From Birmingham to Maine, Asia and Africa, Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Birmingham, is expanding its missions reach further than ever in an effort to raise up a new generation of missions volunteers.
At a business meeting Oct. 5 the church voted unanimously to accept the Major Missions Projects plan, a five-year missions strategy consisting of five projects that will require roughly $5 million.
Plans for the Major Missions Projects initiative have been in the works for several months, according to Ben Hale, evangelism and missions pastor at Dawson. In fact the idea for a missions campaign in addition to the church’s regular Cooperative Program (CP) giving has been around since 2007, though plans for the newly adopted program began in earnest about two years ago.
“The missions (committee) began to discuss specific ideas about how the church might be challenged to go over, above and beyond for missions, which led to the Major Missions Projects,” Hale said.
The five projects fit within the church’s Acts 1:8 missions strategy. To reach the local community, Dawson will create a ministry center to meet physical and spiritual needs in Birmingham.
Dawson also will partner with the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and the Maine Baptist Association to plant at least five new churches and provide training for existing churches and ministries in Maine, which is considered one of the least Christian states in the United States, according to a Gallup poll taken earlier this year.
The remaining three projects will involve partnerships with International Mission Board (IMB) representatives. In North Africa, Dawson will assist Baptist missionaries in their efforts to plant churches and disciple believers. In Tanzania, Dawson will construct and equip a pediatric wing for the Kigoma Baptist Hospital and send medical teams to help at the hospital. A second building project will provide funds for construction at a Baptist hospital and a middle school in Southeast Asia.
In selecting the projects the Dawson missions team considered the church’s vision statement, the church’s people and financial resources and existing relationships with IMB and NAMB representatives, Hale said.
The projects will supplement CP efforts and will be fully funded by offerings and pledges given in addition to regular tithes and offerings. Supporters will fund the missions campaign between January 2015 and May 2018 but the projects will begin according to finances and needs, Hale said. He added that no debt will be incurred to support the projects.
Michael Lytle, a deacon at Dawson and chairman of the church’s finance committee, said the process has truly been a team effort. He added that the unanimous approval of the projects reflects church members’ excitement about the plan.
“The plan was really born out of (the vision) to take missions into every level of our congregation, as well as around the world,” Lytle said. “Whether someone can give an hour, a week or a month, drive across the street or fly around the world, we want everyone to be able to get involved.”
One of the goals for the projects is to be good stewards of the financial resources God has provided and to involve the Dawson church family in missions, according to Pastor Gary Fenton.
“Dawson is not a good spectator church, in that we expect every member to find a way to serve,” Fenton said. “We seek to provide strategies that give people an opportunity to do the will of God through local and international missions.”
In the past Dawson members have participated in short- and long-term missions projects in Birmingham and other places around the nation and world, Fenton said. The Major Missions Projects is a way to further engage church members in the Great Commission, he said.
“We are seeking to teach that doing missions is a Christian moral imperative and intentionally teaching that missions is not doing good for God, but the inevitable response of a person who has received God’s grace,” Fenton said.
The Major Missions Projects initiative will stretch the Dawson church family in both giving and volunteering, Fenton said, especially since the church does not plan to reduce any of its ongoing missions and ministry projects. Fenton calls the plan a “risk-taking adventure with God.”
“The church is not naïve about this. We are fully aware that we cannot do this but that God can,” he said. “I think this is the most exciting chapter in the church’s history.”
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