Reaching the lost and making “disciples of all nations” can be easier said than done, especially if church leaders don’t know how or where to begin outreach efforts.
But the North American Mission Board (NAMB) hopes to simplify the process for congregations of all sizes with the Associational Church Planting Backpack.
A new multilevel interactive tool, the backpack focuses on readiness, enlistment, equipping and multiplication to help churches be the “hands and feet” of the Holy Spirit.
“It’s not a matter of whether God wants spiritual revival to come to our churches or if we should go out and win other people to Him, He has told us that,” said Les Dobbins, a coordinator on the resource development and deployment team of the church-planting group at NAMB. “It’s how we do it.”
With a goal of giving every person in Alabama “the opportunity to hear the gospel, respond in faith in Christ and participate in a culturally appropriate New Testament fellowship of believers,” the backpack encourages churches to focus first on making believers aware of God’s call on their lives and helping them understand lostness.
Speaking to nearly 30 directors of missions, associational staff members and pastors at the first statewide backpack training session held earlier this year at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center in Talladega, David Terry, a church-planting group coordinator with NAMB, asked them to consider those in their associations in need of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Whether “Hispanics, resort people, retired people, college students, factory workers, the down and out, unwed mothers, teenagers, foster children, drug addicted, established people, people hardened to the gospel (or) interracial couples,” Terry said, “Are there biblically faithful, culturally appropriate churches pursuing them? You can’t pursue someone unless you know about them.”
According to Dobbins, this is where the backpack’s first step comes in — helping believers see lost people from a Kingdom perspective.
“Many of our people don’t know how many lost people are in their area,” he explained. “You can’t tell people there is a need. You’ve got to show them — let them touch it, cry with it … It all has to begin in and be permeated in hearing from God and knowing His will.”
Once believers understand the need and are ready to respond, they move to enlistment — the backpack’s second step — and become actively involved in church planting.
Terry noted that with this phase, there is a difference, however, between receptivity and commitment.
“A person may be open to hear about a need (receptive) without following through on actions that address the need (committed),” he said.
“It is important that our understanding of the needs be connected to actions based on our understanding. Our actions demonstrate our response and commitment to God’s call upon us.”
Once committed, believers must be properly equipped — the backpack’s third step — for the task of effectively planting churches, according to NAMB.
“The Associational Church Planting Backpack offers the associational director of missions and church leaders a holistic, [church-planting] partnership resource,” Dobbins said. “It provides structure, guidance and tools for equipping churches and (church) planters to inform, enlist, equip and engage members in [church-planting] activities, partnerships and networks.”
The implementation of these tools leads in the direction of the backpack’s final step — multiplication, Terry added.
But intentionality is needed for multiplication to happen, he said. “In action, multiplication results in a multiplying number of believers, disciples, leaders, planters, planting teams and churches.”
For this to happen in Alabama, Gary Swafford, director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions office of associational missions and church planting, which organized the training session, told assembled leaders that believers must visualize the people “behind bars in their world of sin.”
“It’s going to take prayer, us being on our knees, and our willingness to do whatever it takes,” he said.
“We’ve got to get out of our church buildings, out of our comfort zone, and we’ve got to (realize) that we are missionaries — that we have Bibles and will preach. We can’t stay on the mountaintop. … We’ve got to go back down into the valley of human need.”
For more information on the backpack, call Otis Corbitt at 1-800-264-1225, Ext. 332.
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