May 14, 2001
GERMAN BAPTIST LEADERS got a taste of Texas at a Rangers baseball game. They were visiting First Baptist Church in Garland for training, part of a partnership with the BGCT.
Germans get training in Garland
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___While many churches send out teams to do foreign missions, First Baptist Church of Garland had a rare opportunity to bring foreign missions to the church property.
___Thirty-three German Baptist leaders came to the Garland church to learn more about how to reach their communities. Very few people attend church in the German state of Thuringia, where these leaders live. Some estimates say less than 1 percent attend church. Baptists number only about 2,000 but are the largest evangelical group in the state.
___"The workshops were all related to growing more of an outreach mentality in their churches," said Jim Witt, minister of missions for the Texas church. "It's not that outreach is necessarily a new concept to them, but they don't do a lot of it."
___The leaders attended workshops that focused on preschool and youth ministry and general church outreach.
___They were taught how preschool ministry can be used as an outreach to parents. They also learned how to put together a more effective outreach brochure and were able to participate in an outreach effort at a local apartment complex.
___"They actually got to do a lot with the apartment ministry. Some of them played games with children, and others did face painting," Witt said. "Neither of those things required them to speak a lot of English." The group also led participants that day in a German folk dancing routine.
___The group came to Garland as a result of an ongoing partnership between First Baptist and the 19 churches of the Association of Baptist Churches of Thuringia, which has a population of about 2 million people. Four teams from Garland already have gone there since the spring of 2000, and two more are scheduled for this summer.
___"We had two major focuses for this group--training and recreation," Witt said. "For a lot of these folks, this was the only vacation they will get."
___With that in mind, the group also took in the Fort Worth Stockyards and a Texas Rangers baseball game. "It was really something to watch a baseball game with 30 adults who had never seen one before," Witt said.
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