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Illinois women’s meeting to make leadership a ‘priority’

Meredith Flynn —  March 30, 2015

PriorityHEARTLAND | Living a life with intention is the theme of this year’s IBSA Women’s Resource Conference April 24-25 at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Decatur.

The two-day Priority Women’s Resource Conference is designed to equip leaders serving in the local church. The conference will include worship and large group sessions led by nationally known speakers, 40 breakout offerings on a variety of topics, a luncheon for ministers’ wives, exhibit area with ministry resources, and a 5K walk/run.

A screening of “War Room,” a new film from the creators of “Fireproof” and “Courageous,” will follow the Friday evening session.

Priority begins Friday at 1 p.m. with a missions celebration featuring North American and International Mission Board missionaries and Tajuan McCarty, founder of The WellHouse ministry that seeks to rescue victims of human trafficking. Clella Lee, a leadership consultant for National Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU), will also speak during the opening session.

Lee directs WMU’s Christian Women’s Leadership Center, which engages women in discovering and implementing leadership gifts in their churches and workplaces. Women desiring to express those gifts are sometimes hampered by demands on their time, or by other factors.

“I think women are hesitant sometimes; they don’t want to come across as too aggressive,” Lee said. “And so I think sometimes they aren’t always as apt to take a hold of those leadership skills they have…they have a sense of call or a sense of need, and recognize some of those gifts, but sometimes they’re hesitant.”

Lee will speak about the Christian Women’s Leadership Center, and also will lead three breakout sessions during the conference on the dynamics of a ministry family, the private spiritual life of a leader, and creative approached to missions in a church plant.

Rachel Lovingood will continue the leadership theme in the Friday evening session. The author, pastor’s wife, and speaker at LifeWay events will delve into how women can develop into the leaders God has created them to be. She also will unpack specific topics in several breakout sessions.

The Friday evening session also will feature author and missions advocate Kimberly Sowell, and worship led by Pastor Chad Ozee of Journey Church in Bourbonnais.

Saturday begins early with a 5K fun run or walk, and concludes with an afternoon session featuring Lori McDaniel, an International Mission Board global mission catalyst and church planter wife from Arkansas. Ministers’ wives also are invited to a luncheon with Kathy Litton, the North American Mission Board’s consultant for ministers’ wives ministry.

Cost is $25 for attenders who are part of an IBSA church, and $30 for all others. Conference information and registration is online now at www.IBSA.org/womensmissions. A block of rooms has been reserved at the Decatur Conference Center and Hotel (across the street from Tabernacle Baptist Church). Contact the hotel at (217) 422-8800.

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IBSA Board approves 2016 goals, hears report on ministry challenges

Meredith Flynn —  March 10, 2015

NEWS | Eric Reed

Admittedly, the numbers are not great. But the tally of the 2014 Annual Church Profiles filed by IBSA churches shows the need in Illinois is growing, and the recent call to prayer for spiritual awakening is on target.

“The job is getting harder, the climb is getting steeper, the leaders are getting fewer—but the challenge is no less important,” said IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams prior to the report presented to the IBSA Board in its March meeting. In fact, the challenge grows, as does Illinois Baptists’ responsibility in our large and significant mission field.

The 2014 ACPs, completed by 95% of IBSA churches, showed declines in several areas including worship attendance (-10.5%), baptisms (-11%) and Sunday school/Bible study participation (-1.5%).

Adams expressed concern about the declines, especially in baptisms, which had increased in recent years. “The actual decline is about 3.4%” when comparing churches that reported in both 2014 and 2013. Several churches that reported baptisms in 2013 were “non-cooperating” in 2014, therefore their tallies were not included in the ACP tally.

Despite wintry weather, the IBSA Board met March 3 in Springfield, where Sandy Barnard (below) was honored for 30 years at IBSA.

Despite wintry weather, the IBSA Board met March 3
in Springfield, where Sandy Barnard (below) was honored for 30 years at IBSA.

