Alabama Baptists should intensify their efforts to reach the state for Christ with spiritual devotion, creativity and loving ministry.
That’s according to speakers who addressed various gatherings of more than 600 registered participants during the annual Associational Leadership Conference at Shocco Springs Conference Center recently.
The participants included associational missionaries, also known as directors of missions (DOM); volunteer leaders, many of whom were elected to serve as associational directors of such areas as Sunday School, Discipleship Training, evangelism, music and WMU; and state missionaries from the State Board of Missions (SBOM).
Larry Felkins, director of missions of Chilton Baptist Association, acknowledged that ministry can be challenging in today’s world but pointed to a key in dealing with problems.
“The closer I get to God, the better able I am to cope with my circumstances,” Felkins said. “Wait upon the Lord. This is not a passive thing. It’s an active thing. … It’s a call to action. It means getting in step with God. Whenever He moves, we go with God; we move with Him.”
Gary Swafford, a state missionary in the SBOM office of associational/cooperative missions and a former DOM, called for creativity in reaching people for Christ.
“Our culture is changing so much that it’s literally a moving target,” Swafford noted. “There are so many people groups that have different lifestyles. We’re facing difficulties we’ve never faced before.”
Church planting needs to change with the times, Swafford explained.
Diversifying approach
“It’s time for us to diversify our approaches in terms of how we start churches. We need to continue the traditional way of starting churches, but we must do more if we are to impact the unreached people in Alabama.”
Swafford suggested an “indigenous church-planting movement” designed to reach people in multihousing communities is essential to saturating Alabama with the gospel. He noted that more than 1.7 million of the state’s residents live in such areas and that 90 percent are unchurched.
SBOM Executive Director Rick Lance, asked participants to consider involvement in the statewide “Partners on Mission” three-fold emphasis of praying, giving and going.
“This means saying to the world what it needs to hear and experience: ‘I love you,’ which is God’s first message,” Lance said. “We need to claim the opportunities to go through every door and share a life-changing message.”
Mike McLemore, pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church, Birmingham, spoke to the group on the subject of “Jesus on Leadership.”
“When you lead, you must lead by example,” said McLemore, who is first vice president of the state convention. “Jesus washed His disciples’ feet. Never see yourself as too good to do any kind of ministry that would meet the needs of another human being.”
(ABSC)
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