fbpx
News Articles

FROM THE STATES: Ill., Mich., Tenn. evangelism/missions news; ‘Our greatest need is a mighty awakening in the nation’


Today’s From the States features items from:
Illinois Baptist
Baptist Beacon (Michigan)
Baptist & Reflector (Tennessee)

IL churches join national
SBC call to prayer
By Eric Reed

PAXTON, Ill. (Illinois Baptist) — First Baptist Church of Paxton has a newfound calling as prayer intercessors. “Christ’s church in America is in desperate need of spiritual revival and renewal,” said Pastor Bob Stilwell. “We need to be awakened from our comfort and complacency in our salvation. We need to be shaken from our evangelistic lethargy.”

In January, Stilwell led the congregation in a concert of prayer similar to the prayer for spiritual awakening at the IBSA Annual Meeting in November. The Paxton church is one of many in Illinois joining a national call to prayer, including more than 30 in metro Chicago.

“As I prayed in preparation of God’s message to our congregation for the week focusing on interceding, the Lord revealed His vision for us as an intercessory church,” Stilwell said. “God has begun the process of renewing hearts, changing attitudes and giving new life to our church.”

The call to prayer comes ahead of the 2015 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Columbus, June 16-17. SBC President Ronnie Floyd picked up past president Fred Luter’s call for revival. “Our greatest need is a mighty awakening in the nation. This has to be preceded with a strong sense of personal revival and church revival,” Floyd said.

At a meeting of SBC leaders and editors in Orange Beach, Ala., last week, Floyd said registration for the Ohio convention is up 5 percent compared to this time last year. That is significant, especially for a meeting held outside the Deep South, and Floyd is encouraged. But, he said commitments to attend, made in the next 30 days, “are critical.”

“Are [Southern Baptists] really in agreement that the number one need in America is spiritual awakening?” Paraphrasing the theme of the annual meeting, he said, “We need visible union, we need to lock our arms together, and we need to extraordinarily pray for spiritual awakening.”

In metro Chicago, more than 75 people gathered at Lighthouse Fellowship Baptist Church in Frankfort for an all-day prayer and equipping conference in late January. The prayer coordinator for Chicago Metro Baptist Association, Cheryl Dorsey, urged attenders to seek God’s direction.

“I used to tell God what I wanted and needed until I had a time when I didn’t know what to pray. I learned to pray, ‘God, how am I going to pray about this?'” Dorsey said. “It was as if God said, ‘When are you going to find out what I want you to pray?'”

IBSA’s Dennis Conner, church planting director for the Northeast region, told one breakout session, “We say with our mouth that we trust God, but in our hearts, we trust ourselves. Our churches need a sense of desperation.”

That feeling of great need is common to people responding to the call to prayer. “We need to be filled with a sense of urgency in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ — the unfailing hope that only he offers to a hopeless world,” Stilwell said. “At FBC Paxton, we’re praying for the Holy Spirit to bring about such a renewal in our own hearts and the hearts of all of believers throughout Illinois, across the nation and throughout the world.”

And from Floyd: “Why don’t we call on God to do…what we wring our hands about because it hasn’t happened?”
–30–
This article appeared in the Illinois Baptist (illinoisbaptist.com), newsjournal of the Illinois Baptist State Association. Eric Reed is associate executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association and editor of the Illinois Baptist.

**********

‘Bunch of crazy dreamers’
launch new Flint church
By Mary Lou Hall

FLINT, Mich. (Baptist Beacon) — The words of Psalm 127:1, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain,” spoke to Eric Stewart and his wife Lori and they saw a need.

This realization eventually led the couple to launch ONElife Church on Oct. 5, 2014.

“As we walked and drove through the community, our hearts were burdened to reach the young population in the area,” Eric Stewart said. “As we connected with people in the area, the need for a new church here resonated within us.”

Six people met at the Stewarts’ home in early 2014 to pray for God’s direction and formulate ideas, and informational meetings were held throughout May. On June 22 the first official gathering of leaders was held at the New Haven Fieldhouse for a vision-casting session.

From July 6 through September preview services were held at the Stewarts’ home in Mundy Township. Pastor Stewart taught a Bible sermon series titled “Re-think Christianity!”

After continued prayer, the church launched the website hisonelife.com and began to spread the word-of-mouth announcement, “Bring your friends, bring your family, and let’s celebrate the risen Christ!”

At the October launch service, seventy adults and thirty children gathered at Madison Academy in Flint.

“[Our mission is] to live a lifestyle of faith, hope and love,” Steward said. “Or easily said, lead people to follow Jesus. [It] sounds simple, [but] that’s the point! Jesus is our model and we seek to follow the example that He set.”

Asked to describe the church, Stewart said, “We are a bunch of crazy dreamers who believe in a big God who wants to accomplish amazing things through ordinary people.”

The new church seeks to target the unchurched, the de-churched, the spiritually wounded churched, and the disengaged churched, specifically seeking to reach young families and singles in their 20s and 30s.

“We focus on our Sunday morning service and community groups with the goal to make disciples of Jesus one person at a time,” Stewart said.

Worship and Creative Arts pastor Dan Dameron seeks to do the same with the church’s music. He cites Ephesians 5:18b-21 as his guide for planning worship.

“It’s never been a question of whether to do choruses or hymns,” Dameron said. “Rather, it’s been all about what will most glorify God and equip the saints to do His work!”

“It’s not a question of musical genre, but whether or not a given song, whether hymn or chorus, is totally saturated and permeated with the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Dameron said. “My prayer is that our worship through song will bring us all into the throne room of Christ and give us better understanding of who God is and what all he has done for unworthy, undeserving sinners such as ourselves.”

