Today’s From the States features items from:
Baptist Courier (South Carolina)
Southern Baptist TEXAN
The Pathway (Missouri)
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S.C. pastors travel
to study church planting
By Scott Vaughan
EASLEY, S.C. (Baptist Courier) — South Carolina Baptists might think of Boston as the home of the Red Sox or the Revolutionary War — or baked beans and chowder. But there’s something else to know about Boston: It has a population of 650,000 people living in 24 distinct neighborhoods, and only six of those neighborhoods have a Gospel-centered church.
That’s why Boston is designated a “Send City” — one of 32 — by the North American Mission Board. A Send City is one with the “greatest spiritual need and potential influence throughout North America.”
David Butler is NAMB’s Send City missionary to Boston. He says there are more Christians, percentage-wise, in Saudi Arabia (4.4 percent) than there are in the Greater Boston area (2.8 percent). While most of the city’s people aren’t resistant to the Gospel, he said, they are indifferent.
“On Easter 2016, there were 7,000 people who attended one of our 60 church plants in Boston,” Butler said, “and most of those plants did not exist six years ago.”
“The kingdom of God is growing in Boston, but the need is staggering. Also, Boston is an influential city on the culture of the world. There are 80 universities serving more than 250,000 students, including 47,000 internationals. No city compares to that level of educational outreach.”
It’s those statistics that press hard on the heart of South Carolina Baptist Convention president Keith Shorter, who is pastor of Mt. Airy Baptist Church in Easley. In 2016, Shorter led a vision trip to Boston, where he and others from the SCBC met with Butler and others regarding partnership possibilities. Shorter’s church is preparing to establish a church in Boston with a planter who recently left South Carolina to go there. Shorter has also made missions the heartbeat of his year as convention president, even hoping to shape November’s annual meeting by sending messengers into Columbia for an afternoon of missions service.
Shorter would like to see 20 South Carolina churches agree to partner with planters in Boston this year, participating in their work and offering prayer support and financial assistance. “I especially want to focus on our convention churches that aren’t currently engaged in missions or church planting or are praying about that ‘what’s next’ project,” he said.
In addition to Boston, Shorter also hopes to see partnerships occur with church planters in Cleveland. Interstate 77 connects Columbia and Cleveland, making it a natural corridor for volunteers to go and serve. NAMB’s Send City missionary in Cleveland, Jeff Calloway, says 1.6 million people live in Cleveland, but only 8.5 percent are affiliated with an evangelical church.
To help introduce South Carolina Baptists to planters in Boston and Cleveland, along with missional work occurring in Southeast Asia, Shorter has led one pastor vision trip in 2017 and has three more planned in the coming months.
In February, Shorter traveled with some South Carolina pastors to Boston to visit with Butler and to lay the groundwork for a return visit in April.
Other trips are scheduled throughout 2017. Shorter wants to get the word out about the trips and hopes Baptist associations will invite him to speak about missions.
“Church planters deserve our help,” said Shorter. “I’ve met and witnessed the service firsthand of some fantastic church planters in these places.”
“Isn’t it interesting that William Screven left Boston to travel to Charleston, South Carolina, to start the church that eventually led to our work here in the state? Now we have the opportunity to take the gospel back there.”
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This article appeared in the Baptist Courier (baptistcourier.com), newsjournal of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Scott Vaughan writes for the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
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‘6 Stones’ leads Texas churches
in transforming communities
By Erin Roach
EULESS, Texas (Southern Baptist TEXAN) — First Baptist Church in Euless was emerging from millions of dollars in debt when an apartment building near the campus burned down. A staff member approached pastor John Meador with news of a resident who was left with nowhere to go and no one to help her.
“The reality was we could not help her because of the policies of our church,” Meador recounted. “At the time, being so deep in debt, the church said, ‘We’ve got to finish our obligations first. We can’t necessarily help the community at this moment.'”
Meador recalled “a grief, a heartbreak” that the church could not help someone in a time of need. That conversation prompted a “soul-searching, a time of prayer and fasting” that led to a leap of faith.
The church, in 2008, cast a vision for 6 Stones, a coalition of churches, businesses, and others that transform lives, homes, and communities. At a Catalyst of Hope forum Feb. 2 in Bedford, a panel of representatives explained how churches can replicate the 6 Stones model.
“It was kind of unusual for us to be approached at the city by someone asking, ‘What can we do for you?” Gary McKamie, a former Euless city manager, said. “… At the time, property values were falling. We had all sorts of needs…. We had a growing group of people that didn’t have decent roofs over their heads.”
First Baptist, via 6 Stones, partnered with the city — with the help of federal housing grants—to revitalize deteriorating homes.
Gene Buinger, a former superintendent of the Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district, said more than 50 percent of children in the area today come from homes at the federal poverty level or below, and more than 70 languages of the world are spoken in homes throughout the district.
When 6 Stones asked Buinger how they could help the school system, “I could give a whole laundry list of things that they could do with us,” Buinger said.
Among those projects have been Operation Back 2 School, providing students with school supplies, and Night of Hope, a Christmas experience for those in need.
Kim Campbell, a community affairs manager from TXU Energy, said 6 Stones gives her company an opportunity to collaborate with cities and then show elected officials what the company does in local communities. “What’s good for business is good for the community as well,” Campbell said.
