Learn to share your faith and disciple others to share their faith. It’s tested and proven, said Lawrence Phipps, pastor of First Baptist Gulf Shores and founder of It’s Life Ministry.
Phipps has been producing and polishing It’s Life materials for nearly 15 years. The current nine-week evangelism and discipleship training resource caught the attention of leaders at the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, and a partnership has blossomed.
Together, Phipps and SBOM representatives Rob Jackson and Daniel Edmonds will lead a three-day training event for church leaders in late January.
Interest is already building from the surrounding states as well.
Focusing together on strategy
Jackson, director of SBOM’s office of evangelism and church revitalization, said, “We’ve been praying through how we can have Alabama Baptists reaching more people once again for the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s such a critical time. Look at our world, we are in turmoil. The only solution is Jesus Christ. We’ve got to be out there sharing the love of Christ.
“What was different back in 2001 when we had the most baptisms since the 1970s? I think one of the things is we, as Alabama Baptists and as the Southern Baptist Convention, had one strategy instead of a lot of different hooks,” he said.
“As we began to pray through it, we decided we want to return to one strategy — a simple, workable strategy, not just training in evangelism but also disciple making.
“That’s the strategy, and that’s what Lawrence has done,” Jackson said, noting It’s Life also pairs well with other resources like 3 Circles. “Lawrence was one of the first Evangelism Explosion trainers. He was with Faith, and now It’s Life.
“We would like for Alabama Baptists to increase baptisms from 13,000 last year to 23,000 by 2033,” Jackson added. “If we are going to do this, we need one strategy. That’s why we are getting behind It’s Life, not just Alabama but several of the surrounding states such as Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida as well. We want our states and this nation reached for Jesus Christ.”
‘On-the-job training’
Phipps described the nine-week experience as “on-the-job training” and looks forward to sharing it.
The Jan. 24–26 event begins with Sunday night dinner at the church. Training takes place Monday and Tuesday and wraps up with teams going out in the neighborhood to do door-to-door visiting Tuesday evening.
“Leaders will go with the teams as they go out. They won’t be on their own,” Phipps said. “I want them to go home excited.”
The Life gospel presentation follows this pattern:
God is Love. People are Imperfect. Jesus offers Forgiveness. We can have Eternal life.
“We need an evangelism and equipping process in Southern Baptist life, and several have told me this one works,” Phipps noted.
How to plan
He suggests churches work up to holding three semesters of the trainings each year, but to start slow and build. He hopes those attending the January event will return home and launch their first semester in March.
Phipps also encourages pastors to bring between one and three others from his church with him to the training if possible.
The cost is $25 per participant, which covers three meals, and $50 for the church’s resource kit (a $100 value reduced because of the partnership with SBOM). Only one kit needed per church.
Also, First Baptist Gulf Shores is providing free lodging for the first 10 bivocational pastors who sign up. Bivocational pastors will likely lose time at work and possibly take a reduction in pay to attend, so the church wants to help.
The training is limited to 77 churches, so Phipps and Jackson urge those interested to sign up early.
“The way you know if you’ve made a disciple is if they can disciple someone else,” Phipps shared with The Alabama Baptist. “We want everyone to be able to share their faith and be able to pass it on … be able to teach others (Tim. 2:2).”
For more information and to register visit alsbom.org/event/its-life-clinic — use the code 1010 to receive the discounted price for the resource kit.
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