Tony Merida Biography
Tony Merida is the founding pastor of Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, content director for Acts 29, and a Council member of The Gospel Coalition.
He is the author of a number of books, including, The Christ-Centered Expositor, Ordinary, and Orphanology. He and his wife, Kimberly, have five adopted children.
10 Quick Facts About Tony Merida
- Name: Tony Merida
- Age: 42 years old as of 2019
- Birthday: To be updated
- Zodiac Sign: To be updated
- Height: Average
- Nationality: American
- Occupation: Pastor
- Marital Status: Married
- Salary: To be updated
- Net worth: To be updated
Tony Merida Age
Born in The year 1977 She is about 42 years of age as of 2019.
Tony Merida Height
He stands at a Fair Height and has a fair Body Weight To Match Her Height.
Other Personalities: Caitlin Huey Burns.
Tony Merida Education
Merida, nationally recognized author and founding pastor of Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, has joined the faculty of the School of Christian Studies as a visiting professor to teach Christian worldview and preaching through on-campus intensives.
Described by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention as “a leading evangelical voice on biblical exposition, church planting, global missions, and orphan care,’ Merida will serve as Visiting Professor of Homiletics and Culture.
“Dr. Merida’s ability to take complex theological truths and communicate them clearly to diverse audiences is unparalleled. I have no doubt in my mind that his presence at the university will have a lasting impact on our students,” said Kyle Beshears, associate dean of the School of Christian Studies.
Tony Merida Image
Tony Merida Career
Merida is the Founding Pastor of Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, NC. He also serves as the Associate Professor of Preaching at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Tony speaks around the world at a variety of events, including church planting conferences, pastors’ conferences, orphan care events, student camps, and for courses at theological institutions.
Tony is the author of Ordinary: How to Turn the World Upside Down, Faithful Preaching and Proclaiming Jesus. He is also the co-author of Orphanology. Along with David Platt and Danny Akin, Tony serves as a general editor and contributor for the commentary series with B&H entitled Christ-Centered Exposition. Tony and his wife, Kimberly, have five adopted children.
Tony Merida Family
He is happily married to Kimberly, and they have five adopted children.
Tony Merida On Adoption
Until perhaps recently, most believers, in my experience, have only considered adoption and orphan care in a couple circumstances. One, they were praying for the Smiths because “they can’t have children and are thinking about adopting.” Or, two, they were taking up an offering to help the state or local children’s home.
Of course, these are good things to do. We should pray for those who are struggling to have children and are considering adoption. And, we should help those who are providing homes to the fatherless. But if that’s all orphan care is to us, then we have missed so much. We need an elevated concept of adoption. We need God’s perspective on adoption. We need to meditate on the gospel more deeply.
I turned into an adoption advocate, an adoptive dad, and eventually a writer on the subject not because of infertility but because of theology.
Believers understand that God is Father. But what kind of father is He? He is an adoptive Father! Do you realize that there are no natural-born children in the family of God? None of us were born Christians. If you are a believer, it is because God has adopted you into the family. That’s it. All races were brought together by God’s adoption of spiritual orphans.
Paul expounds on the gospel of God’s adopting grace to the Ephesians, Galatians, and Romans. He shows us that God the Father administered our adoption, God the Son accomplished our adoption through his redeeming work on the Cross, and God the Spirit applied our adoption, giving us a new nature, a new position, and the indwelling presence of God that enables us to cry “Abba, Father.” (See Galatians 4:7.)
Adoption was never planned B for God. It wasn’t an alternative solution. It was plan A. Before the universe existed, God had planned on adopting us into his family through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:5). God did not adopt us because of our attractive merits, but because of His amazing mercy.
Paul tells us to “be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Ephesians 5:1). His undeserved mercy on us compels us to reflect His adoptive love to a world in need. God’s love is active. Christian love is not based on the idea of just loving people the way we want to be loved. It’s more. It’s loving people the way God has loved us. He acted. He pursued. He showered grace on the undeserving. This is a gospel-centered perspective on adoption and orphan care.
