TBC President David Leavell discusses the state of evangelism and the secret to seeing 50,000 people a year coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ and being set on the road to discipleship.
Chris Turner: Hello and welcome in to this addition of Radio BNR. I’m your host, Chris Turner, and today I have as guest David Leavell, pastor of First Baptist Church Millington and also currently the Tennessee Baptist Convention President. David, thanks for being with us today.
David Leavell: It’s a joy. Thanks so much for having me.
Chris Turner: Well one of the things that you have really been involved with since the summit in November that has been not only an initiative of yours but really a personal passion of yours obviously is evangelism. You have launched the whole 3:16 initiative that you’ve been able to go across the state as you talk in churches and just share some about that 3:16. Tell us just a little bit about what that is and why you’re doing that.
David Leavell
David Leavell: The 3:16 Challenge is just a simple tool to ask Tennessee Baptists to be involved in personal evangelism. Everybody knows John 3:16. It’s the first verse you ever learn. It’s the last verse you’ll ever forget. So you have the infrastructure to share your faith. So my challenge to Tennessee Baptists is that we share John 3:16 once a week with a lost person with the intention of leading them to faith in Christ. If we do that, the results would be absolutely phenomenal in Tennessee.
Chris Turner: You were mentioning a story yesterday in a meeting that we were in about a pastor that had called you right before church and just talking about a member that he had. Just tell me about that story and maybe one or two other stories that you’ve heard that have come in since you’ve started this.
David Leavell: So it was a Wednesday afternoon and I got a phone call on my cell about 5:30 in the afternoon from another pastor friend in Middle Tennessee. He said “Can’t talk long. Just want to share this with you. One of my church members led someone to Christ using the John 3:16 tract.” Of course I was elated and excited. Angels rejoice in heaven and we need to-
Chris Turner: That’s right.
David Leavell: … rejoice ourselves. It was just good news. I get to share that with my church as well, and they get excited that God’s in the business of bringing people to faith in Himself. He’s used us and He calls on us to be faithful and share in that message. What I’ve just determined is God’s always been faithful, and if we’ll be faithful to the call that He’s given us, we’re going to see dramatic things happen spiritually for the Kingdom of God in Tennessee.
Chris Turner: And you were talking yesterday just about the percentage of people that share their faith and what difference could be made here in Tennessee specifically. Obviously our responsibility is globally, but we were talking specifically in the context of Tennessee, roughly three million spiritually lost people, and where a tipping point could come if people engaged. Talk a little bit about those percentages and things that you were saying.
David Leavell: I’m using a basis of about 12 studies. They come to the point there’s only four to 10% of us Christians who are faithful in sharing our faith in Jesus Christ.
Chris Turner: Wow.
David Leavell: Taking the most generous of those numbers, let’s just say 10%. That’s the active evangelism workforce in Tennessee. It’s 10% of our people that show up on Sunday mornings. With that 10% on the last year of record, we baptized 20302 people. So it’s really simple math there. If 10% led 20302 people to Christ, if we could activate 20%, we could see 40604.
Chris Turner: Wow.
David Leavell: You know our objective is to baptize 50000 and set them on a road to discipleship by 2024. How are we going to get there? We’re going to get there by increasing the active evangelism force in Tennessee. You see right now, 10% of our people is not enough to move the dial because more people are moving into Tennessee every year than we are seeing converted to Christ. Last year of record, about 60000 people moved into Tennessee. Well we baptized 20302. That’s telling us that Tennessee is more lost than ever before. We’re more lost today than we were last year, more lost last year than the year before, and that is true for the last 50 years. It’s incumbent upon us to wake up to the reality. God has called us to share our faith. We’ve got to be active in the harvest fields.
Chris Turner: That’s one of the things we talk about, that objective which we call our first objective of the five objectives that Tennessee Baptist voted to embrace in 2014 at the annual meeting that was held in Brentwood. That 50000 number was based on just keeping up with population growth in Tennessee, but population growth has been significantly growing even since then. So that 50000 number doesn’t really seem to be getting closer. It’s not that the number sounds unrealistic, but it does sound like the resources are out there if they’ll mobilize.
David Leavell: Yeah. The reality is we have the army to attack the gates of hell with the good news of Jesus Christ. We don’t have the active army. If we could mobilize the pews for the purpose of evangelism … And I’ve been a pastor all my life, over 30 years. When an initiative comes down from our denomination or from our state, sometimes it doesn’t inspire. It weighs us down because we are under spiritual attack. Our families are under attack. Our churches are under attack. We’re … Some guys are just on the verge of depression really because of all the things that are going on around them. So when we hear an initiative like that, it’s like putting one more bag on a pack mule.
