April 17, 2000
Texas churches sought for New England partnerships
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___LUFKIN--More than 1,600 miles and a world of difference separate the East Texas Piney Woods from the cities of southern Connecticut. But it's a cultural chasm at least two churches plan to bridge.
___First Baptist Church of Lufkin recently voted to enter a sister church partnership with North Park Baptist Church in Bridgeport, Conn. The church already has a similar relationship with a congregation in Glauchau, Germany, through Texas Partnerships.
___Mark Smith, pastor of North Park Baptist Church, preached at First Baptist Church of Lufkin as part of that church's home missions emphasis. It was the first of several anticipated interactions between the two congregations over the next four to six years through Texas Partnerships.
___The Lufkin church plans to help North Park and several other churches in its association start a new church in the growing area, about a one-hour commute from New York City.
___Retired Director of Missions Raymond Dunkin and his wife, Gerry, former president of Woman's Missionary Union of Texas, will lead a group of about a dozen volunteers on an initial trip to Bridgeport in July.
___"Our group will do a service project this year, painting the church. But more than that, they will begin dreaming with the people there about starting a church," said Nolan Duck, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lufkin.
___Next year, volunteers from the Lufkin church may be involved in door-to-door surveys or other evangelistic outreach in Bridgeport, he added.
___Don Sewell, director of Texas Partnerships, hopes many other Texas Baptist churches in the months ahead will develop similar relationships with congregations in the northeastern United States.
___The Baptist General Convention of Texas and five other established Baptist state conventions have entered a partnership with five conventions in the northeast to make an impact on the largest unchurched population of any region in the United States.
___Baptists in Texas, Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina and Tennessee have joined the Baptist conventions of New England, Maryland/ Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania/South Jersey and the District of Columbia for "Impact Northeast."
___The northeast is home to one-fourth of the United States' population, and three-fourths of the people in the region are not evangelical Christians, according to Ken Lyle, executive director of the New England Baptist Convention.
___Even so, residents of the northeast are "asking a lot of spiritual questions," Lyle said. "They may be turned off by the church, but not by Jesus.
___"Together in partnership, we have the opportunity to explore what it means to be the church in a society where church is pretty low on the agenda of most people," he explained.
___One of the key goals of Impact Northeast is to double the number of churches in the region, which has the lowest ratio of Southern Baptist churches to population of any area in the country, said Ann Lawrence, director of Woman's Missionary Union for the New England Baptist Convention. Lawrence recently spoke to the Texas WMU Executive Board about Impact Northeast.
___Another goal is to triple the number of collegiate ministries by 2007, Lawrence added. New England is home to 276 colleges and universities, and Boston alone has an international student population of 40,000.
___Throughout the 11 northeastern states, the total student population is 6 million on more than 600 campuses. In fact, 21 percent of the total post-secondary school students in the United States live in the northeast.
___Currently, Baptists have fewer than two dozen student ministries in the northeast, and fewer than a half-dozen Baptist campus ministers serve full-time in the region.
___Texas Baptists' involvement in Impact Northeast will range from offering interactive Internet-based training for church leaders to sending student summer missionaries, Sewell said. But the key component will be linking Texas Baptist churches to northeastern churches as sister congregations.
___"Our denomination needs dynamic and loving examples of partnership as much as we need anything," Lyle said. "Texas Baptists bring to the partnership a true missions heart. In that respect, they represent who Southern Baptists are at their best--a missionary people."
___Texas Baptists also can expect to benefit from the exchange, Lyle emphasized.
___"The northeast can bring to the table a track record in certain areas like urban ministries," he said. "Churches in the northeast also can help Texas Baptists by relating their experience in sharing the gospel with a broad range of ethnic groups.
___"We also have longer experience of doing ministry in what many call a pre-Christian world. Three-fourths of the people in the northeast--to the best of our knowledge--have no personal walk with God. We have experience in creating church in a non-church context. In fact, it's almost a first century context. It's pretty exciting."
___More than anything, Lyle said, he hopes to see relationships established.
___"By getting up close and personal, our people can demythologize stereotypes," Lyle said. "We can get to know people for who they are."
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