Sandy_Barnard_0316

While total missions giving through the Cooperative Program was down slightly year-to-year, from $6.34 million to $6.1 million, the average percentage of undesignated offerings given by Illinois churches held steady from 2013 to 2014 at 6.8%. The national average was 5.5% in 2013, up from 5.4% the year before and marking the first upward tick in over 30 years.

The Board approved a plan to draft the 2016 IBSA budget based on projected CP giving of $6.4 million, and to hold the Illinois/national SBC split on Cooperative Program offerings at 56.75/43.25%. Gifts above the hoped-for goal will be shared evenly by IBSA and the national SBC at 50/50.

Four goals for 2016 were recommended by the board’s strategic planning committee and approved. They will guide planning for IBSA’s work next
year, with a focus on the development of leaders who grow healthy, evangelistic, reproducing congregations. Some goals may seem beyond our capability, said committee chairman Larry Wells, “but God can do it all through his people who pray and who work diligently for the kingdom.”

Adams explained the new focus on leadership development in his report to the Board, citing attendance of more than 300 Illinois church leaders at the January 20-22 Midwest Leadership Summit in Springfield as evidence of interest in, and hunger for, training and coaching. “I think we have such a long way to go in true, deep leadership development,” Adams said. “We’ve come a long way, but we have much more to do.”

Adams pointed to deployment of eight part-time zone consultants across the state and the work of the new Church Resources Team creating new conferencing opportunities and learning cohorts as ways IBSA is focusing on growing effective church leaders.

Board members braved a winter storm to attend the March 3 meeting, with some traveling icy roads in Central Illinois to handle state association business. That raised the question whether such meetings can be joined by telephone or over the internet. With 27 members present, a quorum was easily reached, so the meeting proceeded. A similar question about long-distance electronic participation in board and committee meetings was raised at the IBSA Annual Meeting in November. Board chairman Chip Faulkner reported the issue is presently under consideration.

The Board welcomed seven new members: Steve Hardin of Roland Manor Church in Washington, Curt Lipe of Faith Church in Galesburg, Scott Nichols of Crossroads Church in Carol Stream, Jay Simala of New Song Church in Zion, Sammy Simmons of Immanuel Church in Benton, and Daniel Wilson of Grace Church in Granite City.

For 30 years of service to Illinois Baptists, Executive Administrative Assistant Sandy Barnard was honored with a standing ovation, a gift, flowers, and cake. (Later, she was seen cleaning up after the party.)

Cathy Waters was recognized for 10 years’ service. She was recently promoted to the position of Ministry Coordinator for the Church Resources Team, organizing large events and conferences.

Eric Reed is editor of the Illinois Baptist newspaper and IBSA’s associate executive director for the Church Communications Team.

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IBSA Annual Meeting: It was all about prayer

Meredith Flynn —  November 12, 2014
Pray-ers lined "wailing walls" inside the Springfield Crowne Plaza during the "lament" phase of the Concert of Prayer.

Pray-ers lined “wailing walls” inside the Springfield Crowne Plaza during the “lament” phase of the Isaiah 6 prayer cycle.

NEWS | Eric Reed and Meredith Flynn

Messengers to the 108th Annual Meeting of the Illinois Baptist State Association Nov. 5-6 pled for spiritual awakening and revival, highlighted in a Concert of Prayer based on Isaiah 6.

Vocal quintet Veritas led in worship during the service, and attenders were led to pray through a four-phase cycle: lament, repent, intercede, and commit.

“I believe we need to cry out to God for spiritual awakening and for revival in our churches,” said IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams as he opened the Concert of Prayer. He asked attenders to lament the decline of our culture.

Adams invited the people to move to the walls of the room and use them as a sort of “wailing wall,” not unlike the famous one in Jerusalem where Jews pray. Soon a chorus of voices and some sniffles filled the space.

“I’ve never been to the Wailing Wall, but knowing the purpose of the wailing wall and what it represents just kind of got me,” said Rick Dorsey, pastor of Beacon Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago Heights.

