August 7, 2000

Project aims to advance missions statewide
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___LONGVIEW--East Texas Baptists planned to walk the campus of every school in Gregg County and the surrounding area on Aug. 5, asking God's blessings on the students and faculty who soon will resume classes there.
___The Saturday morning prayerwalk in Longview, Gladewater, Kilgore and nearby communities grew out of the findings from a Project AIM consultation with a Woman's Missionary Union of Texas consultant.
___Project AIM is designed to help a local church advance in missions by acknowledging where it is concerning missions and dreaming where it wants to be in a few years. AIM stands for advance in missions.
___A Texas WMU consultant helps local WMU leadership teams strategize with pastors, church staff, directors of missions and leaders of women's ministries about innovative approaches and options for increasing missions awareness and encouraging missions involvement. Then the consultant assists in mobilizing missions leaders, identifying potential leaders and developing networks in the association.
___Through their gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions, Baptists around the state help support Project AIM consultations and other initiatives by Texas WMU to enhance missions awareness, missions education and missions involvement.
___In Gregg Baptist Association, the consultant and local WMU leadership met with representatives of churches that had dropped Women on Mission in favor of women's ministries or that never had missions organizations.
___The consultations revealed that the churches were not negative toward missions action and education. They were open to incorporating missions awareness into women's ministries and were eager for opportunities to involve members in missions action projects.
___"The perception is that people don't come to meetings anymore," said Rita Odom, WMU director for the association. "The churches felt the way to get their members to be more missions-minded was to have them do missions more."
___As a direct result, the association-wide prayerwalk of school campuses was organized.
___"It's an example of how we're trying to meet needs," Odom said.
___In Ellis Baptist Association, the consultations involved a series of luncheons in which pastors and other church leaders were asked to identify their pressing needs, mission strengths and ways WMU could help, according to Marie Dyess, women's ministries and missions team director for the association.
___"One thing they said was that they needed to know what resources were available without having to do a lot of research themselves," Dyess said. "They wanted to know about missions events their members could be a part of."
___To share resources and enhance missions awareness, Texas WMU made funds available for Ellis Baptist Association to purchase a portable tabletop display. The missions exhibit will be displayed in a number of churches throughout the association on a rotating basis.
___Networking opportunities and cooperative missions projects also grew out of the consultations, Dyess said. For example, one smaller membership church wanted to do community outreach to children but lacked the volunteers. A couple of other churches with a gospel clown ministry offered to host a neighborhood "back to school" rally and Backyard Bible Club in August.
___Ellis Baptist Association already has been effectively integrating missions into women's ministries, said Dyess, who is both the associational WMU director and the association's team leader for women's ministries and missions.
___She pointed to the annual women's ministries retreat as an example. For 12 years, the event has used WMU materials to incorporate missions into the retreat format.
___In Shelby-Doches Baptist Association, Project AIM consultations helped associational missions leader identify new potential leaders and create new networking relationships, said Melba Tiller, associational WMU director.
___She pointed to the new relationship established with one church that had a minimal program for Royal Ambassadors and Girls in Action but no other missions organizations.
___After working with the church and explaining resources available, the congregation launched a full range of age-appropriate, gender-specific Baptist missions organizations. In fact, she noted, that church is scheduled to host the association's annual missions education training event and missions celebration Aug. 12.
___Another church had just launched Acteens and GAs, but the congregation had no trained leaders and little knowledge of available materials. Through Project AIM, the church discovered it had access to resources and training opportunities, and all of its missions organizations leaders attended Texas Leadership Conference in Waco last month.

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