The KBC Great Commission Task Force at work at the Kentucky Baptist Building.

Kentucky Baptists will move to an even distribution of Cooperative Program receipts with the Southern Baptist Convention and set an ambitious goal of increasing missions giving under a plan being proposed by the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Task Force.

The Task Force’s recommendations will be presented to messengers for approval at the Kentucky Baptist Convention annual meeting at Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington on Nov. 16.

The report was released today to give Kentucky Baptists adequate time to understand and react to four recommendations, said Task Force Chairman Hershael York, pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort and a former KBC president.

Here’s the text of the report:

Last year Kentucky Baptist Convention President John Mark Toby appointed a Great Commission Task Force. The 17 Task Force members appointed were:

• Hershael York, pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Chair.

• Paul Badgett, pastor, First Baptist Church, Pikeville

• Charles Barnes, member of Hurstbourne Baptist Church in Louisville

• Joy Bolton, executive director-treasurer of Kentucky Woman’s Missionary Union

• Jeff Crabtree, director of mission, Warren Baptist Association

• Rusty Ellison, pastor, Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville

• Chad Fugitt, pastor of First Baptist Church in Monticello

• Greg Faulls, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Owensboro

• John Hale, deacon at First Baptist Church in Mount Vernon

• Bill Henard, pastor of Porter Memorial Baptist Church in Lexington

• James Jones, pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Campbellsville

• Bill Mackey, executive director, Kentucky Baptist Convention

• Don Mathis, president, Kentucky Baptist Convention

• Jessica Milburn, member of Union Baptist Church in Union

• Sam Rainer, pastor of First Baptist Church in Murray

• Kevin Smith, pastor of Watson Memorial Baptist Church in Louisville

• Dan Summerlin, pastor of Lone Oak First Baptist Church in Paducah

Over the course of the past 8 months, the Task Force has met in prayer, deliberation, and commitment. Every member of the Great Commission Task Force agrees that this has been a significant spiritual milestone in our lives as we have seen God work among us and bring us to a unanimous consensus about our recommendations.

In order to reach our conclusions and recommendations, we first reached a consensus about our foundational guiding principles. The include the following:

Principles we believe

We believe that Jesus Christ is worthy of all our praise, honor, worship, and resources.

We believe that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, and that explicit faith in Christ as Lord and Savior is necessary for all morally accountable persons to have eternal life.

We believe that faith in Christ comes only through the proclamation of the gospel applied by the Holy Spirit.

We believe that Jesus has commanded us to preach the gospel to every person on earth.

We believe that churches should evangelize the lost, baptize and disciple the saved, plant churches, and reach our nation and the world through commissioning missionaries, participating in missions personally, and giving a significant portion of income and resources to missions, especially through the vehicle of the Cooperative Program.

We believe in the value of Christian education as a means of equipping Christians to serve the Lord through cultural engagement, church membership and participation, and missionary service.

We believe that a new generation of Kentucky Baptists are not willing to settle for business as usual and that the Cooperative Program will diminish and perhaps die if we do not present a bold, sweeping vision for the future and a refocus of our energies.

We believe that we must devote a significantly larger portion of our resources to reach the 1.7 billion people of the last frontier who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We believe that to be a faithful steward of all that God has blessed us with that each Kentucky Baptist should be challenged to provide a legacy gift for the Cooperative Program and Kingdom causes. We believe that churches, assisted by the Kentucky Baptist Foundation and Mission Board, must lead in training and developing this stewardship vision for all Kentucky Baptists.

We believe that renewed vision and ministry will only result from renewed love for Christ and repentance for our selfishness as evidenced by our decline in witnessing, proclaiming the gospel, personal sacrifice, giving, and going.

We believe that our Kentucky Baptist churches must reverse the decline in cooperative program giving, even while we engage the lost, go on mission, and plant churches.

We believe that to reach our nation and the nations for Christ will require a continued paradigm shift for Kentucky Baptists. First, our churches must become more outwardly focused than inwardly. Second, the Kentucky Baptist Convention needs to shift to a paradigm based more on outreach, evangelism, and missions and less on advising particular church ministries. To do this would require the KBC over time to become more of a facilitator of shared advice, counsel, and experience among churches, pastors, and laity rather than a provider of those services. We recognize that certain ministries (disaster relief, ministry to pastors in transition, etc) are more effective when done by the state convention so we affirm the continued significance and need for the KBC. In fact, we believe that this shift will result in a greater connection between the ministry of the KBC and the churches. We furthermore believe that the local associations are going to become key partners in renewed emphasis on shared ministry, missions, and connections.

To that end and after intense study, interviews, deliberation and prayer, we propose that Kentucky Baptists:

1) Initiate a 3-year emphasis called “More for Christ,” an intentional time of repentance, renewal, and redirection for the future. Kentucky Baptists responded to the “Find It Here” campaign in record numbers and with great enthusiasm and excitement. Our prayer is that we might respond in the same way to a call to personal and corporate commitment to Christ and to the Great Commission.

