” Mahfouz emphasized. “A ripe harvest awaits an urgent church.”

Often, church members get excited about evangelism and begin to share their faith, he noted. But then their evangelistic efforts and enthusiasm falter. They don’t lose the desire suddenly, but gradually they witness less and less.

Turning to a New Testament passage in Matthew 17:14-20, Mahfouz noted Christ’s disciples’ lack of faith when they asked Jesus why they could not heal the boy and Jesus’ reply, “Because you have so little faith.”

“What are we expecting God to do in our churches and through our ministries?” Mahfouz asked. “Are our expectations limited by our unbelief? A world of lost people faces us.”

Encouraging leaders to “draw the lost into the church,” Mahfouz also underscored the need for churches to disciple new Christians after baptizing them.

“Get them involved in meaningful Bible study,” he urged. “And walk with them as new children in Christ.”

If Jesus returned today, Mahfouz believes there would be compassion and love in his eyes, but a great concern over “overripe fields.” Illustrating his point, he referred to the parable where Jesus said, “Look unto the fields. They are white unto harvest. But the reapers, where are they?”

Mahfouz encouraged leaders to pray expecting God to do great things.

“Most Baptists have forgotten what it is to be lost—no peace, no promise of eternity in heaven,” he said.

“Today’s mountain could be tomorrow’s miracle” if Christians just come with a burden, a prayer and an expectation that “God is still in the business of saving people and can use us and our church to do this.”