KBC Executive Director Bill Mackey recognized outgoing KBC President John Mark Toby and thanked him for his year of service during the evening session of the KBC annual meeting.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention had an excellent annual meeting at Severns Valley Baptist Church in Elizabethtown this week. Attendance was up slightly this year with 840 messengers and 270 other church members and guests joining together for worship, reports, business, fellowship and inspiration.

We heard strong sermons from KBC President John Mark Toby, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler and Student Leadership Academy President Jay Strack. Young leaders got together for a convention-sponsored event during the Tuesday evening meal break as they have for several years now. Messengers seemed to enjoy the exhibit hall as usual and this year’s addition of a Twitter fountain which captured comments about the annual meeting seemed to be a big hit.

There were a lot of positives from the meeting but here are some of the “takeaways” for me:

• Kentucky Baptists aren’t just giving lip service to their commitment to evangelism. They are truly excited about the upcoming “Find it Here” door-to-door evangelism campaign and are actively engaged in preparing for it. There are an estimated 1.5 million households in Kentucky and Kentucky Baptist associations and churches have already ordered 1.4 million Gospel presentation brochures to share next spring. Even more telling than those numbers, though, are the reports of Baptist engagement in prayerwalking the areas where they will be delivering the Gospel presentations. Campbellsville Baptist Church Pastor Skip Alexander shared how prayerwalking the streets of his community has already had a tremendous impact on his church. This is a sentiment that’s being echoed in reports from across the state as God seems to be doing a mighty work in the hearts of Baptists and preparing us to show us just how mighty He is.
• Kentucky Baptists love their agencies and institutions. Convention messengers heard tremendous reports from each of their Cooperative Program-aided organizations. One of the most powerful testimonies came from a Sunrise Children’s Services foster mother who talked about the blessing to her family of being “in-home missionaries” by ministering to young people who have endured abuse and neglect. This very humble foster mom wasn’t seeking praise for herself but glorified God in sharing how Kentucky Baptists are such a part of this vital ministry.
• Kentucky Baptists are committed to the Cooperative Program. In addition to recognizing retired International Mission Board missionary Jim McKinley with the Cooperative Program Distinguished Leadership Award, Kentucky’s top total giving and per capita giving churches were honored for their commitment to supporting the wide array of missions and ministries that receive Cooperative Program report. I think it was significant that it was one of our ethnic congregations — Paducah Korean Baptist — that received top honors in the per capita giving category this year. Messengers also recognized a number of congregations that hit million dollar milestones in their CP giving since its inception in 1925, including one that has now topped $7 million — Porter Memorial Baptist in Lexington.
• Kentucky Baptists Are Not Afraid to Examine Themselves.A proposal to form a Great Commission Task Force received (as best I could tell) unanimous support from the messengers. The 17-member task force, to be chaired by Dr. Hershael York of Buck Run Baptist Church, a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a former KBC president, will look at “how Kentucky Baptists can work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.” The proposal for the task force had received approval from the Mission Board the day before. Most discussion from members in that meeting centered around the size of the committee and an emphasis that the committee would reflect the autonomy of the convention and not be driven by the Southern Baptist Convention’s GCR Task Force.This Great Commission self-examination parallels the extension of the Kentucky Baptists Connect initiative which has set specific objectives and goals for reaching people, strengthening churches and developing leaders for the past five years and will now do so for the next three years as well. Kentucky Baptists Connect came out of the work of a study committee similar to the Great Commission Task Force and has been supported by a special Mission Advisory Committee.

All in all, a great day for Kentucky Baptists and a great lead-in for carrying out the Lord’s work in 2010.