Matt Maddix takes TV stand

triumphant1 · #1 09-06-2007, 01:58 PM

This is copied from Matt Maddix's "myspace blog" today. It was sent to me by someone UPC asking me if I would post it on the forum...here it is....

September 6, 2007 - Thursday

My View on the TV Issue

You will never know success until you try for it. Doug Flutie tried; forty-eight yards and six seconds later, he became a sports legend. At 28 seconds until the end of the game, Boston College got the ball to the 20-yard line. Two passes and twenty-two seconds later, the ball was just a few yards beyond midfield. Boston College's only hope was a Hail Mary pass.

With only six seconds on the clock, Flutie dropped back, scrambled for a split second, and launched the ball. Phelan fell five yards into the end zone as he caught the ball. Suddenly, the score read Boston College 47, Miami 45, and the time expired. For the Eagles, punting the ball away was not an option; neither did they have the option to kick a field goal. The choice was to lose the game to Miami or to go for the end zone. Twenty-three years later, we all remember the famous Hail Mary thrown by the legendary quarterback Doug Flutie.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the United Pentecostal church is in desperate need for a Doug Flutie right now. We don't have any more options! As an organization, we've done everything that we can to win souls and advance this gospel into the hands of the seven billion people on this planet. We owe a great debt to the many great leaders, pastors, missionaries, evangelists and officials that have finished the course and await the last day church to bring home the victory; we stand on their shoulders as we continue the work that they began.

As a 31-year-old minister that has poured ten years of passion, hard work, blood, sweat, and tears into the United Pentecostal Church, I am greatly concerned about our future. We can ignore the scoreboard and continue to operate the way we did in the first quarter or we can pull together and throw a historic Hail Mary!

We all realize that we've been blessed with a rich and powerful heritage. We've had incredible movements like Because of the Times for the past 25 years as well as hundreds of conferences to inspire and encourage us; Deeper Life, Landmark, family camps, and Youth Congress, not to mention the passionate, anointed, and gifted ministries of people like the Urshans, Manguns, Haneys, Kilgores, Barnes, Tennys, Cunninghams, Coles, Huntleys, Godairs, Cornwells, Jones, Bookers, Crafts, Keyes, Williams, Bectons, Mooneys, Howells, and Lee Stoneking, as well as countless thousands of unsung heroes of the United Pentecostal Church who have supported this organization through their giving to our various ministries. However, these powerful ministries still haven't come close to completely fulfilling the great commission. Many of our most passionate leaders and revivalists such as myself are completely worn out. I'm confident that our organization couldn't work any harder; we've given everything that we have.

It's time for us to give it a try. I'm not in favor of using television simply as a last resort or as an excuse to give in to carnality or laziness. However, even with all of our efforts, we are still coming up short. My heart is heavily burdened for large cities such as Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Miami, Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tampa, Orlando, Detroit, and Pittsburg, and the many cities around the world that have been almost untouched by the United Pentecostal Church. Are we in need of a revival and awakening? Absolutely!

We must all prayerfully consider throwing a Hail Mary on Wednesday, September 26, 2007, allowing our organization a chance to use another tool to reach our world. We've worked, sacrificed, prayed, given, traveled, motivated, and inspired as much as we can. Many powerful, inspirational voices have spoken over our assembly and to our world, like the voice of Anthony Mangun in Louisiana, yet we still have over seven billion souls that may spend eternity in Hell. Because of this great need for our leaders and visionaries to be broadcasted, I can support the use of television to fulfill the command that Jesus gave us; "Let your let shine before men that they may see your good works."

The world has seen enough televangelists; now they need to see our giving, our missions, our youth congress, our conferences, our Boot Camps, our feeding the homeless, our block parties, our baptisms, and our service in the community. I'd love to obey Jesus and let the world see what we have. After feeding the homeless in St. Petersburg every week for the past three years, doing over one hundred block parties, having three Soul Winner's Boot Camps, reaching, serving, and working overtime as a home Bible study teacher and soul winner, I can tell you that we need to throw a Hail Mary. We need to give the Tampa area and the whole world a chance to see that there is a different church full of power and love. I'd like for the world to see our good works!

I am joined with approximately 20 United Pentecostal churches in the Tampa Bay area in a network of fellowship; together, we are responsible for over three million souls in addition to the 5,000 plus devoted apostolic people we have been blessed with in our area churches. If we planted 200 churches in the next 20 years and motivated all 200 churches to grow to 400 people in attendance, it would be an unprecedented miracle! We would have a grand total of 85,000 people in the Tampa Bay area baptized in Jesus name and filled with the Holy Ghost. However, as exciting and seemingly challenging as this goal may be, with this number of apostolic believers, we'd still have a total of 2,915,000 souls headed to a lake of fire because we were unable to share the new birth message with them.

What burden of responsibility would be greater? Would you be more willing to answer for the blood of billions of people who may never hear the gospel than you would be to invest in the technology that the 21st century has afforded us? With real-time information at our fingertips via the Internet and mobile communication an ever-expanding technology, do you truly believe that the use of television would destroy our organization and our belief system?

