‘The uttermost part of the earth’

How does a  pastor take a church that struggles financially from week to week and get it excited about participating in missions in an Acts 1:8 kind of way?

This is the question that sounded in Pastor Mike Holcomb’s head as he considered expanding his church’s focus from Jerusalem into “the uttermost part of the earth.”

It was a question that, for Westwood Baptist Church, Alexandria, in Calhoun Baptist Association, was answered with a challenge by a friend and a mentoring program.

“I was worried about how to take a church with a missions budget of zero (beyond the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong missions offerings) and how to get it interested in Acts 1:8 overnight,” Holcomb said, referring to the Great Commission as stated in that verse. “Overnight turned into 15 months.”

That is 15 months of preparation, planning and mentorship by Global Focus, a parachurch organization that partners with the International Mission Board (IMB), the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and national Woman’s Missionary Union to help churches hold Global Impact Celebrations (GIC).

Reggie Quimby, director of the office of global partnerships and volunteers in missions for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM), noted that many churches in Alabama partner either with Global Focus or SBOM to hold missions fairs for congregations.

He also noted that the state’s 75 associations are on five-year rotations to hold On Mission Celebrations, which are missions conferences held associationwide and involve all the churches in the area (see story, this page).

“These are important, because if a church does not have ongoing missions awareness and education, how is it going to do missions effectively?” Quimby asked.

For Westwood Baptist, reaching out has rarely been a problem. According to Holcomb, the church has been consistently ranked within the top 25 in evangelism in the state.

The problem, however, came when it was time to look beyond the city borders, he said.

But a friend, Doug New, pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Carrollton, Ga., challenged Holcomb to look into the rest of the Great Commission.

Holcomb said New told him, “You can do this. The problem is will you do it?”

With that question, Holcomb said, he realized he was guilty of disobeying God’s command, and he decided to do something about it.

For that change to happen, however, he had to change, he said. Holcomb told his church family of 20 years, “I have been disobedient.”

Holcomb said although he has not been called to missions as a missionary, he was at fault for not leading his church to have a heart for missions. New invited Holcomb to a Global Focus leadership conference in spring 2004. Holcomb’s attendance led to the signing of a 16-month partnership with the organization that will end spring 2006.Twelve months into the partnership, the church held its first-ever missions conference Oct. 19–23.

Westwood’s GIC hosted 18  speakers and missionaries serving in ministries and missions on every level, from Calhoun Baptist Association Director of Missions Sid Nichols to Earl and Mona Hewitt who serve in Ghana.

As part of the GIC, Westwood also signed three missions partnerships with ministries in Las Vegas, Venezuela and South Africa.

Each one is for three years and includes commitments of prayer, finances and volunteers for short-term missions trips.

The church took its first overseas missions trip in a very long time when a team of seven members traveled to Venezuela earlier this year, Holcomb said. Another team traveled to Las Vegas, and Holcomb and Rodney Gardner, Westwood’s minister of education, will travel to South Africa in December. In addition to missions work, the trips also helped solidify the partnerships, Holcomb said.

He stressed that this dramatic turnaround in attitude is solely grounded in God and is possible for any church. “This isn’t just another good old missions church that was successful,” Holcomb said. “Any size, any church, can do this.”

The church has also seen changes in the lives of its members. Holcomb noted that in his years as pastor, the church had never had an invitation specifically for those who felt called to missions work.

On the last day of the GIC, a three-phase invitation was held: one for those called to full-time missions work, a second for those called to short-term missions trips and to work with missions partnerships and a third for those who had other commitments, such as decisions to follow Christ.

Of the 500-member church, 14 responded to the call to full-time missions. Answering the call to short-term missions were 140 members, and 50 more made other decisions. “Our people have been walking on a cloud,” Holcomb said. He noted the church plans to have representatives from both IMB and NAMB come to the church to counsel with those who committed to full-time missions work.

And the problem of a missions budget that was at zero has turned into a pledged missions budget of $137,333 to be given from this November until March 2007. Holcomb noted that budget is above and beyond what the church will give through the Cooperative Program, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering or the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.

But those two offerings will not suffer, he said. The church collected record amounts for the 2004 Lottie Moon and 2005 Annie Armstrong offerings. It plans to continue that trend with this year’s Lottie Moon offering goal increased from an annual average of $6,000 to $24,000, and the goal for the Annie Armstrong offering increased from an average of $3,000 to $13,333.33.

“These are our largest offerings ever,” Holcomb said. “Global Focus put us on the right track,” he said. “We have a missions field called Jerusalem, but I must also open doors for Acts 1:8 in my church. That door is now wide open.”