Veritas, a group started in part by "Truth" founder Roger Breland, led in worship during the Concert of Prayer.

Veritas, a group started in part by “Truth” founder Roger Breland, led in worship during the Concert of Prayer.

“It hit me in the gut. And just made me lament that we are still struggling to reach a lost world and not doing everything that He needs us to do, that we need to do in order to reach this lost world.”

After a season of personal repentance, attenders formed small groups and began interceding for lost people they know personally.

“‘Spiritually refreshing’ is the only way I can describe the wonderful Concert of Prayer we experienced Wednesday night,” Adams said later. “Dozens and dozens of folks came to me afterward and told me how very much they needed it. In fact, many described it as the best thing they’ve ever experienced at an Annual Meeting.”

The messages of preachers at the Pastors’ Conference, which precedes the Annual Meeting, and the IBSA President’s message resonated with the prayers:

“The world is at its darkest, it’s a mess—in America, and sure enough in Illinois,” declared Marvin Parker, pastor of Broadview Missionary Baptist Church. “Darkness is covering our state, with same-sex marriage and more. It’s messing with the fabric of the family.”

“If we’re going to push back the darkness in Illinois and in our nation, we’re going to have to get desperate,” IBSA President Odis Weaver said. “If we’re going to push back the darkness, we have to ask the question, How desperate is my church for spiritual awakening? How hungry are our hearts?” And in phrase repeated by others several times, Weaver said, “We will either hunger for God’s righteousness out of desperation or…out of devastation.”

Church planting urgency
With prayer permeating the Annual Meeting and the Pastors’ Conference that preceded it, messengers also voted on officers for the coming year, welcomed new churches affiliating with IBSA, and heard reports from IBSA entities.

In his report, IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams shared encouraging news about the ministry of Illinois Baptist churches, including four new campus ministries begun this year, 260 congregations now registered as Acts 1:8 churches, and 140 pastors and leaders engaged in leadership development processes.

Adams also pointed out areas in need of growth. Through August of this year, IBSA has helped start 16 new churches, down from 24 last year, he reported. “We are not satisfied with that level of church planting in Illinois, and it will not allow us to significantly impact the desperate need of the lost of Illinois for relevant new Baptist churches that can deliver the Gospel in their context,” he said.

Citing the need for more church planters and more church planting sponsor churches, Adams urged, “Together, we must ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field, particularly in the area of the church planting in Illinois.”

Messengers approved six resolutions brought by the IBSA Resolutions and Christian Life Committee: affirming the Bible’s authority; encouraging prayer for elected officials; repenting of sinful choices related to media consumption; including younger leaders in denominational life; encouraging prayer for the Palestinian Church; and affirming the resolution on transgender identity approved by messengers to the national Southern Baptist Convention in June 2014.

An additional resolution on Common Core education standards was referred back to the committee for further study and revision.

Amendments postponed
Leading up to the Annual Meeting, the IBSA Constitution Committee was prepared to ask messengers to suspend the rules of the IBSA Constitution—bypassing the usual two-year process

needed for revision—so that the IBSA Constitution could allow for the Baptist Children’s Home and Family Services to have its own bylaws, in compliance with Illinois not-for-profit law.

“Upon further examination, however,” Adams told the Illinois Baptist, “the Committee came to believe that it would not be proper parliamentary procedure to apply the ‘suspending of the rules’ action that Robert’s Rules of Order allows to the Constitution itself.

“Rather than go against the IBSA Constitution’s requirement for two readings at separate meetings, then, they decided that approval of separate Children’s Home bylaws and revision of their articles of incorporation at the IBSA Annual Meeting would allow for legal compliance, and that a first reading of the proposed revisions to the IBSA Constitution would be sufficient.”

Messengers at the Annual Meeting unanimously approved the new bylaws and articles of incorporation for BCHFS. “If the IBSA Constitution is amended at the second reading next year, all the necessary documents will have been revised,” Adams said.