I implore you, my fellow pastors and brothers, to refrain from becoming angry with me for my stand; please don't misunderstand my intent and isolate me or forbid your church members from associating with ministries such as Soul Winner's Boot Camp. There are very few people who are burning with such a great passion to equip our organization for aggressive evangelism; my motives are completely pure. Thank you for allowing me to use technology for the cause of Christ, employing web casts, radio advertisements, DVDs, and the World Wide Web, as well as copy machines, telephones, and fax machines; these tools have been invaluable in helping to fulfill the great commission. I'm asking you to take this gospel a step further; throw a Hail Mary that will allow me to show Tampa and the rest of the world our good works.

Sincerely,

Matthew J Maddix

Praxeas · #2 09-06-2007, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by triumphant1

Quote:

Ladies and Gentlemen, the United Pentecostal church is in desperate need for a Doug Flutie right now. We don't have any more options! As an organization, we've done everything that we can to win souls and advance this gospel into the hands of the seven billion people on this planet.

Sincerely,

Matthew J Maddix
mjmaddix@aol.com

As much as I am not against using TV, I think MM has missed it here big time. We, as an organization and as OPs in general, have NOT done everything...we might have TRIED everything but we have not DONE everything...or rather we have not done ANYTHING with the options we have tried.

Compared to what other groups are doing....like Ray Comfort and the way of the master....their TV shows are only to show other Christians how to go out and and do personal evangelism. We don't do that. We don't have a camera crew go out on the streets and show everyone else how it's done and then get those shows or DVDs into the hands of every OP.

We don't make better use of radio and Internet. We TRIED them, sure. We DON'T make better use of personal evangelism. Instead we have lame growth seminars. This is actually quite odd coming from MM who started the soul winners boot camp...of all people he should know we have barely scratched the surface of personal evangelism.

I think we should take a look at how Ray Comfort doe it. I think we should also take a look at the tracts they make and also the American Tract Society and how they take advantage of EVERY new event to use as a witnessing tool...when The Passion came out, they made special tracts...when the Da Vinci code came out, they made special tracts...Harry Potter? Special tracts....all pointing to Jesus Christ.

The other thing is we try so so so hard to convert to our doctrine people in other churches when there are millions of unchurched people who just need to know that they need to repent. It would not be too hard to direct them towards baptism in Jesus name and the Holy Ghost after that. But we think, wrongly, that witnessing the gospel means telling them about the baptism of the Holy Ghost. That might be a point to someone that is in another church and is hungry....but for all those many that are unchurched that might not be the best place to start. It works in some cases, but just someone receiving the Spirit...you want the person to be repented before having them seek for the HOly Ghost.

No, we have not exausted all options...our team is not really even on the field...many need to go back to basics and many need to go through training camp...and still others need to do some extra workouts....then we need to get all the players on the fields...the second stringers need to support the players and let the fans do the wave (hands in the air to God)

I am for TV, but I think this is dangerous to suggest we tried everything and the aren't doing the job. Once that mentality settles in we will have no more personal evangelism...TV won't do the job either Matt! They are all just cogs in a greater machine of getting the message out there.

Jack Shephard · #3 09-06-2007, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Praxeas

As much as I am not against using TV, I think MM has missed it here big time. We, as an organization and as OPs in general, have NOT done everything...we might have TRIED everything but we have not DONE everything...or rather we have not done ANYTHING with the options we have tried.

Compared to what other groups are doing....like Ray Comfort and the way of the master....their TV shows are only to show other Christians how to go out and and do personal evangelism. We don't do that. We don't have a camera crew go out on the streets and show everyone else how it's done and then get those shows or DVDs into the hands of every OP.

We don't make better use of radio and Internet. We TRIED them, sure. We DON'T make better use of personal evangelism. Instead we have lame growth seminars. This is actually quite odd coming from MM who started the soul winners boot camp...of all people he should know we have barely scratched the surface of personal evangelism.

I think we should take a look at how Ray Comfort doe it. I think we should also take a look at the tracts they make and also the American Tract Society and how they take advantage of EVERY new event to use as a witnessing tool...when The Passion came out, they made special tracts...when the Da Vinci code came out, they made special tracts...Harry Potter? Special tracts....all pointing to Jesus Christ.

The other thing is we try so so so hard to convert to our doctrine people in other churches when there are millions of unchurched people who just need to know that they need to repent. It would not be too hard to direct them towards baptism in Jesus name and the Holy Ghost after that. But we think, wrongly, that witnessing the gospel means telling them about the baptism of the Holy Ghost. That might be a point to someone that is in another church and is hungry....but for all those many that are unchurched that might not be the best place to start. It works in some cases, but just someone receiving the Spirit...you want the person to be repented before having them seek for the HOly Ghost.

No, we have not exausted all options...our team is not really even on the field...many need to go back to basics and many need to go through training camp...and still others need to do some extra workouts....then we need to get all the players on the fields...the second stringers need to support the players and let the fans do the wave (hands in the air to God)

I am for TV, but I think this is dangerous to suggest we tried everything and the aren't doing the job. Once that mentality settles in we will have no more personal evangelism...TV won't do the job either Matt! They are all just cogs in a greater machine of getting the message out there.

