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

Dr. Bill Mackey

Dr. Bill Mackey, executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, released a column today in the Western Recorder newspaper as well as on his own blog, Partners in the Mission, regarding the upcoming report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force to be received by messengers to Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, June 15-16. Here’s a re-post of his thoughts:

GCR Challenges

The report from the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force includes some great challenges for Southern Baptists. As we think about these challenges and recommendations, I believe the original GCR motion provides an excellent framework to help us.

The original motion commissioned the group to bring a report and any recommendations “… concerning how Southern Baptists can work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.”

One part of that challenge asks how we can be more “faithful.” Southern Baptists have always been committed to the Great Commission, and we must not forget that we are a missionary people. When I think about the Great Commission, I immediately ask how I can be more faithful. I am sure that the Task Force members have done the same. At a minimum, I believe this involves tithing through one’s local church as well as living and sharing the Gospel for a lifetime.

The motion also asked how we can be more “effective.” There is no question about the need for every Southern Baptist, church and denominational entity to be more effective. Too much is at stake for our work to be conducted in any manner other than the most effective way possible.

This is an opportunity to make significant adjustments. State conventions have been challenged to absorb the costs of missions work funded through cooperative agreements with the North American Mission Board. (At present, state conventions and NAMB share these costs.) If approved, Kentucky will need to absorb $1,017,000, along with insurance benefits for missionaries. At the same time, state conventions are being challenged to increase the percentage of Cooperative Program funds designated for Southern Baptist Convention causes.

NAMB has been given a big challenge to lead the way in church planting, evangelism, discipleship and leadership development to reach North America for Christ. Under the proposed plan, NAMB will have about $50 million more to work with by ending the cooperative agreements with 42 state conventions. However, it will also have fewer missionaries and fewer total funds to leverage due to the loss of the agreements with the states.

NAMB will also need to enlist and train church planters and other staff, and to seek out other partners. The leadership at NAMB and the new president deserve our prayers and best support.

Another challenge in the motion was for Southern Baptists to be more faithful and effective “together.” As we seek to move beyond a season of debate that has sometimes involved harsh words and uninformed statements, we must rely on God’s grace in order to move forward together. This will require much humility and prayer by everyone.

We must recognize the challenge to stay in touch with the silent majority in Southern Baptist life who just want to do missions. If their concerns are ignored over a long period of time, they are more likely to vote with their pocketbooks. We need to make sure all Southern Baptists and all size churches are represented.

I encourage Kentucky Baptists to read the report for themselves and to vote according to their convictions in Orlando. This is not a time to pick sides and question motives, but rather to trust our sovereign God and move forward together, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Regardless of how you may vote and how the vote goes in Orlando, I pray we will all determine to grow more faithful and effective in our service to Christ. After all, this is what we should be doing even if there had never been a GCRTF.

–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

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.

Dr. John Mark Toby, KBC President

The Great Commission will certainly be in the forefront of Tuesday’s annual meeting of the Kentucky Baptist Convention which will convene at Severns Valley Baptist Church in Elizabethtown. More than 1,000 messengers and guests are expected for the meeting with the theme “Find it Here: Sharing Christ Across Kentucky.”

Here are some of the expected areas of Great Commission focus:

• “Find it Here” theme interpretations – Messengers will be hearing a lot about the “Find it Here” door-to-door evangelism campaign with theme interpretations set for each session as well as a special report on plans for the spring campaign during the morning session. The KBC is coordinating the “Find it Here” campaign in conjunction with Kentucky associations, churches and the North American Mission Board. This initiative is part of the GPS (God’s Plan for Sharing) strategy that NAMB is using to reach every person in the United States and Canada with the Good News of Jesus Christ by 2020.
  