More for Christ means:

More of myself

• personal surrender
• personal witness
• personal sacrifice

More of my family

More for the lost

More for the needs

More for the nations

We propose that messengers request the KBC mission board, staff, agencies and institutions to seek ways that we can implement this theme in every part of Kentucky Baptist life and that it become a clarion call to our churches and individuals.

Explanation: We recognize that we desperately need a recommitment of our lives, our churches, our families, and our resources. Our prayer is that these recommendations will result in a great movement of the Holy Spirit among Kentucky Baptists. We pray that “More for Christ” will be the theme of what Kentucky Baptists do and give for the future. We pray that such an emphasis will be used of God to remind us and motivate us to strategize, mobilize, and give toward that end.

2) Instruct our Mission Board to move to a reallocation of Cooperative Program funds that results in 50% of our annual Cooperative Program receipts (after shared administrative expenses) being given to the Southern Baptist Convention and 50% to KBC within the next 7 years. Beginning with the 2011-12 fiscal year, the Mission Board shall implement the attached GCTF-Ky CP Percentage Distribution Plan to achieve this goal.

Explanation: To illustrate the differences in this change over the next 7 years and estimating approximately 4% of the KBC budget as shared expenses and 3% growth in CP funds, the division of Cooperative Program receipts after those shared expenses would be:

1st year 2011-12: KBC 53.28% SBC 46.72%

7th year 2017-18: KBC 50%, SBC 50%

The basis for this change in the first year would include a 6% across the board reduction in the KBC budget; eliminating the KBC’s contribution to annuitants by $400,000; reducing contribution to the colleges an additional 7% (which means that the colleges still receive slightly more than they did prior to Georgetown’s departure from the KBC budget); a Mission Board staff reduction of 12%; a total Mission Board budget reduction of 9.85%; an additional WMU reduction of 3.85% ; meaning a total of 9.85%.

In years 2-7 the Mission Board would make further adjustments of $600,000 to achieve incrementally the goal of a 50%-50% allocation between SBC and KBC causes after shared expenses.

3) Set a goal to increase overall CP receipts from Kentucky Baptist churches and individuals at least 3% per year for the next seven years. This growth would be equivalent to each church increasing CP giving by at least 0.25% of undesignated receipts each year for 7 years.

Explanation: It would be wrong simply to reallocate cooperative program receipts and ask KBC ministries to sacrifice and cut back without also asking more from ourselves. As a tenet of faith, we believe that God has already given His people all the resources we need to do what He has commanded. We cannot deny that in the past 15 years Cooperative Program giving from Kentucky Baptist churches has declined from approximately 10% of undesignated receipts to less than 7%. We simply must reverse that trend and ask our churches and individuals to respond graciously, generously, and sacrificially.

If Kentucky Baptists respond and if we could reverse that trend by growing our receipts by 3% per year for the next 7 years, the results for missions would be staggering. Using the new seven-year reallocation with a 3% growth, the increase for SBC causes would be $23,786,274 meaning that over $11.8 million more would go to the IMB and put missionaries on the field.

This is attainable in several ways. If every church in the KBC increased their CP giving by just ¼% of their undesignated receipts every year for the next seven years, we could do it. If small churches that usually give a fixed amount rather than a percentage would up that amount, we could do it. If large churches that have tended to decrease CP giving in order to support their own programs, buildings, and missions would understand the global importance of the CP and reverse that trend, we could do it.

While designating missions dollars to the IMB or some other agency or effort may seem attractive, only the CP supports missions in North America and around the world, helps train pastors and missionaries through our seminaries, and speaks on moral and social issues through the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. While we encourage multiple mission efforts, we believe in the wisdom and strategic genius of the Cooperative Program which, after all, was born here in Kentucky.

4) Authorize the Great Commission Task Force to remain constituted for the next seven years, monitoring progress and implementation and reporting to the Convention and/or Mission Board each year, making any further recommendations as necessary. Each year the KBC president may appoint members to maintain between 10 and 15 on the committee.

Explanation: This work is significant enough that a single entity needs to work closely with the Executive Director and relate to all parts of the KBC to see how we are doing and make reports on our progress. We also believe that continuity is essential, especially after as extensive a study of all KBC entities as this task force has conducted. For that reason we ask that the current members remain on the committee and new ones be added only as natural attrition occurs.

Addendum

GCTF – KY  CP Percentage Distribution Plan

Fiscal Year (2010-11):

KBC:  62%, SBC:  38%

First Year (2011-12):

CP Percentages — KBC: 51.15%; SBC: 44.85%; Shared:  4%

Percentage of CP after Shared Expenses — KBC: 53.28%; SBC: 46.72%

Basis for Change: 2010-11 Budget = Base Year.  Shared Expenses 4% or $940.000; Reduction in KBC Budget 6%; Annuity Reduction $400,000; College Reduction 7% in addition to 6% KBC Budget, Total = 12.58%; Mission Board Staff Reduction 12%; Mission Board Total Budget Reduction of 9.85%, totaling $750,671; including $237,000 of the Cooperative Agreements absorbed by the Mission Board; WMU Reduction 3.85% in addition to 6% of KBC Budget; Total = 9.85%; and 3% Growth in CP divided KBC 33.1%/SBC 66.9% in years 1 through 7.

