Florida
World Changers, once a national Southern Baptist ministry, is now an independently owned nonprofit ministry based in Panama City, Florida, the Florida Baptist Witness reported. World Changers was birthed in 1990 at the Southern Baptist Brotherhood Commission, transitioned to the North American Mission Board in 1997 and then to Lifeway Christian Resources in 2011 before being discontinued as a Southern Baptist ministry in May 2020. Since 1990, more than 400,000 teenagers have participated in the weeklong World Changers experience that challenges teams of young people to repair homes, often in impoverished neighborhoods, while also sharing the gospel with community residents.
Kentucky
When Jerry Foster, bivocational pastor of Rush Chapel Baptist Church, learned the electricity was going to be out in his church in northeastern Kentucky because of recent storms, he knew where to turn, Kentucky Today reported. Foster, a first responder and volunteer for the Norton Branch Fire Department near his church, called and asked the fire chief if his church could have its Sunday morning service in the firehouse. “We pulled two fire trucks out of the bay and set up chairs. We had a full service,” Foster said.
North Carolina
One was a young church plant that was outgrowing its meeting space, and the other was an older congregation in decline. To be faithful to their mission of reaching people with the gospel, the two churches merged. “I am beyond amazed … to watch what God has done,” said Tony Ferguson, a member of the church plant, Mercy Church, before its merger with Candlewyck Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Today, with church planting in its DNA, according to Pastor Spence Shelton, Mercy Church plans to launch two more churches, plant two Mercy campuses and send 10 international missionaries, the Biblical Recorder reported.
South Carolina
How can a small, rural Southern Baptist church — in the middle of a pandemic — build and move into a new sanctuary debt-free? Leaders at Lowndesville Baptist Church in rural Abbeville County, South Carolina, believe that “God gave the vision [of a new building], and then God miraculously provided the resources,” Pastor Fred Griggs said. God’s provision came through a member’s bequest and estate gift as well as the hands-on involvement of a current member who oversaw the building project, the Baptist Courier reported. “It’s all been a work of God,” Griggs said.
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