Budgets from IBSA, Baptist Children’s Home and Family Services and Baptist Foundation of Illinois were approved during the business session. IBSA’s Cooperative Program goal for 2015 is $6.4 million, 43.25% of which goes to national and international SBC missions causes, while 56.75% stays in the state to support Illinois missions and ministry.

The association’s four current officers were each re-elected by acclamation: Weaver, pastor of Friendship Baptist Church, Plainfield, as president; Kevin Carrothers, pastor of Rochester First Baptist Church, as vice president; Melissa Carruthers, member of Lincoln Avenue Baptist Church, Jacksonville, as recording secretary; and Patty Hulskotter, member of Living Faith Baptist Church, Sherman, as assistant recording secretary.

At the start of the Wednesday evening session, messengers welcomed seven new churches affiliating with the association. IBSA’s Credentials Committee also recommended during its report that the association disaffiliate with seven churches that have been non-cooperating for eight or nine years.

Through the annual Ministers’ Relief Offering, taken during the Annual Meeting for pastors facing unexpected transitions, attenders gave $1,651.

The 2015 IBSA Annual Meeting and Pastors’ Conference is scheduled for November 10-12 at First Baptist Church, Marion.

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Pulling apart or pulling together

nateadamsibsa —  November 10, 2014

Nate_Adams_1110HEARTLAND | Nate Adams

Recently the city council in Seattle, Washington, voted unanimously to change their designation of the second Monday in October from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. “Nobody discovered Seattle, Washington,” said one Indian nation president during the council meeting. And so, at least on one day in October, the city of Seattle will go its own way.

And yet, Seattle is not alone. The Minneapolis, Minnesota, city council passed a similar measure earlier this year. In Hawaii, they now celebrate “Discoverers’ Day” instead of Columbus Day, while in South Dakota it’s now “Native Americans Day.”

As much as I appreciate our nation’s Native American heritage, actions like these seem to me to denote a troublesome attitude or mindset, and yet one that I’m noticing more and more, even in Baptist life. It’s a mindset that says, “We’re mainly interested in what’s relevant and valuable to us here at home, and less interested in the bigger picture of what others are doing.”

In a way, it’s a mindset that’s compatible with the deeply held Baptist belief in autonomy. “No one outside our church is going to tell us what to do!” Yet at the same time it’s a mindset that tugs against the very spirit of unity and cooperation that have always been the hallmarks and strength of Baptist churches.

The way I see it expressed more these days is through practices such as designated rather than cooperative giving, or ecumenical rather than denominational partnerships. For example, one large Baptist church in the south that used to give more than $1 million through the Cooperative Program recently shifted more than 90% of that directly to their preference, international missions. And I see Baptist churches of all sizes occasionally doing missions or benevolence projects with partners whose doctrinal positions I daresay they have not examined.

Some of this is people just naturally doing what they want, or supporting what they find most compelling. But in those individual choices or preferences, there are often also great losses. When we each do what we prefer locally, we diminish what we can all accomplish collectively.

As we come to the close of another year here in Illinois, and perhaps finalize our church budgets, I would encourage us to do more pulling together and less pulling apart. There is already great individuality and diversity among our churches. And yet it is our unity around Baptist doctrine and cooperative missions that pulls us together, and allows us to accomplish together things that no individual church could do on its own.

Recently I’ve been invited to a number of churches to share, usually in a combined adult Sunday school class, how and why “cooperative missions” works, and then to preach in the morning worship service. Each time I do, there are older adults who come and say something like, “That’s why I’ve been Southern Baptist all my life.” And there are younger adults, many of whom didn’t grow up in a Baptist church or receive any childhood missions education, who say, “You know, I don’t think I really understood how we work together with other churches, but that really makes sense.”

In other words, our churches are already full of indigenous peoples, who naturally go their own ways. Our responsibility as autonomous but cooperating Baptist churches is to pull people together around the Word of God and the Mission of God.