Seventh Year (2017-18):

CP Percentages — KBC: 48%; SBC: 48%; Shared: 4%

Percentage of CP after Shared Expenses — KBC: 50%; SBC: 50%

Basis for Change in Years 2 through 7: Mission Board absorbs in years 2 through 7 Cooperative Agreements Totaling $600,000 by Mission Board Additional Staff Reductions Totaling $600,000; $180,000 in NAMB Cooperative Agreements to be terminated; Total Mission Board Funding would be Reduced $1,350,691 or 17.72% the 7th year.

For more on the report and comments from Task Force Chairman Hershael York, click here to read the KBC news release on the report.

Click here to download a copy of the Kentucky Great Commission Task Force report.

–Robert Reeves

Richard Harris, Bill Mackey and Jerry Rankin

Just ahead of  the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Orlando last week, Bill Mackey, the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s executive director, participated in a panel discussion on Great Commission priorities with Jerry Rankin, the outgoing president of the International Mission Board, and Richard Harris, the interim president of the North American Mission Board.

Click on the arrow below to hear the audio of their 15-minute discussion:

If the embedded player is not showing on the device on which you are reading this post, you can also access the audio by clicking the link below. This link will also allow you to download the audio file.

GCR Roundtable Discussion with Bill Mackey, Jerry Rankin and Richard Harris

Here’s a summary of discussion highlights from the North American Mission Board:

ORLANDO, Fla. – International Mission Board president Jerry Rankin, Kentucky Baptist Convention executive director Bill Mackey and interim North American Mission Board president Richard Harris took part in a brief roundtable discussion on future trends in missions during the SBC annual meeting in Orlando.

The roundtable was one of four hosted by NAMB during the SBC meeting in Orlando. Other discussions included “Reaching Cities in North America,” “Church Planting in the 21st Century” and “Reaching People Groups in North America.” Audio of each roundtable discussion is posted at www.namb.net/orlando2010.

Mackey said reaching the increasing numbers of internationals settling in Kentucky is an issue challenging him. “We are seeing a great influx of Hispanics, a tripling to 300,000 since 2000. We’re trying to respond by urging the churches to consider the opportunities in their neighborhoods.

“We’re working with journeymen who are coming out of seminary who are experienced with working with people groups throughout the world. We need them to address the people groups moving into Kentucky. For example, we have seven dialects spoken by Indians in Louisville.”

Rankin agreed that “the world is coming to us. You no longer have to go overseas to do foreign missions and reach unreached people groups. All of us recognize that it won’t be the state convention, IMB or NAMB that reaches these people groups. It will have to be a grassroots movement of Christians witnessing anywhere, everywhere to anyone. IMB’s role would be to mobilize, train and equip these grassroots Christians, churches and associations to reach the peoples coming to their communities.”

NAMB’s Harris said, “You have to identify these folks and find them: where are they and what are their interests? What is their heart language? What are their needs?

“One area we need to do more in is on university campuses,” said Harris. “We have to get more career, MSC and summer semester missionaries on campus – to get in there and engage students with campus ministries and try to reach them. They’re the ones going into leadership positions.The college campus is a great opportunity.”

The three men also discussed the advent of “participatory missions” – whereby more of today’s Baptists want to take a hands-on approach to missions, rather than leaving it just to missionaries.

“There’s a massive challenge of reaching billions of people overseas,” said Rankin. “We’ll never have enough missionaries to reach them all. But if we could mobilize the 16 million Southern Baptists and 45,000 churches to be strategically involved, God has raised up the necessary resources to fulfill the Great Commission.”

story by Mickey Noah, North American Mission Board

–Robert Reeves

We’ll have to wait until Monday to know what changes may have been made to the committee’s original progress report and whether any adjustments represent changes in substance or only in wording. Dr. Bill Mackey, executive director for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, recently wrote about his hopes and prayers for the revised report in his column in the Western Recorder and on his Partners in the Mission blog. Here’s that column:

Great Commission Hope

Dr. Bill Mackey

By Bill Mackey

I have been asked on numerous occasions about the progress report issued in February by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. I have certainly had some concerns but I am encouraged by the response of the task force to feedback and look forward to the release of the final version on May 3. I am prayerful that new language in the report will relieve concerns and permit a little more flexibility in its implementation.

Southern Baptists certainly support the call to renewed commitment to God’s mission through the Great Commission. I am grateful that the task force has placed such a strong emphasis on prayer and spiritual vitality.

I am also appreciative that the committee has invited feedback from Southern Baptists. The task force graciously invited various leaders, including state executive directors, to present in person and have conducted conference calls with large groups.

One of the report’s recommendations deals with phasing out cooperative agreements between the North American Mission Board and state conventions. These agreements guide the way state conventions and NAMB share expenses in the common work of spreading the Gospel. NAMB would use the savings to help fund an aggressive church planting process in the unreached and underserved areas of North America, especially the largest cities.

