On Nov. 3, I had the privilege of participating in the 10th anniversary celebration of the New Beginnings Baptist Church in Lewisville. It was also the 10th anniversary of founding pastor, Pastor Joseph Fields. You may remember that Pastor Fields recently served as the second vice president of our Texas Baptists’ Convention. It was a wonderful Sunday morning.
Thank you, Texas Baptists, for your gifts to the Cooperative Program and the Mary Hill Davis Offering because the financial support from these sources form the bulk of our church-starting monies. Those dollars were used 10 years ago to help New Beginnings get started.
New Beginnings will be moving into a new and larger facility in January. Their current location is their second building. The Lord has blessed, people have come and bright days are ahead.
Church planting a priority for the BGCT
Church planting continues to be a priority for the BGCT. For example, from January through September, our Missions Funding Group, chaired by Pastor Bill Skaar of First Baptist Church in Grand Prairie, has approved funding for 51 new church starts.
We also start churches by partnering with a sponsor church, the local association and the church planter.
Mario Gonzales is the director of Texas Baptists’ Multi-Housing/House Congregations. Under his leadership, seven new house churches were started in September, bringing the total number of BGCT house churches to 673.
Re-planting churches for renewed vigor
While church starting will always be important to us, going forward, we will focus much more attention and resources on “re-planting” churches all across our state.
If you are a part of a church that has declined over the years, your community has or is changing, and your church would be interested in a conversation about how to become something new and probably different, please contact Tom Howe, Texas Baptists’ associate director for missions, by calling 214-828-5278 or emailing him at [email protected]. He would be glad to talk with you and discuss possibilities.
Thanks for your continued support.
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Blessings!
David Hardage is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The BGCT and Baptist Standard are independently related partners.
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