Obviously, not everyone is called to adopt, but every believer is called to act. That means not merely feeling sorry for orphans. Sentimentalism is no substitute for action. In addition to adoption, other ways we can be actively involved include hosting orphans for a summer, financially supporting adoptive parents, fostering children in our community, and discipling local boys and girls from functionally fatherless families.
When Kimberly and I were in Ukraine adopting four children we were interviewed by a local newspaper. The reporter asked me (through an interpreter), “Why are you adopting all of these kids? No one in our country adopts four kids at one time.” I said, “The short answer is . . . Jesus.” It’s really that simple.
Sure, exposure to my sister’s adopted children stirred my affections for adoption. And sure, my awareness to the state of the fatherless worldwide bothered me greatly. But when I began to see how often God talks about the fatherless in general, and how the gospel is reflected in adoption in particular, then my mindset changed.
So, I laugh, but I also grieve, when people say to a family, “Why are you adopting? You already have natural-born children. You can have your own kids.” They’ve missed it. They don’t see that adoption isn’t about infertility; it’s about responding to God’s grace properly: first with gratitude toward Him, and then with active love toward others. How is He calling you to love the orphan today?
Tony Merida Sermons
September 2, 2012 – Three Ways to Live – Luke 15:1-2, 11-32
August 26, 2012 – Mercy Ministry – Luke 10:25-37
August 19, 2012 – Hospitality and the Kingdom of God – Luke 14
Titus 2:1-15 – Living In Grace
Titus 1:1-16 – Two Essentials of a Healthy Church
Tony Merida Ephesians
What’s your least favorite job of all time? I haven’t had as many bad jobs as some of you have. Donnie told me that he milked cows for two years, and also used to discard dead animals from the vet. I’ve been an umpire for Little League. It would have been fun if not for the parents! Work is a gift and we should think about God for work. But some jobs are not high on the desirability scale! How can you find any meaning or fulfillment in your daily vocation – either paid work or unpaid work (mom/student)? This text shows us that we need to see Christ as our ultimate “boss” for whom we labor. You see, you can transfer masters without transferring jobs. Paul teaches us in this section how the Lordship of Christ should affect our view of work. We can exalt Christ through our various jobs.
Tony Merida Church
“Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch” (Lk 5:4)
This week we’re starting a series of sermons on reaching our city with the Gospel of Jesus, through network evangelism. The goal of the series is to encourage, equip, and inspire you to be more faithful at spreading the good news. Please know that we don’t intend to guilt trip you each week into doing something you hate doing. This series is actually designed to help you get started, taking small steps, in this important endeavor. We simply want to do more in this area than we are currently doing, and we think we have a biblical and faithful strategy for improvement. Further, we just don’t want this to be a series of sermons. The aim is to create a mindset, or a way of life, that helps you live with gospel intentionality.
(Our normal preaching pattern is to work through books of the Bible every Sunday, but the elders believe that this short series is very needed for our congregation at this time. Also realize that we will be expounding a text every week in the 555 series, just not from one book alone…. Starting in January, the plan is to go verse by verse through the book of Acts. We’re prepared to spend a year or more studying this book, and we’re eager to do it).
Typical approaches to evangelism in the past have either involved crusade evangelism or cold-call evangelism (door-to-door visitation). While not depreciating these strategies, we believe that an approach that takes into account those in our networks has real potential for effectiveness, and also has a historical legacy behind it. For the early church grew, in large measure, through a web of relationships.
In Tim Keller’s Church Planting Manual, he recommends this approach and says the following:
There must be an atmosphere of expectation that every member will always have 2 to 4 people in the incubator, a force-field in which people are being prayed for, given literature, and brought to church or other events.
We have added to Keller’s idea just a bit, and tried to think of five particular networks. Think about 2-5 people in each network. Think about praying, giving literature, inviting, serving, and actually speaking the gospel.
