Macedonia Baptist Church, Ranburne, uses unusual year to cast new vision for missions

Morgan Bailey said his church is missions-minded — and in a year of change with the COVID-19 pandemic, that was something they wanted to hold onto.

The church gives 11% of its budget to the Cooperative Program, while investing a total of 20% of their budget in missions, and they wanted to keep that going. They also wanted to keep up giving to special missions offerings, as well as funds for missionaries they support individually.

Bailey said by faith God helps churches like his do both.

And even though Macedonia Baptist Church, Ranburne — the church where he is pastor — wasn’t able to schedule any group trips this year, they used it as a chance for some vision-casting.

This summer, Bailey and Kris Henderson, who serves as associate pastor for discipleship and students at Macedonia, visited Honduras and Guatemala to talk with partners about starting new works.

‘God worked it out’

“Kris came out of a work there in Honduras. He was a missionary there,” Bailey said. “God worked it out where he ended up with us.”

Henderson was able to connect Macedonia with some underserved areas in Honduras, where church members can come alongside local pastors to hold Vacation Bible School, dental clinics or other events to meet needs.

While they were there, Bailey and Henderson also led a pastors’ conference and shared the gospel with a group of local policemen. Then in Guatemala, they met with pastors Bailey had known from his previous pastorate at Canaan Baptist Church, Bessemer.

One pastor — Oscar Lopez — has planted several churches in recent years, and Bailey hopes Macedonia can go back next year and hold VBS at each of those.

During the trip, Bailey and Henderson also delivered portions of an offering at several points along their journey, which was collected for children’s ministry during Macedonia’s VBS.

“It was from our children to their children,” Bailey said.