Prax....huh? I think that what Matt was meaning with the word 'done' is not saying we have 'done' everything as in completing a list, but we have 'done' as in tried everything that the organization allows.

Everyone may not do the personal evangelism like Ray Comfort, but as a whole the UPC has done/tried everything with in its borders to reach the lost. I agree with him here. Sure there might be a couple of things he has not thought of doing, but as a whole his statement is truth and truth is the truest form. If you are hearing these words from Matt the UPCI Soulwinning Poster Child then rest assure he has tried everything he can get away with.

I agree with what you said about people needing a start, right on there. No one needs to only hear baptism and HG infilling. Alone those do little to change people. First there is the repentance then the rest. I am more on the PCI side of the fence here, but if all that is going to be done on tv is talking about standards and baptism and HG only then we need not be on tv because there is soooooooo much more that people need. I am guessing that Matt is taking all this under his consideration when writting this.

I know he is a wild man in reaching people and some of what he does, I feel is over the top and not needed, but he gets the job done. I am for tv, but I think that maybe you missed his the message behind what he wrote. IMO

Praxeas · #4 09-06-2007, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JTULLOCK

Prax....huh? I think that what Matt was meaning with the word 'done' is not saying we have 'done' everything as in completing a list, but we have 'done' as in tried everything that the organization allows.

Everyone may not do the personal evangelism like Ray Comfort, but as a whole the UPC has done/tried everything with in its borders to reach the lost. I agree with him here. Sure there might be a couple of things he has not thought of doing, but as a whole his statement is truth and truth is the truest form. If you are hearing these words from Matt the UPCI Soulwinning Poster Child then rest assure he has tried everything he can get away with.

I agree with what you said about people needing a start, right on there. No one needs to only hear baptism and HG infilling. Alone those do little to change people. First there is the repentance then the rest. I am more on the PCI side of the fence here, but if all that is going to be done on tv is talking about standards and baptism and HG only then we need not be on tv because there is soooooooo much more that people need. I am guessing that Matt is taking all this under his consideration when writting this.

I know he is a wild man in reaching people and some of what he does, I feel is over the top and not needed, but he gets the job done. I am for tv, but I think that maybe you missed his the message behind what he wrote. IMO

Right and MY point is just because we have DONE them or TRIED them does not mean we have DONE them effectively. If this is our reason, that we have done other things, for using TV I fear that mentality will just cause people to give up the other options because we tried them. I guess I just don't agree with the analogy. At first sight it might sound peppy, but I think it is flawed. We need ALL our options, You can't fit that analogy really into a football game. We need all our options and we need to do them all well...far better than we have

I might have missed his point, but I am still cautious we don't send the wrong message to the body of Christ of what TV is. It is not to be our last option :-) ...we really need to concentrate MORE on the other options. Allow for TV, but let's get the other stuff done right

Jack Shephard · #5 09-06-2007, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Right and MY point is just because we have DONE them or TRIED them does not mean we have DONE them effectively. If this is our reason, that we have done other things, for using TV I fear that mentality will just cause people to give up the other options because we tried them. I guess I just don't agree with the analogy. At first sight it might sound peppy, but I think it is flawed. We need ALL our options, You can't fit that analogy really into a football game. We need all our options and we need to do them all well...far better than we have

I might have missed his point, but I am still cautious we don't send the wrong message to the body of Christ of what TV is. It is not to be our last option :-) ...we really need to concentrate MORE on the other options. Allow for TV, but let's get the other stuff done right

Ok Prax, I agree with ya. TV is not the end all. It is like a band-aid covering up a knife wound.

Hoovie · #6 09-06-2007, 05:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JTULLOCK

Ok Prax, I agree with ya. TV is not the end all. It is like a band-aid covering up a knife wound.

The band aid is vital if it stops some bleeding until further internal evaluation can be done....

Am i good or what?

Jack Shephard · #7 09-06-2007, 02:15 PM

Kudos to Maddix. Get thoughts. I am not sure if it is enough to motivate the ones against to jump the fence, but if those conservatives out there really care about reaching the lost they will listen to Matt. He is the poster-child for soul winners everywhere. If I had a vote I'd vote yes. He makes a very convincing argument. Though I wonder if the cons out there even know od Doug Flutie? We will see if the hail marry is caught or dropped.

revrandy · #8 09-06-2007, 02:18 PM

I think the fellowships problems are deeper than TV... there are so many splinter groups within that don't get along...don't love each other and won't fellowship based on prejudice, pride and level of prosperity... get these issues resolved and TV would be a distant thought...imo..

BoredOutOfMyMind · #9 09-06-2007, 02:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by revrandy

I think the fellowships problems are deeper than TV... there are so many splinter groups within that don't get along...don't love each other and won't fellowship based on prejudice, pride and level of prosperity... get these issues resolved and TV would be a distant thought...imo..

Imagine if the 20 churches near YOU were TOGETHER for Evangelism?!?!