Pull out your Sunday School answer — when churches give through the Cooperative Program (CP), where does the money go?
“To send missionaries.”
“To send disaster relief teams.”
“To start new churches.”
Here, it’s a pat response for a trusted system, as most Alabama Baptists are very familiar with this conduit.
At more than 80 years old and counting, the CP concept is old hat to them.
But that’s not so in Ukraine.
When Jim Swedenburg, director of the office of Cooperative Program and stewardship development for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM), taught the concept of the CP to about 300 Baptist leaders in Ukraine in late January, ears perked and eyes brightened.
“It’s still a relatively new idea to them. Some have caught the vision … and others can’t understand [how the CP works] yet,” said Reggie Quimby, director of global partnerships for the SBOM, who, along with SBOM Executive Director Rick Lance, had previously taught the CP concept to a small group of pastors during an August 2006 trip.
But the Southern Baptist concept is one that many Ukrainian Baptist leaders believe they can and should duplicate, according to Quimby. He added helping them see what that type of cooperation can do is the focus of Alabama Baptists during their three-year partnership with Ukraine, set to last through 2008.
The January leadership training meeting — Ukrainian Baptists’ first — explained what the CP was, what it could do and what it would mean to them, Quimby said.
“It’s a way for them to share the blessings God has given them with others and develop a cooperative missions strategy,” he explained.
During the meeting, Teman Knight, director of the SBOM’s office of leadership and church health, also led Bible studies focusing on team building and cooperation.
“The CP concept went hand in hand with the team concept of working together to do missions and ministry within the Ukraine,” Knight said.
This teamwork would primarily happen among the main leaders of each of Ukraine’s 25 oblasts, which are similar to states.
And even though large-scale cooperation among the oblasts is still a new concept, the fact that churches have already cooperated within their individual oblasts is something that will easily facilitate Alabama Baptists’ involvement, Quimby said.
“We (SBOM leaders) want to eventually pair every oblast with an Alabama association,” he said, noting that this is the first global partnership the state has had with a nation that already had such local associations in place.
“We are looking at long-term partnerships of our associations to the oblasts.”
And such partnerships are already taking off.
Mobile Baptist Association, for instance, has worked with the Nikolaev oblast since October 2006.
“The State Board of Missions is an excellent partner to help associations and churches participate in partnership missions,” said Thomas Wright, director of missions for Mobile Association.
He noted that since the October vision trip, the association’s leadership is focusing on three ways to help Baptists in the oblast reach out — training leaders, doing evangelistic events and planting a church.
“We are now promoting these areas and enlisting partners to join us for the next trips,” Wright said.
And Quimby is trying to increase associational interest even more.
The next SBOM vision trip to Ukraine, slated for late May, will take a group of associational leaders to prayer walk and strategize on how to cover the remaining oblasts.
“The main idea is to plant new churches in these areas,” he said.
For more information about participating in Ukraine missions efforts, call Quimby at 1-800-264-1225, Ext. 239.
State doctors to revive group, mobilize in Ukraine
A revitalized medical and dental fellowship may be a byproduct of Alabama Baptists’ partnership with Ukraine, according to Reggie Quimby, director of global partnerships for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
“We hope to help revive the fellowship in Alabama,” he said, noting that the state’s formal organization faded several years ago.
“We want to strengthen that group and our relationship with them so that we will be able to call on them to go when needed.”
Dr. Russell Eubanks, a member of First Baptist Church, Fairhope, in Baldwin Baptist Association, traveled to Ukraine in late January with Quimby and two others from the SBOM (see story, page 1).
There, Eubanks sat down with Dr. Olexander Doroshenko — a doctor, pastor and oblast leader — to plan missions work for future medical teams from Alabama.
“He has a burden on his heart to go to the underserved areas of Ukraine,” Eubanks said. “Our role in helping that is to re-form the (medical and dental) association we’ve had in the past. We nailed down some prime targets where teams can minister in Ukraine, and we hope to take … teams for a week to 10 days at a time.”
Alabama Baptist medical professionals are invited to get on board with the fellowship and its missions trips, the first of which is tentatively planned for September.
“People will take medical care without suspicions, so you can slip in a dose of Jesus,” Eubanks said.
For more information about participating in a medical missions trip to Ukraine or joining the state Baptist medical and dental fellowship, call Quimby at 1-800-264-1225, Ext. 239. (TAB)
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