Some executives in the “old line” state conventions (the larger Southern state conventions that originally formed the SBC) have expressed to me their willingness to absorb the cost of ending the cooperative agreements for their states provided that NAMB continues to have a strong supportive role with new work state conventions. I am hopeful that the final report will lengthen the phase out time of the cooperative agreements to seven to eight years rather than four in the old line state conventions.

I believe the final report should also place a stronger emphasis on the Cooperative Program as the preferred and primary way of funding Southern Baptist missions and ministries. Hopefully, the updated report will remove concerns that a new reporting category called Great Commission Giving will hurt CP giving. The SBC’s Executive Committee also needs to have a strong coordinating role, along with state conventions, in promoting CP.

I would also like to see the final report reflect NAMB as the primary coordinator of strategy to reach North America. This strategy can be supported by International Mission Board personnel as requested to reach international people groups.

The final report would also be strengthened by including a strong spiritual emphasis on Biblical stewardship. A national emphasis on increased Cooperative Program support through local churches will result in more support for all mission causes — especially world missions.

If all mission partners, churches, associations, state conventions and the SBC will seek the Lord as never before, I believe Southern Baptists can experience a Great Commission Resurgence under the Lordship of Jesus Christ!

–Robert Reeves

So far, close to 1,900 response cards delivered with the brochures have come back indicating decisions from individuals and prompting follow up by local churches. Web site hits from Kentucky on the www.findithere.com Web site spiked significantly during the campaign as expected. And the stories from churches of increased attendance and people coming to faith have been wonderful. Click here to read about some of these.

So now what?

Do we say we claim that we’ve now reached Kentucky? That we’ve fulfilled the Great Commission because we’ve now given nearly everyone in the state at least an “opportunity” to have received the Gospel message?

Not hardly. As anyone who works in marketing will tell you, getting a message to audiences in a way that cuts through the clutter and really sticks takes continual hard work. And while I certainly don’t equate Jesus’ message to selling Coca Cola, we certainly can learn from the softdrink giant the importance of sharing our message, sharing our message and then sharing our message again and again because that’s what it takes to really reach people.

Hopefully, all Kentucky Baptists who have been involved are seeing Find it Here as just the beginning — as a wonderful, eye-opening experience that got us outside the walls of our churches and focused on the people and the needs of our communities in a new way. I am praying that our Find it Here experience means we’ll never be the same and that we will now always be focused on finding ever-better ways to share Jesus.

Dr. Don Mathis, our current Kentucky Baptist Convention president and staff evangelist at Eastwood Baptist Church in Bowling Green, recently provided some really practical advice for churches in the wake of Find it Here through a column in the Western Recorder. Check out what he had to say:

Beyond Find It Here: ‘What should we do now?’

By Don Mathis

KBC President Don Mathis

One of the most exciting events in recent times in the Kentucky Baptist Convention has been Find It Here. Leading up to Easter Sunday, a gospel witness and an invitation to attend worship was either placed in the hands of residents or hung on the door knobs of 1.4 million homes.

Find It Here followed a time of prayerwalking communities in preparation for the distribution. It will be followed by a High Attendance Day in Sunday school on April 18.

Positive results are being reported by many churches. The Kentucky church where I preached in revival the week before Easter already has had five families attend as a result of Find It Here. A neighboring church reported 24 first-time guests—more than they have seen in years.

I preached in revival in an out-of-state church with services beginning on Easter Sunday. With a normal Sunday morning attendance of 82, they had 174. More returned on Sunday night than they have on a typical Sunday morning.

I am sure that many churches have experienced similar results. What will result from Find It Here in the near future? What about months and years from now? God only knows, but it will inevitably be positive. God has promised that His Word will not return void.

An even more important question becomes, “What do we do now?” Let me offer a few suggestions:

1) Immediately start or re-energize your existing evangelistic visitation program. Knock on the doors of the persons discovered through Find It Here. There are a lot of “programs” for doing visitation. Use one of them or develop your own. If we don’t knock on their doors, they won’t come through ours.

2) Enroll every possible person in a Sunday school class. This is a good time to start new classes. Remember, new classes grow faster.

3) Pray, plan and work toward your best vacation Bible school ever. Make it an outreach VBS. Almost half of the people baptized each year in our churches come from VBS. This, too, will be at it best with the direct involvement of the pastor, including his leading the invitation time.

4) Follow up with a Harvest Revival sometime between August and November. Couple this with a High Attendance Day in Sunday school and special revival nights. With the actions mentioned above, many of the gospel seeds sown now will be ready for God to give a harvest.

5) How about simultaneous revivals next spring? We always baptize more people when we have revivals than when we don’t.

In short, let’s not let Find It Here be another program that comes and goes. We can deliver the gospel to every home in Kentucky. Let’s keep our focus on the 63 percent of our state’s population who do not know Jesus. They need for Find It Here to be more than a one time event.

– Robert Reeves

International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin wrote recently about how Christ’s command to reach the world in Acts 1:8 is not intended to be understood as meaning that we are only to reach out to the world after we have reached our local communities, state and nation. We are to be reaching out in all of these areas simultaneously.

