Today’s From the States features items from:
Portraits (Arizona)
Baptist & Reflector (Tennessee)
Baptist Courier (South Carolina)
Central Phoenix church
plants churches
Irene A. Harkleroad
PHOENIX (Portraits) — What happens when a sanctuary is so full there is no room for new believers?
Some fellowships add new services. Centro Cristiano de Alabanza y Adoracion in central Phoenix plants new churches.
“Our building is too small,” says Pastor Enrique Borja. “There is no way to grow, especially with the kids. One class has 50 kids, and we had more than 100 for Vacation Bible School.”
With many members coming from the west side, it’s logical to start churches where they are, says Borja.
“At least 20 adults in our church have been released to help grow and strengthen our two new churches,” he says. “This opens up a little more room for new people to come in.”
The church targeted two specific areas and, for the last two months, Micael Perez, a humble man with a heart for evangelism, and his small team have met on Monday and Friday evenings to walk the neighborhood around New Light Korean Baptist Church on 35th Avenue south of Camelback, praying and sharing the gospel. More than 20 people have trusted Christ as Savior.
On July 11, more than 30 people attended the first official Hispanic service at that church.
Borja has been mentoring Hernan Perez, the new pastor.
“I consider it a blessing and honor to serve this new fellowship of Hispanic believers,” says Perez. “The support from the people of Centro Cristiano and New Light Baptist is a great encouragement to us.”
His mission: To reach first-generation Hispanics while finding ways to impact the bilingual second generation.
“We need to keep the kids on the path of God,” he says.
The second new church started as a result of ministry to a woman with cancer.
“When she was too ill to come to our church, we began to visit her,” says Borja. “Every Tuesday, for 13 months, we prayed with her at home and in the hospital, through chemo treatments and surgery. We had shared the gospel with her for years.”
Then they saw a miracle, Borja says, as she almost passed away but then survived.
“Because of that, more family, friends and co-workers began coming to pray for her and learn about Jesus,” he says.
“She trusted Christ and was baptized last December. Family members and friends have done the same.”
What started as a small home church grew, and the Lord opened the door for them to meet at Westridge Southern Baptist Church in west Phoenix, just a couple of miles from her home.
“We are praying for a location for another new church,” Borja says. “Several of our people are young, have been to seminary and are ready. I know God will use them very well.”
Borja describes the church-starting process.
“I am involved to train up leaders, get the churches started, help grow them, leave them as independent churches and pray for an open door in another place,” he says.
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This article appeared in Portraits, newsmagazine of the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention (http://www.azsobaptist.org/). Irene A. Harkleroad is a freelance writer in Carefree, Ariz.
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Reaching the world
could begin with chili
By Chris Turner
MEMPHIS (Baptist & Reflector) — Lindy May stood on a busy street in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and felt utterly alone.
Horns blared as thousands of people shuttled by on bicycles and motor scooters and others hurried by on sidewalks and past storefronts. The rhythmic chaos resembled the movements within an ant colony.
Yet May felt alone, overwhelmed because she knew the semi-ornate storefront just across the street was nothing more than a facade around a doorway to a living hell. The banner hanging outside promoted Pepsi-Cola, but the real commodity inside was women — many of them still girls — enslaved and tangled in the snare of sex trafficking. Their bondage wasn’t just physical, it was spiritual, and May could sense it.
“It is such a dark place,” she said. “You can feel the spiritual oppression. It would have been overwhelming if the Lord hadn’t carried me through. It’s so sad because those girls are in spiritual bondage and there is no hope. They have never heard the name of Jesus.”
And it was May’s mission to make sure as many of them as possible would have that chance. May, a senior at the University of Memphis, was one of 19 summer missionaries sent out across the country or around the globe by the Tennessee Baptist Convention’s Baptist Collegiate Ministry located on U of M’s campus. Statewide, Tennessee Baptists, giving through the Cooperative Program and Golden Offering for Tennessee Missions, helped support 59 summer collegiate missionaries from 24 BCMs.
May served as a BCM summer missionary last year in Thailand, teaching in a village, but she learned that so many of the girls, and often children, are sold or taken into slavery and wind up as prostitutes in the massage parlors in Chiang Mai and Bangkok.
“I saw a request posted this year for someone to reach out to those girls and I knew that is exactly what I wanted to do,” she said. “These were the same kinds of kids I had taught before and I wanted to make a difference in their lives. I may never see the harvest from what I’ve done but I know there were a lot of [gospel] seeds planted in their lives with the ones we had the opportunity to share with.”
May, a member of Gateway Baptist Church, Atoka, didn’t start her tenure at U of M charging across the globe with the gospel. The path to international relations and overseas service as a summer missionary was widened by a bowl of chili and a chunk of corn bread when she invited a group of international students to her apartment for dinner.
“They just freaked out,” she said. “It wasn’t anything that big, just chili and corn bread, but they were so excited to be invited into someone’s home and experience just a little of our culture.”
Statistically, May’s guests were some of the few international students who ever see the inside of an American home, or even connect with an American on a level deeper than a passing hello.
“Research tells us that 80 percent of all students who come to an American university from another country are never invited in,” said Jeff Jones, the Tennessee Baptist Convention’s BCM director at the University of Memphis. “Our students associated with the BCM heard that, took it as a challenge, and took it upon themselves to reach out to internationals. They’ve built friendships and relationships and have truly become their friends.”
That was never May’s intention however. Connecting with internationals when she arrived on campus from Atoka, located in Tipton County, was the last thing on her mind. In fact, her arrival on campus was much more about ministry to herself than it was ministry to others.