• Agency and institution reports – KBC agencies and institutions receiving Cooperative Program funds will each have an opportunity to report on their work. With all of the discussion on the Great Commission Resurgence this year, you can count on each organization to highlight the role it plays in helping Kentucky Baptists reach the world. The Kentucky Baptist Mission Board and the two Southern Baptist Convention mission boards — the North American Mission Board and International Mission Board — will also report. NAMB’s report will be presented by Jason Pettus, a NAMB board member and pastor of the KBC’s top CP-giving church — Living Hope Baptist Church in Bowling Green.
• Appointment of a Great Commission Task Force for the KBC – Assuming the KBC Mission Board approves the recommendation of its Administrative Committee when it meets on Monday afternoon, KBC messengers will have the opportunity to vote on a proposal to ask KBC President John Mark Toby (who is also serving as first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention) to appoint a Great Commission Task Force for the state. The task force would be asked to study “how Kentucky Baptists can work more faithfully and effectively together in serving Christ through the Great Commission.” The task force would bring its report and any recommendations it might have to messengers attending the 2010 annual meeting at Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington.
• Cooperative Program focus – Messengers will be asked to approve a budget goal of $23.5 million that increases the allocation to SBC ministries to 38 percent. The current year budget divides CP gifts three ways with the SBC receiving 37.32 percent, the Kentucky Baptist Mission Board receiving 36.83 percent and the Christian education and KBC entities receiving 25.85 percent. The increase to the SBC allocation continues several years of incremental increases. The KBC will also be recognizing its top CP giving churches in the categories of total giving and per capita giving as well as those churches who have hit million dollar milestones in total CP giving. The convention will also present the annual Distinguished CP Leadership Award to one individual who has demonstrated longterm leadership in supporting missions through the Cooperative Program.
• Sermons – The annual meeting will feature three major sermons and all are likely to focus in one way or another on the Great Commission. Toby will bring his President’s Address during the morning session while Dr. Al Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and member of the SBC’s GCR Task Force will preach the Convention Sermon on Tuesday afternoon. Dr. Jay Strack, the president and founder of Student Leadership University will speak on Tuesday night. Strack is the author of several highly acclaimed books, including: The Three Success Secrets of Shamgar and Good Kids Who Do Bad Things, and the editor of three study Bibles: The Transformer, True Love Waits, and IMPACT. He has been a highly sought after speaker for NBA and NFL training rooms, Walmart, NASA, Johnson & Johnson, Chick-fil-A, the Air Force Academy, NASA and many others. He has  been asked to lead a special time of commitment for the “Find it Here” evangelism emphasis.

The annual meeting looks to be both productive and inspirational. If you are in Kentucky and close enough to come, I encourage you to come join us!

Excitement continues to build for “Find it Here,” a major evangelism initiatve that the Kentucky Baptist Convention is coordinating in conjunction with Kentucky associations, churches and the North American Mission Board. This initiative is part of the GPS (God’s Plan for Sharing) strategy that NAMB is using to help us reach every person in the United States and Canada with the Good News of Jesus Christ by 2020.

We estimate that we have about 1.5 million households in Kentucky and we have just placed an order for 1.4 million special Gospel presentation brochures that will be delivered door-to-door by some 50,000 volunteers from Kentucky churches. To accomplish this, directors of missions and association moderators have worked with the pastors in their association to divide the geographic area of each association among the participating churches for the purposes of the Gospel distribution. The Gospel messages will be delivered between March 6 and March 21, 2010.

At the same time the Gospel brochures are being distributed on the ground, the North American Mission Board and the Kentucky Baptist Convention will be providing air support through a major national media campaign. We are in the process of finalizing the details of this campaign now and I’ll be writing more about this soon.

Many churches have already begun preparing the ground for the Gospel seed to be planted next March by prayerwalking their communities, providing witness training for their members, working to improve “first impressions” at their facilities and setting up new compassion/servant ministries so that they can minister effectively when people respond and visit the church. Church Sunday school programs will be heavily involved in the follow-up portion of “Find it Here.”

Please pray that the Lord will give a major harvest as a result of this strategic Great Commission effort here in Kentucky.

For more about “Find it Here” in Kentucky, visit the KBC Web site at www.kybaptist.org/findithere. Resources from NAMB are being posted at www.gps2020.net.

You can also preview the Web site that’s been designed to help lost people find Christ as part of “Find it Here” at www.findithere.com.