He is exactly right. One aspect of this that I have been particularly struck hard about in the last couple of days is just how simultaneous this witness really is considering the globalization of our society. Earlier this week here in Louisville, the “Right Here, Right Now” People Groups Fair was held on the campus of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary to introduce students to the huge diversity of people groups living in Kentucky and, especially, Louisville.

Sponsored by the People Groups Initiative, a joint effort by the North American Mission Board, Kentucky Baptist Convention and Long Run Baptist Association, the missions fair gave students the opportunity to hear from people group missionaries including Semester Nehemiah church planting project interns, Nehemiah missionaries and Mission Service Corp people group volunteers. Many students were recruited to work with established people group teams led by the KBC/NAMB Nehemiah people group specialist.

I’ve lived in Louisville for 16 years now but never realized myself just how diverse even our small city is. According to the Jefferson County Public School District, we now have 102 nations represented in our school system with  individuals speaking about 124 different languages.

Our city’s Muslim population now numbers more than 10,000 and we have 13 Islamic centers here. Our largest Islamic ethnic groups are Bosnian, Iraqi, Somali, Turks and Senegalese.

What this tells me is that is that there really is no clear dividing line anymore between local and global missions. All Southern Baptists and Southern Baptist entities need to be working together all the time to reach people whether they are just across the street or on another continent. And the exciting thing is, when we reach that one across the street, we very well may be reaching across to another continent because of the ties that person may have to another nation!

The video on this page will let hear from some of the people at the Right Here, Right Now missions fair and the ways they are involved in ministering to people groups in Louisville. Click here if the device on which you’re reading this post does not show embedded video to see the piece on the KBC’s YouTube channel.

– Robert Reeves

It’s extremely exciting to see the strong start that Kentucky Baptists have gotten off to with the Find it Here door-t0-door evangelism initiative. Many churches have already begun placing the bags and brochures on door knobs in their assigned areas and are being received well by homeowners across the state.

Baptist Campus Ministry students from campuses across the state are also helping with the Find it Here Gospel distribution. If the platform you’re reading this post on does not allow you to see the embedded video at the top of the post, click here to go to the video and hear the comments of a number of our students about what they are doing and why.

We’re asking individuals and churches to share some of their stories and pictures through the KBC’s Facebook Fan page at http://www.facebook.com/kybaptist.

I know we’ve already received a couple hundred cards back at the Baptist building from individuals who are responding to the Gospel message on the brochure and visiting the FinditHere.com Web site. A quick scan of these show individuals asking for more information, asking for someone from a local church to contact them, expressing a desire to renew their relationship with Christ and even seeking to make a profession of faith. We are responding to each of these individuals and quickly getting the information back to the local association and church that delivered the piece.

Find it Here is also getting strong news media coverage from secular newspapers and TV stations. K-LOVE, a major Christian radio chain, picked up the story of the work in Kentucky this weekend and gave it excellent play nationally as well.

The paid advertising campaign kicks off March 15 with the 30-second TV spot developed by the North American Mission Board set to run for the next three weeks on broadcast stations across the state. We have a small amount of radio running as well and the spot will also be running on cable channels in some areas.

The spots are also running on the Spanish-language radio station that serves Lexington, Louisville and Southern Indiana and 14 Spanish-language billboards are already up.

Some associations and churches have also purchased additional advertising — using billboards, TV, radio, newspapers, yard signs and banners. Other churches are incorporating the Find it Here spot into their regular TV or radio programming.

There are many things that make this an exciting time but I can’t help but rejoice in the fact that at a time when many Baptist leaders are talking about the importance of the Great Commission, we’re getting to see here Baptists at work in a literal way to see the Great Commission fulfilled in our state.

Find it Here also presents a great picture of Baptist cooperation and synergy at its very best. This initiative has really been driven by the churches and, especially, by the associations, with what seems to be the right mix of support from the state convention and the North American Mission Board. This kind of cooperation goes on day in and day out so this is not something new but Find it Here is definitely one of those projects through which it is easy to see how everyone is working together.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention has just announced its plans for a major media buy in conjunction with the “Find it Here” door-to-door evangelism initiative set for this Spring. The media campaign will allow us here in Kentucky to reach approximately 85 percent of our state’s adult population with a gospel message an average of three-and-a-half times during the three weeks leading up to Easter this year.

One of the things that I find exciting about this particular Great Commission push is the way it demonstrates the power of Baptist cooperation. In terms of implementation of “Find it Here,” we have nearly every area of Baptist life engaged in a coordinated way to share the gospel.

Local churches have worked with their own directors of missions to literally mark the road maps of their association to divide the geography and make sure volunteers who will deliver a plastic bag containing a gospel message are assigned to those areas. (Some 50,000 church volunteers are expected to participate in prayerwalking and gospel distribution of just about our entire state.)

Layered on to this work at the grassroots level is the coordination, materials production and promotional support being provided by state conventions and the North American Mission Board. Nationwide, NAMB and the state conventions are expected to spend more than $1.8 on the media campaign alone.