“I was looking for friendships when I came as a freshman and my first night here I went to the BCM’s Grub on the Grass,” she said. “I had been talking to people about pledging a sorority but I connected with a lot of people that first night and I found the friendships I was looking for at the BCM. I never pledged [a sorority]. Being a part of the BCM has had a huge impact on my time here and I’ve made what will be life-long friends.”
It is also where she began to grow in her faith, gaining a better understanding of what it means to be Jesus’ disciple.
“When I got here I thought my relationship with Jesus was all about me,” May said. “But I learned Jesus did not save me just for me. Yes, He loves me and He died for me, but the gospel made it’s way to me on its way to someone else. It’s not for me to keep; it’s for me to share, and God has really shown me during my time here the grandness of His plan to redeem the world.”
And God didn’t waste much time expanding May’s world. Just weeks into her freshman year she sensed God pressing her to reach out to the international students around her. It was a decision that figuratively opened the world to May.
“I really resisted at first,” May said. “I wanted to have fun and I really didn’t have time to invest in connecting with internationals, but God kept prodding me and so one day I said I’d just go grab lunch with them. Those girls I went with were Japanese and they stole my heart. We hung out that entire year and I got to share the gospel with them numerous times. They asked so many questions. One of them became a really good friend and last year she accepted Christ.
With more than 100 of the world’s people groups — many of them Last Frontier countries — now living in Tennessee, the state can easily be seen as an international mission field. That statement is certainly true for Tennessee’s university campuses.
“The nations are here,” May said. “God is bringing the nations to our campuses. Yes, it is important for us to go, but we also have an opportunity to reach people [with the gospel] right here.”
And that outreach could begin with chili and corn bread. Who knows where it might take you?
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This article appeared in the Baptist & Reflector (http://tnbaptist.org/BRNews.asp), newsjournal of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Chris Turner is director of communications for the Tennessee Baptist Convention.
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S.C. men share
‘Lamb of God’ in Israel
By Rudy Gray
LAURENS, S.C. (Baptist Courier) — “I have come from South Carolina to tell you I love the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. My love for the God of Israel has given me a love for the people of Israel.” That was Michael Post’s introduction to several Israelis during an evangelistic trip in August.
“This opened up the door to some wonderful conversations about how the God of Israel wanted to have a personal relationship with them,” said Post, “and how that was possible through the perfect lamb that God has sent from heaven.”
Post, the pastor of Lucas Avenue Baptist Church in Laurens, and fellow church member Robert Butters joined 26 Christians from 10 other nations to share the good news of Jesus Christ among Jews living in Israel.
Because of the warfare between Hamas and Israel, Post and Butters spent most of their time having conversations with military personnel. “We found ourselves close to the Gaza border on one occasion,” said Post. “As we were talking to soldiers, tanks — only about the length of a football field away — were shelling terrorist positions in Gaza.”
The duo went on the mission trip through Trumpet of Salvation ministries, an organization led by Jacob Damkani and dedicated to reaching Jews with the gospel of Jesus Christ. “I was surprised by the freedom of religion allowed in Israel,” said Post. “I didn’t have any problems sharing the gospel, and I attribute that to having received some excellent training by the Trumpet ministry staff on how to share the gospel in a Jewish context.”
“Trumpet of Salvation has a large mission house in Jaffa, and they also own a hotel in the heart of Tel Aviv, the Hotel Gilgal. It is the only hotel owned and operated by Messianic Jews. The purpose of the hotel is to provide an entry point from which believers can go out and do mission work in the land of promise.” The organization hosts four to five campaigns each summer, according to Post.
Butters, who became a Christian five years ago, said, “I would like to encourage anyone who has a new heart to fulfill the Great Commission and take the gospel back to the Jews.” He recalled the group singing Jewish praise songs one day when a group of soldiers asked if they could sing a Jewish hymn to them. As they were singing and dancing, he said, a “young orthodox Jew came over and told us we had no business being there and had to leave. All the soldiers started singing again, and the young man left. I later found out that the commander of the division told him he didn’t belong here and to leave. Many of the soldiers were secular, but they could tell we loved and supported them.”
Post said, “The country, as a mission field, is wide open. Many Christians assume that it is illegal to do evangelism in Israel, but that is not true. Many Jews and Arabs are very open to having a conversation of a spiritual nature. I found the younger generation to be particularly curious about spiritual issues.”
While no known professions of faith were made, Post and Butters believe the seeds of the gospel were planted in the lives of several people. “The conflict with Hamas and other Islamic militant groups within the Gaza Strip created a golden opportunity for us to share our faith,” Post emphasized. “The Israelis were very interested in what we had to say, knowing that we had come during a time of war.”
The pair went with the support and prayers of their church. Post said, “Nobody in our church, as far as I know, thought of Israel as being a mission field. Since we give 10 percent of our total church budget to the Cooperative Program, I did not ask for money from the budget, but the people gave freely (for our trip).”
Zechariah 13:9 has become a special verse for Post and Butters: “They will call on My name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”
Post says he and his wife are now laying the groundwork to lead a group to Israel in 2015, not just to sightsee, but to do evangelistic work.
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This article appeared in the Baptist Courier (http://baptistcourier.com/), newsjournal of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Rudy Gray is editor of the Baptist Courier.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: From the States, published each Tuesday by Baptist Press, relays news and feature stories from state Baptist papers and other publications on initiatives by Baptist churches, associations and state conventions in evangelism, church planting and Great Commission outreach, including partnership missions. Reports about churches, associations and state conventions responding to the International Mission Board’s call to embrace the world’s 3,800 unengaged, unreached people groups also are included in From the States, along with reports about church, associational and state convention initiatives in conjunction with the North American Mission Board’s call to Southern Baptist churches to broaden their efforts in starting new churches and satellite campuses. The items appear in Baptist Press as originally published.
