Alabama Baptist churches healthy, Lance reports

The state of life and missions purpose of Alabama among Alabama churches is wholesome and healthy,” Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM), told messengers attending the state convention annual meeting in Huntsville.
   
“Thank you for being on mission with the Great Commission,” Lance said as he delivered his report to convention messengers.
   
Lance pointed to disaster relief as one example of where Alabama Baptists have stepped up as leaders. “We are by far the number three disaster relief [group] in the world.” 
   
Alabama Baptists are involved in relief efforts at all levels, he said, noting Alabama areas still recovering from 2004’s Hurricane Ivan; areas hit by hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida; and areas in southeast Asia devastated by the 2004 tsunami.
   
Alabama Baptists have given $2.4 million to disaster relief efforts since Katrina, Lance said. Of that, $2.1-plus million has been distributed to recovery efforts in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, he said. “For every dollar spent in the state, we tried to match it outside the state.”
   
Lance also reported that the 2004 budget rebounded from 2003, when the convention fell just short of budget. Total receipts for 2004 were $63,285,930, he said. Of that, $35,085,116 was funneled to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) through the Cooperative Program, Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, World Hunger Fund and as SBC designation.
   
“If we take all those receipts, 55.44 percent of every dollar went out of Alabama,” Lance said, noting that the 2005 budget reflected a 2.65 percent increase in the budget and a 2.75 percent increase was projected for the 2006 budget. “It will be a record year for us with the 2006 budget,” he noted.
   
Lance also recognized Baptist leaders in Venezuela attending the convention as Alabama Baptists wrap up the six-year partnership with the National Baptist Convention of Venezuela (see story, page 3).
   
“We are transitioning in our partnerships,” he said, noting the proposed new partnerships with Ukraine and Guatemala.
   
Recognizing Reggie Quimby, team leader for the SBOM’s missions mobilization team, Lance explained that Quimby is the point person in all of Alabama Baptists’ endeavors with partnerships.
   
“Reggie is one of the basic ingredients of success in our partnerships,” he said.
   
The missions mobilization team as well as the other teams at the SBOM have structured all that they do from the three priorities of the SBOM — One mission, the Great Commission; one program, the Cooperative Program; many ministries, Great Commission ministries.
   
“This mission is a mission from on high,” Lance said. “It didn’t come to us from Washington … Montgomery … Nashville or any other locale except from on high. It is His mission to us. 
   
“This is our message from on high,” he said, as he read from Colossians. “We have a message in our hearts. If we don’t have a message in our heart, we won’t have our heart in the message.
   
“Intentional Evangelism is a way of stating what we are to be doing in making disciples for Christ,” Lance said, noting that 2 million of Alabama’s 4.5 million people are unchurched. “This is an opportunity to evangelize, disciple and develop leaders.”
   
Pointing to Southern Baptists’ Acts 1:8 strategy, he said, “we have a map in our hands … for our Jerusalem (church and association), Judea (the state), Samaria (the nation) and the ends of the earth (internationally).”
   
But in recent days, Lance said, Acts 1:8 has become Acts 8:1, where it notes persecution of the saints scattered across the world. He said Katrina, Rita and Wilma scattered millions of people across the Southeast and the United States.
   
“Acts 1:8 has to be our strategy for an Acts 8:1 world,” Lance said.