The funding of “Find it Here” also demonstrates Baptist cooperation in a big way. Here in Kentucky, “Find it Here” is being made possible by funds from the Cooperative Program, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and the Eliza Broadus Offering for State Missions.

Here’s the story from the KBC on the media campaign:

Find it Here Advertising Campaign to Reach 85 Percent of Kentucky Adults

LOUISVILLE  – An advertising campaign that is part of Kentucky Baptists’ “Find it Here” door-to-door evangelism initiative is expected to reach approximately 85 percent of the adult population in Kentucky with a Gospel message this spring.

The statewide campaign will use a 30-second TV spot produced by the North American Mission Board for three weeks leading up to Easter to direct viewers to the FinditHere.com Web site. The Web site features the stories of people who have found hope, purpose, peace and life through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Radio spots and billboards will also be used in some locations.

“Kentucky Baptists are pulling out the stops to reach our state this spring,” Kentucky Baptist Convention Communications Director Robert Reeves said. “In this time of recession, war and cultural confusion, we have an important message of hope for people and are looking forward to this opportunity to connect with the people of our state.”

Reeves said Southern Baptists will be spending more than $182,000 on the campaign in Kentucky, using funds from the KBC, NAMB, Kentucky Woman’s Missionary Union and Baptist state conventions in states surrounding Kentucky that will impact the border areas.

The advertising campaign will provide important “air support” for the 50,000 volunteers from Kentucky Baptist churches who will be delivering a bag containing a brochure that uses the “Find it Here” theme to more than 4.1 million Kentucky households starting in March, he said.

Reeves said the campaign was put together by the Van Winkle and Associates advertising firm of Atlanta. The firm was contracted by NAMB to handle an advertising buy which will exceed $1.8 million nationwide.

In Kentucky, the campaign is designed to reach 85 percent of the adult population with the message three and a half times on average during the period. Reeves said the number of times any individual sees the spot will vary based on their specific location and viewing habits.

Viewership in Eastern Kentucky may be somewhat higher due to a $30,000 grant for media provided by Kentucky WMU. Those funds, made possible because Kentucky WMU exceeded its $1.1 million goal for the Eliza Broadus Offering last year, are being used to supplement the broadcast television purchases with a cable television buy.

Part of the advertising buy is also being used to purchase billboards and radio time in Spanish to help reach Kentucky’s Hispanic population.

“One of the greatest things about the entire ‘Find it Here’ emphasis is the way it demonstrates the power of Baptist cooperative efforts in putting love in action,” Reeves said. “Baptists are getting to see their Cooperative Program, Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and Eliza Broadus Offering for State Missions directly at work in their own communities in a very direct and tangible way which is exciting.”

Reeves said the total advertising campaign is also expected to be strengthened by churches that have TV and radio ministries of their own and incorporate the “Find it Here” spots into their broadcasts. The spots are available for free download by churches in the “God’s Plan for Sharing” section of the oneMISSION.tv Web site.

The “Find it Here” TV spot features three people telling snippets of their life stories – a woman whose husband died, a man who lost his job and another man who still felt empty despite success and wealth. Each shares that they finally found peace through a relationship with Jesus Christ. The spot ends by directing the viewer to the “Find it Here” Web site.

At the site, which is available in English and Spanish, visitors will be able to read more about the Christian faith, use a search feature to find a Southern Baptist church near to them, access a phone number to call for spiritual help or download a free e-book.

More information about the “Find it Here” evangelism initiative in Kentucky can be found at www.kybaptist.org/findithere.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention is a cooperative missions and ministry organization made up of nearly 2,400 autonomous Baptist churches in Kentucky. A variety of state and worldwide ministries are coordinated through its administrative offices in Louisville, Ky. including: missions work, disaster relief, ministry training and support, church development, evangelism and more.

I’ve never heard anyone say specifically that missions work in the United States is less important than international missions work but I’ve certainly come across some who, in their commendable zeal to support our international missions effort, imply it.  If I understand correctly, their thinking seems to be that since we have many existing churches in the United States — especially in the South — there’s no real need for a cooperative effort among Southern Baptists through associations, state conventions and the North American Mission Board to reach the lost here at home. The churches and individual Christians, the logic goes, should be all the missionary force we need here in the United States so all missions giving should therefore go for work outside our home country.

To a certain extent, I can understand and sympathize with this thinking. There’s a sense among some Baptists that having organizations to coordinate missions work at home becomes a crutch for churches and individuals who would rather simply give money from behind the walls of their church buildings than actually get out there and “be” the church by ministering and witnessing in their home communities. They believe that without these broader organizations, churches would come closer to realizing that reaching our communities will take the personal involvement of every Christian.

Probably all of us have at one time or another been guilty of the sin of not sharing our faith. I know that I have certainly failed to take advantage of opportunities to share the Gospel and for those failures I feel ashamed. As many have said already, a true Great Commission Resurgence isn’t going to be about organizational structures or Cooperative Program allocations, but about all of us as individual Christians getting our hearts right, our feet in motion and our tongues wagging about Jesus.

