SBC President calls for a ‘better Christ-like spirit’ during Jacksonville visit

By Lauren Urtel

Feb. 8, 2008

JACKSONVILLE (FBC)—Southern Baptist Convention president Frank Page called for the Florida Baptist Convention staff to “live just lives, love mercy and walk in humility.”

“I am afraid that by a lack of exhibiting Christ-likeness, we are giving the wrong image to the world,” said Page. “We need to present a much better Christ-like spirit so the world would see that Jesus is real, he is alive in believers.”

Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., spoke during a Baptist Building chapel service Jan. 30 at the invitation of John Sullivan, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention.

Families all around Florida are in desperate turmoil, said Page, as he shared his fear that Christians are sending the wrong message of “find your own salvation” during the chapel service.

Modern-day churches are met with “a yawn, or worse,” said Page. “We need a Holy Ghost revival that draws people to the gospel.”

Page cited the life of David, found in Micah 6:8 and 2 Samuel 12:1, as a reference for the kind of Christians all Southern Baptist should be.

“David lived justly,” said Page. “Instead of doing what he had a right to do, he did what was right.”

David showed mercy to the crippled and walked humbly before God. “Here was a man had everything and still he walked in humility. God looked out and said ‘Here is a man with a heart like mine,’” said Page.

Citing Psalm 51, Page shared that he often prays the prayer of the scripture as David would have.

If Southern Baptists “lived just lives, loved mercy, and walked in humility our God would be pleased and the lost world would see that believers are people who have a spirit given to them by God and a new heart that is divine,” said Page. “The lost would be drawn to the Lord by that kind of character.”

“We need to be winsome Christians, to have that kind of winsome spirit that draws people under the arm of Jesus.”