February 3, 2003
Temple church models Jesus' admonition
to go here, there & everywhere
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___ARLINGTON--Acts 1:8 offers the organizational framework for churches on mission, according to several workshop leaders at the Texas Evangelism Conference.
___The New Testament passage records Jesus' final words to his disciples, declaring that once the Holy Spirit came they would become his witnesses "in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and to the ends of the earth."
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| KAY BACON and Fred Ater lead a discussion on missional churches during the Texas Evangelism Conference. (Ken Camp/BGCT Photo) |
___First Baptist Church in Temple adopted that verse as
the structure for its missions outreach, and it's a pattern other churches could follow, according to missions associate Kay Bacon.
___Bacon joined Fred Ater, missional church strategistwith the Baptist General Convention of Texas, to lead a seminar about effectively organizing churches for missions and evangelism, one of 44 workshops offered at the Jan. 27-28 conference.
___At First Baptist Church in Temple, the challenge was not starting from scratch to involve people in missions but coordinating what widely varied groups already were doing, Bacon said.
___She served as liaison between Sunday School classes, missions organizations, outreach ministries and other church-related programs, helping each existing ministry see how its participants could fit as part of either a "Jerusalem," "Judea," "Samaria" or "ends of the earth" team.
___Bacon described how her church adopted Temple as its "Jerusalem," offering English as a Second Language classes and after-school tutoring programs, as well as supporting a halfway house for recently released female offenders.
___The church viewed a partnership with Green Mountain Baptist Association in Vermont as ministry to "Judea," and it saw an ongoing relationship with churches in Chihuahua, Mexico, as its "Samaria."
___"If you go once, people think you're doing it to make yourself feel good," Bacon observed. "If you keep coming back to the same place, then they begin to think you're for real. That's when you are able to form relationships."
___Ministry "to the ends of the earth" from First Baptist Church of Temple included sending an English teaching team to China, commissioning students to work in a Romanian orphanage and adopting a Bulgarian student attending the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.
___Once each quarter, First Baptist Church brings together members of the four missions teams for a prayer breakfast. Every participant is paired with an intercessor who becomes that person's prayer partner.
___Ater suggested that churches try a three-step approach to organizing for missions and evangelism:
___ Identify types of ministry needed in a community. Showing a brief amateur video of a downtown urban neighborhood, he challenged workshop participants to list possible ministries that might be needed and even welcomed in that context.
___ Identify people who can meet those needs. Ater asked participants to list by name people in their churches whose interests, occupations, talents and backgrounds qualified them to serve in the ministries already listed.
___ Identify existing ministries that could become involved. He encouraged seminar participants to ask whether Sunday School and Bible study programs could become places for equipping missionaries, for example.
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