The outgoing president of the Southern Baptist Convention told those in attendance at the 2014 Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting that it’s time for members to get out of the pews and go outside the church walls.

Fred Luter, Jr., the first African-American pastor to be elected SBC president, said that the days of so-called “open door evangelism” have ended.

“There was a time when you just open the church door and people would come from the neighborhood,” Luter said. “There was a time you just open the church door and people would come from different families. There was a time you could just open the church door and people were expected to go to church.”

He said today fewer parents and grandparents are attending church with their children and grandchildren because the younger generation sees no place for the Gospel in their lives.  Thus, Luter says, we must go to them.

“If they are not coming to us, we must, we must, we must go to them. That’s what Jesus meant when He gave us the Great Commission. Jesus said go, don’t stay. Go, don’t think about it. Go, don’t debate it. Go, don’t study it. Go, don’t blog about it. Go, go, go and make disciples,” Luter shouted.

Luter finished his comments by saying that like Israel in Psalm 80, America has sinned against God and that American is rapidly turning into a pagan nation.  He said the church needs to spend time fervently in prayer to try and turn around the trend of the nation away from God.