By giving you some tangible ways to interact with those in your network, we think everyone can be involved. You can at least pray for those in your networks. Surely, you can give a book or a Bible to someone in your network. Perhaps you can give an investor card to someone in your network, right? Hopefully, you can do all of this in the normal rhythm of your life. One may not have to necessarily add a new activity to an already busy schedule. This is a challenge to simply identify the people you see and know, and to live with gospel intentionality among them everyday.
So again, here’s the plan: 5 Networks. 5 people in those networks (as a goal). 5 tasks.
5 Networks
1. Familial Network: Family you have
2. Vocational Network: People you work with
3. Commercial Network: Businesses you frequent
4. Geographical Network: Neighbors you see
5. Relational Network: Friends you make (not necessarily neighbors). These can be cultivated through recreation or missional endeavors.
(Note: Not everyone will have the same amount of people in the networks. That’s fine. Think about identifying more people in the other networks).
5 Tasks
1. Pray for Them
2. Serve Them
3. Give Gospel-Centered Literature to Them
4. Invite Them
5. Speak the Gospel to Them
Below is our tentative sermon schedule. (Some of these texts are very tentative at this point). After the first sermon, we will spend two weeks on each of the 5 tasks.
1. Let Down Your Nets (Luke 5:1-11) [Sept 14] 2. Task #1: Pray for them …. That They May Be Saved (Rom 9:1-3; 10:1-21) [Sept 21] 3. Task #1: Pray for them … Because God Answers Prayer (James 5:16-18; 1 Kings 18:36-40) [Sept 28] 4. Task #2: Serve them … With the Father’s Mercy (Luke 6:27-36) [Oct 5] 5. Task #2: Serve them …. With Genuine Neighbor Love (Luke 10:25-37) [Oct 12] 6. Task #3: Give Gospel-Centered Literature to them … Because of Truth Matters (Col 2:6-23) [Oct 19] 7. Task #3: Give Gospel-Centered Literature to Them …. You Contend for the Faith (Jude 1:1-4) [Oct 26] 8. Task #4: Invite Them … To Your Parties and to Jesus’ Party (Luke 14:12-24 Part 1) [Nov 2] 9. Task #4: Invite them … To Your Parties and to Jesus’ Party (Luke 14:12-24 Part 2) [Nov 9] 10. Task #5: Speak the Gospel to them … Following the Pattern of Jesus (John 4) [Nov 16] 11. Task #5: Speak the Gospel to them … As Christ’s Ambassador (2 Cor 5:11-21) [Nov 23]
As an added feature, our goal is to have a testimony each week, who is living out this vision in practical and encouraging ways. We will also be having a special time of prayer on the weekend of Sept 26-27. But please begin praying now. May the Lord add to our number daily those who are being saved (Acts 2:47).
Tony Merida Books
Proclaiming Jesus
Orphanology
Faithful Preaching
Tony Merida Temple Baptist Church
After preaching on Mark 8:27-38, I remember turning the page to the last two pages of my notes and breathing deeply because I was so caught up in the teaching moment that I had to shift gears in order to present our announcement. That announcement was that we would be leaving TBC to plant a church in Raleigh, NC, and teach at a seminary in Wake Forest, NC. Below are those final two pages. As with all my sermon notes, I don’t always say everything in my notes, and I usually say a whole lot that are not in my notes. They are also very rough. But for whatever it’s worth, below is what I had with me in the pulpit when I shared the news.
As I call you to reflect on your life, allow me to open up my heart and share with you about my life…
A lot has happened in four years! This summer will make my fourth year of preaching at Temple (including the interim period). That will include over 400 sermons. Kimberly and I have also adopted five children in the last two years while at this church!
Through the ministry of the word, and the joy of parenting our beloved children, we have been blessed with some wonderful years in Hattiesburg, MS.
We love this church and we’ve seen some wonderful things happen, such as $200,000.00 given to the 2009 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, over 320 people on short-term mission trips in 2010, and numerous families adopting children from all over the world in the last three years, in addition to lives changed right here at home. We have established partnerships all over the world, as we’ve worked at our Global “P.E.A.C.E.” Plan:
Tony Merida Contacts
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