Even so, I believe it is very important for us to use every means possible for reaching those here at home as well which includes making use of various missions and church strengthening organizations to help us be more effective as individual Christians and churches.  To me it’s a matter of recognizing the need and then trying to come up with the best approach possible for meeting that need.

First, let me address the need. All any of us who live in the United States needs to do, no matter where we live, is to drive around our communities, read a newspaper or turn on the television for 15 minutes to see that our nation is far from being reached for Christ.  Even in an old-line Southern Baptist state like Kentucky we see all kinds of lostness.  We see the lostness of individuals who have not grown up in Christian families and whose greatest exposure to Christianity is in driving by church buildings or clicking by TV preachers. We also see the lostness of individuals who have some cultural connection to Christianity, i.e. “Momma used to go to church” or “Granddaddy was a preacher,” but who have no real relationship to Christ themselves because they see themselves as “good, decent people.” We also see the lostness of individuals who are what we call here, the “de-churched.” These are individuals who were once in our churches and have probably “heard” the gospel but for various reasons, real and imagined, have drifted away and show no fruit indicating that they know the Lord.

This lostness is not imagined. It has been documented in a variety of ways. According to research conducted by NAMB, some 251 million people in the United States and Canada — that’s three out of every four — are lost. Here in Kentucky, according to research conducted by the Barna Group on behalf of the KBC, nearly 1 million Kentuckians are unchurched with another 650,000 not committed to the church on whose roll their name appears. The Association of Religious Data Archives estimated that nearly 1.9 million of Kentucky’s 4 million population in 2000 had no affiliation with any religious group. No matter how you want to cut it or whose numbers you want to use, the point is that there is a great need for missions on our own continent and in our own country and state.

So, if there are a lot of lost people all around us, isn’t reaching them the job of the local church? Yes! Definitely! Of course! Communicating to the lost who surround us is the responsibility of each Christian and each local body of believers. This means that I have a responsibility as a Christian to share personally with those in my family, neighborhood and other spheres of influence. My local church has a responsibility to share directly and as effectively as possible with all of those in its local field.

But this doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t also work together on association, state and national levels. Some strategies work best by pooling our resources. Disaster relief is a good example of this. Our volunteers go out wearing the yellow shirts to meet both the physical and spiritual needs of the people who are served. Sure, a single church can go and do a disaster relief project. But I think we all have seen that we can be much more efficient when we pool resources and coordinate our efforts.

Or, for an even more directly evangelistic example, think about the Find it Here evangelistic emphasis in which Kentucky Baptists are currently engaged. I’ve never seen a more cooperative evangelistic effort as pastors have worked through their associations to divide the geography to ensure that every household we can possibly get to will receive a gospel presentation from Southern Baptists in the weeks leading up to Easter this year. Churches, associations, the state convention, the Kentucky Woman’s Missionary Union and NAMB are working closely in a coordinated fashion that leverages the strengths of each organization for maximum effectiveness on this project.

None of this diminishes the importance of international missions though. We have a world of some 6.7 billion people out there who also need to hear about Jesus so we definitely need to draw attention to this and do all we can to reach everyone. But we’ve got to get beyond wrestling among ourselves for limited resources (which I think is really the bottom line of this myth) and seek instead to enlarge the pot.

For instance, right now on average here in Kentucky, 93 cents of every undesignated dollar that a person puts into the offering plate, stays in the local community for local church operations, ministries and missions. That leaves 7 cents to be divided among the state conventions and Southern Baptist Convention for all of the other work that takes place across the nation and world. And where we’ve ended up in part with the GCR is a scramble for how best to divide up that 7 cents. At times it reminds me of football players trying to recover a fumble on a muddy field.

But what I am most reminded of right now is Jesus’s feeding of the 5,000. When we serve a Lord that took five small loaves and two fish, fed 5,000 men (plus women and children) and then had the disciples collect 12 baskets of leftovers, why are we so worried over the finances of missions? Isn’t our God rich enough to supply the funds needed to meet all of the needs?

I believe SBC President Johnny Hunt got it right when he called all Southern Baptists to a special day of prayer on Jan. 31. And I hope the praying goes on and on and on because I am convinced that when God senses that our hearts are truly broken for the lost and that we have all given up on striving for our own agendas or defending turf, He will open the floodgates of heaven and show us His power in a way that none of us can imagine.

That’s when we’ll know that missions is international, national and as local as the house next door.

–Robert Reeves

Previous Posts in this Series:

• Great Commission Myth Busting
• State Conventions Stretched, Not Bloated

In my last post on Appalachian Regional Ministry, I mentioned that a number of Eastern Kentucky ministries are led by Mission Service Corps missionaries. MSC is a task force of missionaries who give full or part time service for two years or more.

They provide their own support in an assigned mission, church planting or evangelism ministry. The missionaries are commissioned by the North American Mission Board and those in Kentucky receive ongoing prayer support, training, coordination and some financial support from the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

Watch the video above to learn more or, if you’re seeing this post on a platform that doesn’t display the embedded video, you can view it by clicking on the link below:

Mission Service Corps in Kentucky — Answer the Call

You’ll also find more information at the NAMB site for Mission Service Corps.

