FBFI Annual Fellowship, Wednesday AM, June 17- A Liveblog Report
(Greg Linscott Reporting)
Seeing Lives Transformed by the Gospel - Jeff Musgrave
Summary from the conference booklet: Jesus is the answer for transformed living, and discipleship is the method that He designed to accomplish getting men to Him. We often say, “This is about a relationship with God, not a religion,” but are we effectively introducing men to God and showing them how to live in a vibrant relationship with Him?
Summary of the workshop: The session was an parred down presentation of The Exchange, Musgrave’s discipleship ministry.
Musgrave argued that there is a circle of ministry that needs to take place in our churches. An individual, once saved, ought to be discipled and trained into ministry (Saved - Discipled - Trained into ministry). His remarks evidenced both his burden for evangelism (his used the term ‘soul-winning’) and his passion for training others to disciple.
Below is a summary outline of the content of the session, which is his the outline he uses to present the gospel to an unsaved person.
I. The Gift of the Exchange
A. God is a Divine Person (he is knowable)
Presentation of who God is and how he looks at sin. God is holy and cannot tolerate sin, just and cannot overlook sin, loving and has provided a gift to me (the sinner), and gracious, offering salvation as a gift.
B. The lost man has a need.
This need is internal; man also has internal evidence of God, who makes divine appointments for the unsaved.
C. I have a regenerated spirit.
When we are saved, we realize the futility of my self (using his alliterated points), the fulness of my savior, the finality of my surrender, the filling of the Spirit, and the fruitfulness of my service
II. The Process of the Exchange
A. The Model - Acts 11:19-26
Musgrave sees four elements of discipleship in this passage. Conversation—we reason with the lost; evangelization—we give them the gospel; the assimilation—the saved need to be brought into the fellowship, but slowly. we cannot expect them to grow immediately. We need to be willing to take the “food” to them. Finally, indoctrination, training them up in the faith.
B. The Method - II Timothy 2:1-2; 25-26
- 16 views
- I don’t see the FBFI as much different in organization (not speaking about the position but organization only) than the Shepherd’s Conference or T4G. Attendees get together once a year for great preaching / teaching (except T4G is biannual).
- The FBFI is not a true fellowship of churches (like the GARBC, MBA, etc)
- It has value: the publications, resolutions, etc
- Looking at the speaker lineup for this week’s conference, it looks terrific and I wish I could have been there. I’ve heard John Vaughn, Mark Minnick, John Hartog, and Kevin Bauder speak and I could take a lot more of that!
- About Cogdon’s breakout session: I’m sure he is a good man. Even good men have some weird views and it is dangerous when men depart from the text and enter into speculation. (think Jack Van Impe’s “giant computer in Belgium called “the beast”” - which I heard once almost 35 years ago! Because I was a salesman for IBM …. I wondered if somehow I was complicit in the one-world conspiracy! Of course a computer 35 years ago had much less horsepower than the average PC today!)
- Summary: Understand what the FBFI is (and is not). Bob T had some good comments about that. And appreciate the FBFI for what it is!
- About “The Doctrines of Grace” (which I embrace). The true doctrines of grace humble man and elevate God! They motivate and energize evangelism and missions.
Ever been on a cruise ship? Must do that some time - one of the most relaxing vacations I’ve ever had was on a cruise ship! A conference is like a cruise ship. You go, you feed (my sister who was with me had Alaskan salmon at every meal! / I managed (or perhaps better said did not manage) to gain over 10 lbs in one cruise week!), you fellowship, and then you go home to the gritty world of work, mowing the grass, ordinary food (Grape nuts for breakfast, PB & J for lunch, and Lean Cuisine for dinner), and paying bills!
I’m beginning to see that there are only but slight differences between my wing of fundamentalism (and as of today I still call myself a fundamentalist!) and the very conservative wing of evangelicalism. Mark Dever was in Minneapolis earlier this year and spoke at an fundamental Baptist church. No one blinked an eye (of criticism!)!
As for Tweets / Twitters (Excellent job, Greg!!!!). I am not going to draw conclusions from 140 character bits of data (re: the “dialog is dangerous” comment).
If anyone ever wrongly accuses me of something, I want a fellow like JG in my corner.
JG has also displayed wisdom in crafting his words carefully to help me save face, should my report prove to be a misunderstanding of Mr. Congdon, and he has displayed wisdom in urging caution when you only have one report (namely, mine).
So I commend to you JG’s thought, “Perhaps we should just pull back until the tape becomes available.” I urge you to listen to the tape, and decide for yourself.
[Jay C]Sorry, I am coming late to this party. Microsoft “updated” my operating system, and messed up the keyboard mapping on my computer…[Todd Mitchell] I am not a member of the FBFI, nor do I now have any intention to join. In addition to this episode, their preferred song leader, the staff evangelist for BJU, turned the podium into a circus ring, and in the men’s luncheon challenge first blamed us for declining Christian College enrollments, accusing us of not preaching the need for Christian College from the pulpits, then cracked the following joke: “Do you know the difference between a Nazi and a music major? About 45 degrees!” He demonstrated by holding up his hand in a stiff-arm Nazi salute, then drooping his wrist to ape a homosexual. This drew a roar of laughter from most of the pastors present.I am shocked, appalled, and disgusted at what has transpired at the FBFI meeting if this is true [and it seems to be]. The episode involving Tom Congdon was bad enough, but that AND the above episode make it very clear to me that I want absolutely NO part of the FBFI after this. Any thought I ever had of ever joining the FBFI has been smashed to bits. I had hoped to get a subscription to Frontline, but there’s no way I could do so if this is what my money would go to.
So no, I have no intention to join the FBFI at this point. Therefore, I am not calling on the FBFI for any particular response. However, if the FBFI sweeps this under the rug, they are complicit in Mr. Congdon’s ongoing offense. It is that very complicity that I, as a registered attender, seek to avoid by publishing this.
People wonder why I listen to and endorse John MacArthur; Let me say that I’ll take his foibles and problems over this kind of behavior any day of the week. This would NEVER have happened at Shepherd’s Conference.
I remember sitting in chapel at The University listening to an administrator declare unto us that, if we did not *send* our children to The University when they came of college age, we would be the most reviled, lowdown rats that ever crawled the face of the planet (or words to that effect). I guess those who were sitting in chapel with me then - and are now presidents and administrators of other Bible colleges - must be the lowest of the low, in that man’s opinion.
As for the comment about music majors, if this is the same guy who comes up when I google “BJU Staff Evangelist”, interestingly enough, he plays the trumpet. I suppose it’s OK in his mind to be a Christian Musician, as long as your college major was Bible.
The joke he told has been around for 30 years. It wasn’t funny then. IMHO, it contributed to the perception of men preparing for a ministry in music as “just music majors.” No wonder I had to leave the BJU affiliated IFB churches in order to get a chance to serve as a minister of the gospel.
There are only two BJU graduates that I have known who have served first as Music Director, and then as Senior Pastor.
One of those was Danny Sweatt.
Discussion