June 11, 2001
Valley church gives Ministry
Starting Center concept a test run
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___LA FERIA--A Sunday School class at First Baptist Church of La Feria does more than meet for Bible study each week. The Esther class has "adopted" a 14-year-old student at Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center in Harlingen and is helping him financially.
___The women's class sends $40 each month to help support the student, whose father is the pastor of four mission congregations in Matamoras, Mexico. The class also has helped with the teenager's medical bills and provided a turkey dinner for the family at Christmas.
Mary Watson teaches a young woman to sew at Iglesia Bautista Agape in Mercedes.
___First Baptist has raised ministry outside its building to a new level. Last October, the church created a Ministry Starting Center as a pilot project for the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The church had two lay-led ministries when the center opened, said Pastor Bill Slaughter and center coordinator Mary Watson. It now has 12.
___The Ministry Starting Center is a program of the church, on equal footing with Sunday School, Discipleship Training, missions education and music.
___"The compelling difference in what this church is doing" is that it has "focused and built into its structure some missions and ministry starting support components," said Lindsay Cofield, director of the BGCT lay ministry development office. Those components include a church endorsement process and office space.
___The BGCT will introduce "Missions Depot" materials later this year to help other churches do what La Feria is doing, Cofield said. Other pastors in the Rio Grande Valley near La Feria already have expressed interest to Slaughter and Watson.
___"This is a lay-equipping ministry," the pastor said. The goal is for everyone in the church to have a ministry. "We consciously and intentionally want to start new ministries."
___On a recent Wednesday night, members of First Baptist reported from their various ministries. They are providing transportation for doctor visits, teaching life-saving skills, helping international students financially, ministering in nursing homes and a prison, teaching computer and sewing classes to help start another church, and reading to people who no longer can read, among other things.
___Slaughter called First Baptist a "beautiful New Testament church," with people who are "really warm and compassionate."
Lisa Morrow explains a bulletin board illustrating the varied ministries of First Baptist Church in La Feria. Morrow leads a ministry that connects church members with Buckner's Rio Grande Valley Children's Home.
___It is not one of the larger churches in Texas. "Winter Texans," who flee the cold of northern states, swell worship attendance to about 500 in two services for several months; but when they're gone, attendance is about 150.
___"We are beginning to show to the valley that you don't have to be that great big church to be able to reach out and to do things for our Lord and that we have to get out of the four walls of our building to where the people are to make an impact on lives," Watson said.
___The new emphasis has raised awareness about ministry and missions in the church, Watson explained. People are "bringing concerns to the church that are not related to the church," and they are "sharing God's love through action."
___Ministries are generated by individual members. "First of all, they have to work it out with God," Watson said. "It's got to be their passion in life."
___There is not a strict process to follow in launching a ministry, and the church doesn't have a "legalistic" definition of what a ministry is, Slaughter said.
___If someone sees a need in the community and believes God is leading them to do something about it, that person will go to Slaughter or Watson and express that sense of calling. Watson then contacts the BGCT's Cofield to determine what training materials are available for the ministry and what financial and personnel resources might be required.
___At some point in the process, the church will vote on whether or not to endorse the ministry. "We've let the Holy Spirit do the leading," Watson said.
___"It needs to be a calling," Slaughter said. "We're looking for people who are willing to sacrifice."
___The goal in ministry is not just to meet physical needs, but to bring people to Christ. And even in evangelism, the church has an unselfish perspective; the goal is to expand the kingdom of God rather than to build the numbers of one church.
___"We don't talk a lot about what this does for us," Slaughter said. The church wants to join God in his work wherever that might be.
___That's what they've done a few miles away. When First Baptist Church of Mercedes closed its doors, it turned over the property to First Baptist of La Feria. The building now houses Iglesia Bautista Agape, a mission of La Feria, which called Steve Rodriguez as mission pastor.
___Iglesia Agape has about 40 people attending each week, and it baptized 10 in one recent month. The mission is involved in various outreach and ministry efforts, including Christian Women's Job Corps, in which First Baptist and Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center, a BGCT-affiliated ministry, have partnered to provide weekday job training for both women and men.
___The work at Agape is one of First Baptist's 12 ministries.
___Among other ministries:
___Buck Cleckles leads the prison ministry, where inmates are taught Scripture. "Every 80 days you get new prisoners," he said.
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