{"id":580,"date":"2020-07-29T05:48:42","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T10:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/denisonforum\/2020\/07\/barbecue-baptist-church-delivers-meals-hope-and-levity-how-being-guests-liberates-us-to-speak-biblical-truth\/"},"modified":"2020-07-29T05:48:42","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T10:48:42","slug":"barbecue-baptist-church-delivers-meals-hope-and-levity-how-being-guests-liberates-us-to-speak-biblical-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/denisonforum\/2020\/07\/barbecue-baptist-church-delivers-meals-hope-and-levity-how-being-guests-liberates-us-to-speak-biblical-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbecue Baptist Church delivers meals, hope, and levity: How being “guests” liberates us to speak biblical truth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Remember when you couldn\u2019t find toilet paper?<\/p>\n

Chad McMillan, the pastor of students, evangelism, and missions at First Baptist Church in Navasota, Texas, had a novel idea<\/a>. He put his pastor on a trailer surrounded by plexiglass and armed him with a T-shirt gun to distribute toilet paper rolls wrapped with Bible verses. It went so well, they added a pulpit, piano, and sound system to do pop-up worship services while flinging the TP.<\/p>\n

Then McMillan started Barbecue Baptist Church. The church borrowed a catering truck from a member and traveled around the county, serving about four meals a day, four days a week, along with a short worship service. Last month, they took the ministry on the road from Navasota to Nashville, visiting first responders and medical professionals across six states in seven days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Along with the meals, they are offering a message of hope and some humor as well. \u201cNot to make light of what\u2019s happening,\u201d McMillan explained, \u201cbut to try to give people a moment of levity and joy to know that God loves them, and we love them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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A price it\u2019s easy for me to ask you to pay\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

When you\u2019re offering free toilet paper and barbecue, people tend to be grateful. When you\u2019re called to share unpopular biblical truth, they can be less so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is especially challenging to speak such truth to people when our success depends on their affirmation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most of you reading this article make your living in the secular world and are therefore measured by secular means. In such a culture, it can be risky to stand up for spiritual truth. As we\u2019ve discussed before, if you defend biblical marriage, you\u2019ll be branded a \u201chomophobe.\u201d If you advocate for life from conception, you\u2019ll be accused of participating in a \u201cwar on women.\u201d In these days of cancel culture (for more, see my paper here<\/a>), those who oppose biblical truth have unprecedented means of attacking Christians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the same time, we are clearly called to be Jesus\u2019 \u201cwitnesses\u201d where we live and around the world (Acts 1:8). We are to be prepared \u201calways\u201d to defend our faith (1 Peter 3:15), whatever the circumstances or cost. The apostles risked their lives when they told the Sanhedrin, \u201cWe cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard\u201d (Acts 4:20). Paul risked his life repeatedly to preach God\u2019s word (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:22\u201333) and testified, \u201cI am not ashamed of the gospel\u201d (Romans 1:16).\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a result, I could exhort you today to risk your social status, your relationships, and perhaps even your job by standing courageously for God\u2019s word and biblical morality. But that\u2019s easy for me to say, since I work at a Christian ministry as a Christian minister and have little to lose when I do what I\u2019m asking you to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n