State paper assists Lakeside in church ministry

Missions work has always been a main emphasis for Birmingham’s Lakeside Baptist Church. Mike McLemore, pastor of Lakeside since 1983, said, “This is a conservative, cooperative church. It is very missions minded. I believe that we have been ordained by God to be a strong missions church.”
   
Under the leadership of pastor Hugh Chambliss, Shades Mountain Baptist Church started Lakeside as a mission in 1957.
   
Lakeside has had four pastors: Julian Yuielle, Earl Tew, Ray Wood and McLemore, who first served as Lakeside’s youth minister and later as associate pastor. Missions-minded Lakeside has started churches not only in Alabama (Valleydale in north Shelby Co.) but also in the countries of Brazil, Mexico and Guatemala.
   
One missions publication that Lakeside provides to every family is The Alabama Baptist. McLemore said, “It helps our people in several ways.
   
“I believe the greatest liability of a Southern Baptist church is an uninformed (or a misinformed) church member,” he said. “The Alabama Baptist is a tremendous resource that informs us about the programs of work Southern Baptists are doing together.
  
“In The Alabama Baptist our members can get news from their local church, their association, the state, the work of the SBC in the U.S. and around the world. Instead of five different publications they have one. And the paper does a good job of covering the Baptist World Alliance,” he added.
   
“It is a tremendous asset to have The Alabama Baptist going to every member. It is a part of our stewardship emphasis. Some of the best use of our dollars is helping our people to be informed.
   
“An example is the lottery battle. Through The Alabama Baptist our people were kept informed about what the facts were, and we were able to rally our people to a great victory,” McLemore said.
   
Lakeside has had a missionary residence ministry for about 20 years.
   
The pastor noted Lakeside has just refurbished another house for missionaries that will be used beginning this fall.
   
When Ida Mae Hays came back to the UnitedStates last year after 30 years of missionary service in Brazil, she decided to make her home in Birmingham. Lakeside’s members voted to let Hays continue to use the church’s house she now occupies “as long as she needs it,” McLemore said. 
   
The church had a lot of interaction with Brazil during Birmingham Association’s 12-year partnership with Baptists of that country, sending missions teams to Brazil each of the 12 years.
   
McLemore noted that Hays said she hoped to start one church for each year she had served in the country. A total of 33 new mission churches were built in the Brasilia area during the 12-year period.
   
“It was an exciting thing, a wonderful opportunity for us to be a part of that,” McLemore said.
   
He added he feels a responsibility to do the same kind of work in “pioneer areas” of the United States. “I feel like churches our size need to be strengthening Southern Baptist work beyond the Mason-Dixon line. We would like to partner with a church in the Northeast that might need assistance in their ministries. I feel that is what this church’s niche is,” McLemore said.
   
Thirteen years ago he was influenced by the last few verses of Acts 2 to focus on five areas of ministry. “I drew a wheel with five spokes: worship, prayer, missions, doctrine (‘which includes Sunday School and discipleship’) and fellowship. We pursue excellence in those five ministry areas.”
   
While many churches target their ministries toward a particular age group, McLemore noted that Lakeside does not.
   
“We try to have a strong ministry for every age group in our area,” he said. “We want to do everything well. We want to be more focused, more intentional and certainly Holy Spirit-led in all we do.”
   
Lakeside uses The Alabama Baptist’s local edition service to deliver its newsletter each week.
   
“We have used a local edition of The Alabama Baptist about five or six years, and we have been well pleased,” McLemore said. “We had been doing our own printing. We did a cost analysis and studied what we could do. We now save postage, printing and paper costs. It is just good stewardship.
   
“Using a local edition of The Alabama Baptist saves our church thousands of dollars each year,” he said. “But the main advantage is that our members get in one publication Baptist news from our church, our association, our nation and around the world.”
   
McLemore, who is serving his second one-year term as president of the Alabama Baptist State Convention, said, “I encourage every church and association to consider using The Alabama Baptist as your primary vehicle for getting your news to your membership. It could save you a lot of money, and it just makes sense.”
   
Jane Morgan, publications specialist for Lakeside, prepares the church’s local edition newsletter. “It saves a lot of time, too,” she said, adding that The Alabama Baptist’s staff members are “very helpful” and “very patient.” 
   
Depending on its size, a church may choose to use the local edition service every week, every other week or monthly. McLemore said, “I’m grateful The Alabama Baptist works with any church of any size to meet their particular need. Churches need to look into it and see what they can do.”