Dameron posts the worship sets each week on the church’s website and recommends people become familiar with the songs “to best prepare your heart for worship.”

Jean Smith developed and directs the ONElife Kidz ministry, using Proverbs 22:6 as a point of focus. Smith provides an active learning environment combined with a mini-worship service for the children.

Smith and the children’s ministry team “equip children of all ages to learn, believe, grow, accept, and show God’s love.” The church has held two baby dedications since August.

When asked what role volunteers play at the church, Pastor Stewart said, “They are the lifeblood of the church. We are a mobile church which requires many volunteers to make it happen.”

The biblical example of the Great Commission to “go and make disciples” is foundational for ONElife Church. Currently, three community groups meet throughout the week for discipleship.

The church has also received local media attention for a mission they conducted during the Christmas season. Led by Sarah Church, several service men and women serving overseas received a love package with, among other things, a prayer and a hand-written note thanking the personnel for serving our country.

The outreach event was featured on WJRT, Flint’s ABC affiliate. The news story was also posted on WJRT’s website, ABC12.com.

ONElife Church is a portable church, meeting every Sunday at Madison Academy in Flint. The church meeting time and location can be found on the church website, hisonelife.com.
–30–
This article appeared in the Baptist Beacon (baptistbeacon.net), newsjournal of the Baptist State Convention of Michigan. Mary Lou Hall writes for the Baptist Beacon.

**********

TN Baptists plant
church in Ecuador
By Connie Davis Bushey

DOVER, Tenn. (Baptist & Reflector) — Baptist volunteers from an area of Tennessee with few resources have not only served in Ecuador 12 times in the past three years, but they have planted a church.

“We don’t worry about budgets out here. God will provide,” said William Gray, director of missions of Judson/Stewart/Truett Baptist associations based in Dover and Bon Aqua who led in the effort.

“These little churches they just love it because this gives them an opportunity to go on an international missions trip that they would never have had the opportunity to do,” Gray said.

God certainly has provided, Gray affirmed. For instance, when they first arrived in Quito, Ecuador, to investigate reaching an unreached people group in response to a challenge of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, Gray told the missionary they were interested in the people group no one else would take.

The missionary told them that would involve some travel — into the Andes mountains — which the Tennessee team did.

When they first arrived in Sigchos, a town of about 2,000 residents, they learned it had no evangelical church within driving distance. There is a Catholic church but it draws few people.

The Tennesseans then met some “wonderful people,” said Gray of the residents and found that many were interested in learning about Jesus and made professions of faith.

The work there has developed and during this last trip, which was Jan. 6-13, 54 Ecuadorians made professions of faith. The new church started by the Tennesseans draws about 75 each Sunday morning for worship though it meets in a tent.

At first, the Tennesseans and their translators had to confront the Catholic culture there. Though few residents attend the Catholic church, people are persecuted for leaving it, said Gray. Yet God provided people who did.

Another provision from God was that “God moved a seminary-trained pastor into that area.”

Of course, one of their first steps was, working through the Baptist missionaries based in Quito, to meet and hire translators who made communication possible. Gray said God also provided the translators. Already Christians, they have learned “more about witnessing and discipleship than they ever dreamed.”

Another amazing development during the effort is that the new church in Sigchos has started two preaching points on its own without direction from the Tennessee Baptists, explained Gray.

“That shows that it’s natural for a healthy church to reproduce itself.”

Part of the reason all of this has occurred is that Gray has worked to keep the cost to about $1,300 per missions volunteer for an eight-day trip.

He said he arranges to travel at the time of year when airline costs are the lowest. He also made friends with the motel owner and restaurant owner where the Tennesseans stay and eat. Actually, both owners became Christians as a result of the Tennesseans visiting and ministering there.

Back at home, Gray sees God provide as missions volunteers raise their own funds but also businessmen close their businesses so they can serve or operate them by cell phone.

Most of the volunteers come from small churches, which make up most of the about 50 churches in the north central area of Tennessee where Judson/Stewart/Truett associations are located. Only nine of the churches in the associations draw more than 100 people to Sunday morning activities.

A unique member of the recent team was Jesse Davis, 23, a member of Liberty Baptist Church, McEwen, whom the Ecuadorians loved, noted Gray.

Davis, who has a hearing impairment, was an example to the Ecuadorians, said Gray. In Ecuador many people who have disabilities don’t do much for various reasons but Davis was an example to them “of a disabled person that can be used by God,” said the DOM.

Davis works but was assisted in paying his missions trip expenses by his grandmother, Joyce Bullington, a long-time member of Liberty Baptist, his church, and his parents. Liberty Baptist draws about 25 to Sunday morning activities.

Maybe because of the sacrifices made in Tennessee and those they learned of made by the missionaries, the Tennessee volunteers have a better view of what to do to help the Ecuadorians, said Gray.

“We [Baptists] have created too many welfare churches. We’re basically not doing anything they cannot duplicate,” he reported.

Gray said Baptists from Judson/Stewart/Truett Associations plan to serve in Ecuador again in May, August, and November.

“I’ve been amazed at who God gives us [to serve]. I’m excited at what God’s doing,” said Gray.

For more information on this effort, contact Gray at [email protected] or 931-232-8441.
–30–
This article appeared in the Baptist & Reflector (http://tnbaptist.org/BRNews.asp), newsjournal of the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Connie Davis Bushey is news editor of the Baptist & Reflector.
**********
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.

    About the Author

  • Staff