PLAINVIEW, Texas-Third-generation Baptist pastor, Chris Seay, told participants at the 83rd annual Panhandle Pastors' and Laymen's Conference he was there to provoke their thinking.The Baptist Standard reports Seay challenged fellow ministers to trust the gospel and use inroads provided by movies, television and music to talk to people about Christ.
Seay said his is the first "post-Christian" generation, and every year an increasing number of people his age are walking away from the church, many of them doing so because their Internet-oriented world view demands a bigger church than they are being presented.
One study, Seay quoted, showed evangelical Christians as the third-most despised people, behind pedophiles and serial killers.
"The perception is we are here to judge and condemn," Seay said. "We have become a people so concerned with morality we've forgotten the gospel. We should deal with morality after people come to Christ. Only in Christ do we have the power to change things."
Other ministers at the convention spoke about reconciliation, for one another, in race relations, in Hispanic ministry.
John Lowrie, pastor of First Baptist Church of Abernathy preached about brothers being reconciled in order to change the questions of the world from, who killed Christ? to why did he die?
"If the world is going to see Jesus Christ, it will see him in you," Lowrie said.