Dan Alderson of Atmos Energy said his company helped revitalize nine homes with 6 Stones last year, picking up the bills for materials. “It gives our employees an opportunity to get out and serve,” Alderson said.
Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley said collaboration between the private sector, the nonprofit sector and the public sector is what transforms communities. “It’s all best served when it’s the nonprofit that is really leading that collaboration because folks will volunteer, they will donate to a nonprofit. I haven’t had a whole lot of people line up to volunteer and to donate to the county,” Whitley said.
Faye Beaulieu, who works at the United Way and serves on the HEB school board, said her two roles enable her to see needs of the whole child. She cited “a litany of programs that 6 Stones brings that benefit the school district,” including repairing homes.
“If kids are not in a stable home where there’s adequate lighting, adequate plumbing, the roof doesn’t leak, then they’re not going to be able to study and they’re not going to be able to focus,” Beaulieu said.
Eric Swanson, a missional leadership specialist at Leadership Network, was the guest speaker at the forum, and he said the Gospel is the integration of the good news and the good deeds of Jesus. As the Apostle Peter summed it up, Swanson said, God preached the good news through Jesus, and Jesus, anointed with the Holy Spirit, went about doing good.
“Preaching the good news and doing good deeds was kind of the rhythm of his life and his ministry,” Swanson said of Jesus, “because it’s the good deeds that verified the good news, but it’s the good news, the words, that clarified the meaning of the deeds.”
Swanson said the old church model was to use talents outside the church to build the church. Teachers were thought to make great Sunday School teachers. Businessmen were ideal for the finance committee.
“I think today there’s a shift going on and the best churches are really releasing the people in their churches to be transformational agents wherever they are,” Swanson said. “… It’s not about building your church; it’s about using your church to build God’s kingdom.”
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This article appeared in the Southern Baptist TEXAN (texanonline.net), newsjournal of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. Erin Roach is a freelance writer.
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Mo. church embraces
prayer ministry
By W. Mitch Shiffer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (The Pathway) — It’s a great view at Tower View Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo. The congregation with a gospel-centered, and Christ-serving vision has been praying for other area congregations.
This ministry for other local churches started in April 2015 when Pastor Darin Smith began ministering at Tower View. Initially prayers were random. Then in 2016, they began praying for their affiliated association and local congregations.
“On the first Sunday in 2016, we started praying alphabetically through the Clay-Platte Baptist Association church list. It took most of the year, but we contacted each pastor or head leader each week, asked for specific prayer requests, and then prayed for them during our pastoral prayer time each Sunday before the sermon,” said Smith.
They also began praying through list of churches in the Saint Joseph Baptist Association. Worship pastor Gilbert Imbiri is a native of Saint Joseph, and attended Missouri Western State University located there.
“I always think it is important to pray for other brothers and sisters in Christ. It’s good to support each other’s ministries because we belong to the same family and have the same goal: To make Jesus’s name known to all the nations,” said Imbiri.
This has not been just a staff activity. The congregants are involved too. They hear prayers for other churches each week. “At first, most folks weren’t sure what to expect! They were a little taken aback that we were doing this and praying for other churches. Like most things church life in the local church, over time people really enjoy hearing about other churches and it has emboldened and enlivened their prayers for the Body of Christ,” he said.
Prayer items from churches can be very specific or general, Smith explained in an interview. Some of the requests pertain to VBS, some Christmas and Easter. Some are for holiness and unity. A specific area church was out of space, telling Smith of the need. “We prayed that specifically, and God answered in a mighty way!” Smith said, “They have merged with another congregation and it has been a benefit to both.”
Group ministries at TVBC are participants. Busy Hands, a sewing ministry sat Tower View, has a prayer sheet showing the ‘church of the week.’ Other ministries use this sheet also.
The youth are involved too. “I typically look up the church during the week sometime and see what’s going on. I pray, and pray together with the congregation when we [the youth group] are led by Pastor Darin on Sunday mornings,” said youth pastor Matthew Andrews. Because of a need in the men’s and women’s groups, the youth participate in them. They attend meetings and this helps fill needs some of the youth may have too. “For the boys are meeting with the deacons and the deacons are stepping up and engaging with the youth and vice versa,” he said.
He has also noticed youth pray for churches which have suffered tragedy — and pray by their own prompt. “It has been truly amazing to watch a reflection of our Lord,” Andrews added.
They have decided to have a youth camp at Tower View as well. It would offer a camp experience that would be monetarily compatible for area youth. Andrews hopes to welcome other churches who are having difficulty finding youth activities or camps. “It is our hope that one day we will do it association wide,” he said.
Tower View has also been recipients of their own prayer ministry as other congregations have reciprocated. Darin Smith’s first reaction — surprise. God uses His people, and in this case He used the ones praying to be in the prayers of others too. Many have prayed for us as well from the pulpit,” said Smith.
To say prayer is powerful is one thing, but people must execute the action. That is most definitely going on at Tower View Baptist Church in Kansas City, and it is a great view of ministry.
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This article appeared in The Pathway (mbcpathway.com), newsjournal of the Missouri Baptist Convention. W. Mitch Shiffer is a contributing writer for The Pathway.
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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 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.