What about you? Are you being called to direct missions through Mission Service Corps or another volunteer missions program?

Missionaries Greg and Alice Whitetree of the North American Mission Board, who serve at the Freeda Harris Baptist Center in Lookout, Ky., provide after-school programs, emergency food and clothing for people in the community as part of Southern Baptists' Appalachian Regional Ministry. (NAMB photo by Carol Pipes.)

The world has tremendous needs and Baptists are right to think long and hard about the best ways to ensure that every dollar given is used to spread the Gospel. This has led us to think primarily about international missions in the current focus on the Great Commission Resurgence. I think it’s equally important for us to think about the work that still must done in our own backyards as well.

One of those backyards for us here in Kentucky is the Appalachian region of our state where some very fine people struggle in a very difficult economic climate. It’s a place that many Southern Baptists think is “reached” because belief in God is widespread. But the fact is, Appalachia is one of the most unchurched parts of our nation and a place where faith is often more cultural than personal.

Part of fulfilling the Great Commission for Kentucky Baptists, therefore, has to be to reach out to our neighbors within our own borders. One of the ways we do this is through a partnership known as the Appalachian Regional Ministry, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. A.R.M. is a cooperative effort between 13 state conventions through which the Appalachian Mountains run and the North American Mission Board. Local Baptist associations are also heavily involved in the related ministries within their borders.

It’s led by NAMB Missionary Bill Barker and focuses on changing lives both physically and spiritually. Barker coordinates a wide variety of ministries to meet needs and win souls. Food pantries, clothes closets, literacy missions projects, medical missions projects, church planting efforts and other ministries are used to show people that God cares.

A.R.M. is funded by the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering but as much as anything it is driven by Baptists who are willing to go on mission themselves. Some 450,000 volunteers have participated in missions projects over the past 10 years. According to a recent Baptist Press story, these volunteers have “tackled 10,000 home repairs, partnered with 100 ministry centers and assisted 100 church planters.” And many of the ministry centers operate rely on the commitment of Mission Service Corps volunteer missionaries for leadership.

The work so far has been outstanding but there is still much to do. It’s exciting to be a part of this Great Commission enterprise through the KBC.

Here’s the story about A.R.M.’s 10th anniversary from Baptist Press:

HURRICANE, W.Va. (BP)–Winding roads and switchback curves punctuated by tiny hamlets mark the landscape of Appalachia — a 205,000-square-mile, mountainous stretch from Alabama to New York. The region covers all of West Virginia and parts of 11 other states, including 39 of the nation’s 100 poorest counties.

The steep mountains and rugged roads have kept Appalachians isolated from the rest of the country and from outsiders’ involvement in their lives, contributing to a distinct mountain culture.

It’s been 44 years since Lyndon Johnson declared his “War on Poverty” from a ramshackle porch in Inez, Ky. Since then, the region has seen quite a bit of progress, but the current economic crisis in the U.S. has made a tough situation worse. More and more families are finding it difficult to make ends meet. In Clay County, Ky., for example, the median income per household is less than $21,000 a year, with 41.9 percent of the population living below the poverty line.

But hope comes in the form of food, clothing, missionaries and volunteer labor as Southern Baptists wrap their arms around Appalachia.

Missionary Bill Barker (left) stops by to check on God's Appalachian Partnership directed by Mission Service Corps missionary Lynn Wagoner (right). GAP assists families with food as well as clothing, personal products, household items and cleaning supplies, many of which can't be bought with food stamps. They also provide job training and home repairs. Every person who comes through the door hears the Gospel -- with more than 300 decisions for Christ in 10 years. (NAMB photo by Carol Pipes.)

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Appalachian Regional Ministry (A.R.M.). Led by North American Mission Board national missionary Bill Barker, A.R.M. combines church planting, home repair, food pantries, clothing closets, evangelism, literacy and medical missions in an effort to impact lives in Appalachia with the Gospel. What began as the dream of one man, James Porch, executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, has now flourished into a network of ministries across the region.

“Traveling into the area to preach in rural mountain churches or visiting directors of missions, a consciousness prevailed and beckoned me each time I left the area,” Porch said. “I knew we needed to find a way to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the people living in the hills of Tennessee and the rest of Appalachia.

“These people — often victims on a corporate ledger sheet of a coal company and short-term memory of well-intended benevolent efforts — clarified a question I felt responsible to answer,” Porch said. “Could Baptists of the Appalachian states come there ready to honor the mountain culture, minister alongside the folk, share Christ and join in responding to the suffering caused by poverty, harsh weather, limited educational opportunities and seasons of despair? The answer is the current state of the Appalachian Regional Ministry.”

From the beginning, A.R.M. was a state convention executive director-driven ministry, working closely with the local Baptist associations and churches. Today, A.R.M. entails a partnership of 13 state conventions, the North American Mission Board and Woman’s Missionary Union and is is supported through the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions.

Click here to read the full Baptist Press story.