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Beating the Monday Blues

By June 25, 2013September 7th, 2023No Comments

DEARBORN, Mich.—Doug Crawford doesn’t like Mondays, a point he freely admitted to the messengers gathered for the opening session of the 2013 GARBC Conference. His humorous complaint fell on sympathetic ears—people tired from Sunday and a long day of travel.

“Monday is not a good day for people in vocational ministry,” Crawford says during the introduction to his sermon from Habakkuk 1—3. “It is a day of recovery from the most demanding day of the week.”

He spoke of pastors pouring their hearts out to congregations who might not understand, perhaps distracted by trivial matters. The auditorium was too hot (or too cold). The music was too loud (or too contemporary or too old-fashioned).

“Sometimes we come to Monday and we wonder if we accomplishing anything for God,” says Crawford, the senior pastor of West Cannon Baptist Church, Belmont, Mich. But he’s not the type to blame his church. “The problem with being at a place 33 years is that you can’t blame it on the former pastor anymore!”

Pastor Crawford understands that for some people, Mondays can turn into weeks, months, and even years of discouragement. “Sometimes, like Habakkuk, we grow weary.”

Crawford’s sermon was the first of eight expository sermons on the conference theme of “Renew Our Strength,” introduced by GARBC National Representative John Greening, who described a a broad application for personal renewal, church renewal, and association renewal.

“True renewal comes not by the latest pragmatic changes,” Greening suggests. “It comes by realigning our ways with God’s ways.”

“The messages this week are designed to turn our attention away from our limitations and our frailties and our moral and ethical and righteous shortcomings to behold the infinite adequacies of our God,” Greening says.

In a departure from recent tradition, a different person will lead worship before each of the preaching sessions, each chosen for their connection to the particular speaker. Tonight’s service was led by Mark Cizauskas, who recently became pastor of First Baptist Church, Rochester, Mich., after 12 years of ministry with Crawford at West Cannon Baptist.

The evening session will be online with live streaming video produced by Chris Brown of TechPartner.org, a ministry of Baptist Church Planters. “We want to help  those who couldn’t make it to be part of the event,” Chris says, describing himself as the ministry’s “director/missionary/geek.”

Earlier in the day a group of GARBC chaplains met for in-service training. John Murdoch, the GARBC’s director of chaplaincy ministries, had arranged for Fouad Masri to teach the chaplains about ministry to the Muslim community. Masri, founder of the Crescent Project, spoke from London via live streaming video.

Also on Monday, the GARBC Council of Eighteen met for their mid-year meeting, a time of reports from various committees and departments. The council influences the association by recommending action to the churches, and by implementing its policies. During today’s meeting the council recommended two resolutions that will be presented to the messengers for a vote later in the week, addressing spiritual renewal and Biblical hermeneutics. The council is also recommending two changes to the GARBC’s Articles of Faith; these amendments were introduced at the 2012 GARBC Conference and will be voted on during Tuesday’s business session. The proposed changes will clarify that marriage is “the joining of one man and one woman,” and will clarify that the offices of pastor and deacon are reserved for men.

Daily coverage of the conference can be found at www.BaptistBulletin.org and www.conferencedev.garbc.org, including photos, news articles, sermon videos and MP3s, and downloads.

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