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: It’s just like “I can’t handle that. I can’t …” But here’s the deal. This whole goal is not designed to put another bag on the backs of our preachers. It’s designed for the preachers to pass that responsibility on to the saints which is what we’re supposed to do. In Ephesians, the bible tells us we’re to equip the saints for the work of ministry. Pastor, you have to be a soul winner, but pastor, you can’t be the only soul winner in your church and fulfill your God call. You’ve got to begin to take the willing and begin to invest in them and give them the confidence that they can share Christ daily.
David Leavell: We can do that using John 3:16 because it’s so familiar. We just talk about four things in John 3:16 as a point of emphasis. One is He loves. We share “Hey, guys. God loves you.” There’s a lot of people out there that don’t think God loves them. They don’t know God loves them. To share that with them, it opens their heart and it opens to a great conversation. We share “He gave,” and “He gave” is He gave His only begotten son, Jesus Christ. He proved His love by what He gave to us. We do that as parents, don’t we? You can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving. That’s what God displayed for us. That’s why the bible says God is love. So we just talk to them about that. Then we say “We believe for the bible says ‘For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him.'” I’m so glad we have a whosoever gospel.
Chris Turner: That’s right.
David Leavell: He loves us all. All people can be saved, but we have to believe. We talk about that point. That’s the crisis of faith. That’s the point where hearts begin to turn from darkness to light, when we place our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The last thing is “We live.” The bible says we have everlasting life.
Chris Turner: That’s right.
David Leavell: I tell people that that’s today and tomorrow. We have abundant life today, we have eternal life tomorrow, and that’s what the Lord provides for us in Jesus Christ.
Chris Turner: Well when you look at that, the potential army that’s sitting in our pews and the 10% which is really probably, as you said, a very generous number, what’s it going to take? I mean what do we need to do to see that next step where people move out there and get into their community, and that marketplace, their work, their neighbors? There’s no shortage of available people to talk to.
David Leavell: Right. For many Southern Baptists, the greatest challenge is not to share John 3:16 because they know it and intuitively they can do that as a Christian. The hardest part for many of us is that if we’ve been a Christian over 10 years, we don’t know lost people. We pass the in the hallway, we pass them at the Kroger store, we pass them at the gas station, but we don’t know them.
Chris Turner: Wow.
David Leavell: We’ve been so busy sometimes about meeting at the church that we’ve not been intentional about meeting people that are far from God. So we have to intentionally put activities into our schedules that are going to cause us to cross paths with people that are far from God.
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: God gave me a burden for my mechanic. I get to see him quite often with the cars that I drive. I said “Hey, let’s me and you and your fiance and my wife, let’s go to dinner sometime.” He said “Oh, yeah. That’s good.” Well I started talking to him. I said “Let’s go Thursday night.” “I don’t know if I can go or not.” “Come on, man. Let’s go. We’ll have a great time.” So my wife and I went with my mechanic and his fiance and we just went to dinner. I think what convinced him was I told him I’d buy.
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: So expect evangelism to cost you.
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: If it cost Jesus his life, be willing to come off your wallet a little bit. Let’s go engage people and treat them with generosity. So we took them to dinner. We had a delightful conversation. We talked about the Lord, we talked about the church, but we didn’t have a gospel presentation.
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: We’re opening up a conversation with some people that are good people, but they don’t know Jesus. They’re lost people. We have to build intentional relationships. Our church has a recreation ministry. I tell folks “Hey, if you struggle with this, just become a coach. Just become an encourager on one of the teams. You’re going to get to know 10, 12, 15 kids and their parents that you would never know otherwise. It’s great opportunities to share the Gospel.”
Chris Turner: Well I think that’s one of the things you have mentioned multiple times. It’s not a presentation; it’s a conversation. I think that’s just something that’s very important to communicate because we either … A lot of folks have been trained in four spiritual laws. They use CWT or EE or some other type of evangelism training, and it really is kind of like engage somebody and start this presentation. Really your approach especially with the 3:16 thing is build that relationship through a conversation with somebody and just let the conversation with some intentionality move in that direction. You know that you want to go that direction, but see that person not as a project but as a person in need of the Lord.
David Leavell: I believe when we have presentations, it’s self-centered. When we have conversation, it’s other-centered.
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: If we’re at the ballgame and we’re just having a spiritual conversation and all of a sudden the game’s over, you stop and say “Hey, man. Think about the things we talked about.”
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: “Look forward to seeing you next week.” You just pick up where you left off. That’s the key because what’s that … What that is doing is seeding the Gospel into that person’s life. If we do that as a church family, we’re seeding the Gospel into the community.
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: If we’re passing out those Gospel tracts, we’re seeding the Gospel into the community. You’ve got to plant the seed before you can reap the harvest.
Chris Turner: That’s true.
David Leavell: So we’ve got to be constantly doing things that are seeding the message of Jesus into entire communities.
Chris Turner: When you think about that, I mean we can’t expect to see 50000 spiritual lives just emerge without there having been some seeds sown out there. Not everybody is going to accept the Gospel, but as you said, you don’t … That seed might grow a little slower in some places. In other places, it might spring up, but the truth of the matter is the Lord says when His word goes out, it’s not going to come back void. We know God wants to see people come to Christ. We know that the way He uses that is us to share that good news. We guarantee a harvest or God can guarantee a harvest.
