Alabama churches take on Acts 1:8 Challenge

More than 1,000 Southern Baptist churches and 76 Alabama Baptist churches have committed to a new Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) missions initiative designed to help them implement a comprehensive missions strategy involving their community, region, continent and the world.
   
Launched in May 2004, the Acts 1:8 Challenge calls for SBC churches to move to a new level of missions commitment by cooperating with their local Baptist association, state convention, the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and International Mission Board (IMB). Acts 1:8 is the passage in which Christ instructs His followers to carry the gospel to “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.” Those four realms correspond to the local community, the state, the nation and the world.
   
Churches accepting the challenge commit to eight “Kingdom-growing” responses as they work to intentionally carry out the challenge: to prepare, learn, pray, give, go, tell, send and multiply.
   
Among the 1,087 churches registering their commitment to the Acts 1:8 Challenge are the eight-member Deering Baptist Church in North Dakota and the 14,000-member Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C., demonstrating that Jesus’ Great Commission challenge can be embraced by churches of any size and location.
   
That is what Nanafalia Baptist Church in Bethel Baptist Association discovered as it went through the Acts 1:8 doctrinal study led by its missions-minded pastor, Randy Daniels. “I want (the church) to understand we can make a difference in people’s lives,” Daniels said.
   
He noted that as the church, which averages 25–30 in attendance, went through the study, “some folks became more aware of the fact that we’re part of something larger than just our own church.”
   
As a result, the church has begun a prayer ministry, focusing on their local community, sister churches in the association and missionary efforts. It has also begun to raise money for specific efforts such as Operation Christmas Child.
   
“I’d like to see us come to the point where we can raise enough money to build a church in India,” Daniels said, noting that enterprise would take about $3,000.
   
Results like this show Reggie Quimby, director of global partnerships and volunteers in missions for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM), that “(Alabama’s) churches are coming along and developing (the challenge).”
   
So far, Alabama is fourth in the nation in number of churches registered, following Texas, Georgia and Florida. “It is a tremendous challenge for all of our churches,” Quimby said. “This is a missions mandate.”
   
Rick Lance, SBOM executive director, said the strategy is “both biblical and practical … rooted in the challenge Christ has given us to be His witnesses.”
   
It is this practicality that is the challenge’s strength, according to Nate Adams, author of the 2005 Baptist doctrine study focusing on Acts 1:8. “The Acts 1:8 Challenge is becoming what many of us hoped it would — a single, simplified missions message that every church can understand, and a strategic, biblical missions model that every church can embrace,” said Adams, vice president of the mission mobilization group at NAMB.
   
When a church commits to the challenge, it receives a packet of resources to help develop a comprehensive and intentional missions strategy. Resources include a sermon outline, bulletin insert, video clips, PowerPoint presentations and a 60-page leadership guide. Additionally churches receive specialized ongoing communications and updates from Acts 1:8 partners.
   
These resources have been helpful for New Bethel Baptist Church, Collinsville, in Lookout Mountain Baptist Association.
   
Pastor Daniel Lawson said the church, which averages about 60 in weekly attendance, has just begun the challenge, signing up about three months ago. “I’ve used information from the Web site, and the software they send has information and surveys that have been really helpful in the community,” he said.
   
For the time being, the church is employing some familiar methods of reaching their Jerusalem and Judea, visiting homes in the area and seeking ways to work with sister churches in the association.
   
But the church has dreams of moving into national and international missions, Lawson said. “We’re a local church with a heart for the world,” he said. “It’s not just Lookout Mountain we’re concerned with, we’re concerned with our state, nation and the whole world.”
   
Lawson said the church is looking at participating in an associational missions trip planned for next summer and is seeking to increase its giving to missions offerings such as the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.
   
The IMB hopes the Acts 1:8 Challenge will inspire churches to take the gospel throughout the world. “This expansion of leadership structure allows people to focus on the area of missions that stirs their hearts and passion,” said Jerry Daniel, leader of IMB’s church and partner services group. “God is awakening the church and people are finding significant ministry opportunities through the Acts 1:8 Challenge.”
   
Sid Nichols, director of missions for Calhoun Baptist Association, said he hopes the challenge will inspire participating churches to “get involved in their own Jerusalem.”
   
Nichols said the association is encouraging its churches to participate in the challenge by doing the doctrinal study and promoting it to pastors individually. “This is a fresh way to remind people that missions is more than giving to a special offering.” 
   
Doing more than giving to an offering was the burden of Pastor Richard Statham’s heart when he found the Acts 1:8 Challenge.
   
“That verse has been in my mind for several years as a pivotal verse that we need to direct our churches through,” he said. When he discovered the challenge and doctrinal study, he found what he had been looking for, Statham said.
   
The church is doing the doctrinal study now and already has several ideas for implementing the challenge, he said. “We’re excited about it and looking for opportunities and things we can do,” Statham said.
   
The church has begun looking for a missions director to coordinate the church’s contacts with leadership on the associational, state, national and international levels. “That’s really what the Acts 1:8 Challenge is about, getting churches involved in the various levels of missions,” he said.
   
Pastors and missions leaders interested in more information about the Acts 1:8 Challenge or who want to register their church may visit www.ActsOne8.com or call 1-800-4ACTS18 (1-800-422-8718). (BP, Erin Webster contributed)