David Leavell: Absolutely. The KJV says the fields are white to harvest.
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: They’re overripe. You know what? I’ve seen a trend and this is anecdotal, but it frightens me. We have a generation of believers who are prejudging someone’s ability to accept Christ or not. God saves sinners. Paul said “Of whom I am chief.”
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: We don’t, we can’t see what the Holy Spirit is doing in hearts and lives. Man looks on the outward appearance; God looks on the heart. We’re looking at the darkness of this world, and we’re looking at the suicides and the opioid addictions and the murders. We just want to throw up our hands and say “It’s too dark.” There is no situation that is so dark that the light of Jesus Christ-
Chris Turner: Right.
David Leavell: … can’t come in and make it different. He transforms. He doesn’t reform.
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: I just want to encourage Tennessee Baptist, God’s called us for a mission. If we’ll be faithful and obedient to the mission, I promise you there will be missiologists coming from all over this world to Tennessee-
Chris Turner: That’s right.
David Leavell: … and saying “What happened?” We’ll just look at them and say “Really it’s nothing special. We just trusted Jesus and started sharing John 3:16.” Literally that can bring about a great awakening-
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: … in America, and it can begin right here with us if we will be obedient once a week to share John 3:16 with a lost person-
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: … with the intention of leading them to Christ.
Chris Turner: Well one things for sure. Awakenings don’t happen without the spreading of the Gospel. Historically in every case, it’s always been because people shared the Gospel.
David Leavell: People are praying, and that’s why I’m so excited about the Pray for Tennessee initiative because it’s setting the spiritual climate for God to move in this kind of ways.
Chris Turner: That’s also a good point because even if somebody doesn’t feel comfortable moving into that Gospel conversation, a place for them to start is in prayer, by name praying for that person who’s … The parent of a kid on a baseball team or something. Praying by name for that person that the Lord would do a work in their life and that relationship would grow with that individual and move into it with the confidence in knowing you’ve been praying for that person. So as that conversation emerges with the expectation that God is going to honor that prayer on behalf of that person that when you start that spiritual conversation, the Lord is already gone ahead in that-
David Leavell: Absolutely. That’s the burden we have to develop. We’ve got to develop it in prayer. We’ve got to develop it in conversation. We’ve been so scared of becoming accused of being a Gospel freak-
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: … that we just have become lethargic.
Chris Turner: Yeah.
David Leavell: As I go across the state, as I interact with people, Tennessee Baptists are good folk. Man, they love the Lord, but we haven’t been challenged in this way. We’ve been taught that one element of the Christian life is the most important, and the reality is Jesus said in Mark 1:17 just beautiful words at the beginning of His ministry. He told his freshly called disciples, he said “Follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men.” So the reality is you cannot be a disciple of Jesus Christ if you’re not actively sharing your faith in Jesus Christ. We’ve tried to dissect evangelism and discipleship.
Chris Turner: That’s right.
David Leavell: But the reality is one leads to the other. It’s like the head and tails on a quarter.
Chris Turner: Sure.
David Leavell: If I say “Just give me the head side,” you can’t do it. You can present it to me, but on the backside’s the tail.
Chris Turner: That’s right.
David Leavell: That’s what we have to understand. You’re not following Jesus if you’re not fishing for souls.
Chris Turner: Yeah. That’s true. Well there’s a couple places you can go to find out more information. Obviously a good place to start, you can go to the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board website at tnbaptist.org. There on the homepage, you’ll see in the slider a link to 3:16. You can go out there and that’s one way to request information. Another way to request information is just to call the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board and someone can get you hooked up to send out the 3:16 tracts. We also have some wristbands that are great conversation starter. Put that on and people have been asking “So why have you got that on your wrist?” It’s a great way to initiate that conversation.
Chris Turner: The other thing that you want to put on your calendar definitely is the summit in November — excuse me — which will be held at West Jackson Baptist Church this year, second week in November. The whole idea of winning Tennessee and praying for Tennessee will be an important emphasis to that with an idea that … Be thinking and praying about those spiritually lost people and making those connections so that you can bring that name to the summit for the purpose of really committing to pray for that person over this next year. As David talked about, if you don’t know spiritually lost people, a great place to start in starting to share the Gospel with people is get to know somebody who doesn’t know the Lord.
Chris Turner: David, thanks so much for taking some time just to talk about 3:16 initiative, evangelism in Tennessee, and let’s just all be committed to praying that that army you’re talking about will actually mobilize the way God had intended it to.
David Leavell: I believe God’s beginning a good work among us. I’m excited to be a part of it.
Chris Turner: Great. Well thank you, again, for Radio B&R. I’m Chris Turner, your host. This has been David Leavell, President of the Tennessee Baptist Convention.