Columbus wasn’t the first or only discoverer of America, and he wasn’t perfect. But when we celebrate in his name, we pull together as a nation, and we affirm the spirit of adventure and discovery. Likewise we should enthusiastically pull together as Baptists, around the name of Jesus Christ, and in support of the wonderful adventure we share, establishing His Kingdom in a new world.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association.

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The Briefing: Annual meeting of Illinois Baptists this week

Meredith Flynn —  November 4, 2014

The_BriefingTHE BRIEFING | Meredith Flynn

The Illinois Baptist State Association’s Annual Meeting and Pastors’ Conference is in Springfield this week, beginning today at 1 p.m. Check our blog for coverage throughout the week, or at Facebook.com/IllinoisBaptist and Twitter.com/IllinoisBaptist.

“Parents, love your LGBT or same-sex attracted children and point them to a life of costly discipleship following Jesus,” Christopher Yuan told attendees at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s National Conference last week. The Moody Bible Institute professor’s journey out of a lifestyle of addiction, which included same-sex relationships, was shaped by the love of his Christian parents, The Christian Post reported.

After same-sex marriage became legal in their state Oct. 10, six magistrates in North Carolina stepped down rather than be required to preside over same-sex marriages, the Christian Examiner reported. “For me to do what the state said I had to do, under penalty of law, I would have to go against my convictions, and I was not willing to do that,” said Magistrate Gayle Myrick. “I want to honor what the Word says.”

Theologian R.C. Sproul said “the pervasive influence of humanism” is evident in a new survey produced by LifeWay Research and commissioned by Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries. The online survey of 3,000 Americans asked 43 questions about faith, covering topics from sin and salvation to the Bible and the afterlife.

It was announced last week that the network of 13 Mars Hill churches founded by recently resigned pastor Mark Driscoll will dissolve by the beginning of 2015. According to a Christianity Today report, the churches have three options: become independent, merge with an existing church, or disband.

Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore is one of the speakers set to address a Vatican colloquium on marriage and family later this month. The religious groups that will be represented certainly have their differences, Moore blogged, and the meeting won’t change that reality. “That said, I am willing to go anywhere, when asked, to bear witness to what we as evangelical Protestants believe about marriage and the gospel, especially in times in which marriage is culturally imperiled.”

 

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Messengers called to pray at Springfield annual meeting

Meredith Flynn —  October 6, 2014

Revival in churches and spiritual awakening needed in Illinois

NEWS | Eric Reed

ConcertofPrayeropenartweb_edited-2“It is good for us to draw nigh unto God in prayer,” Charles Spurgeon urged his contemporaries 150 years ago. “Our minds are grieved to see so little attention given to united prayer by many churches.”

His words sound familiar today.

“I believe we need to cry out to God for spiritual awakening in our state, and for revival in our churches,” said Nate Adams, executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association, calling on messengers to the IBSA Annual Meeting to come prepared for a “Concert of Prayer.”

“I believe many pastors and church leaders across Illinois are working tirelessly every week, with Great Commission hearts and toward Kingdom purposes. I know our IBSA staff are,” Adams said. “Yet our impact is not keeping pace with the increasing lostness of Illinois.

“So at the Wednesday evening session of this year’s Annual Meeting, we are choosing to focus less on what we have been doing, and more on asking God to do what only He can.”

The call for prayer for revival and spiritual awakening in Illinois, in development over a period of months, appears to be part of a larger work God is doing among Southern Baptists. Seemingly independent of each other, special prayer meetings have arisen in several neighboring states.

And SBC President Ronnie Floyd called pastors together for prayer on several occasions prior to his election. “No great movement of God ever occurs without first being preceded by the extraordinary prayer of God’s people,” Floyd said.

“I really believe that the real key to the future of our entire nation and the church of Jesus Christ in America and beyond is if the United States, the church of the United States has a major spiritual awakening.”

The state of our state

The entire Annual Meeting will be permeated by prayer, leading to a special Concert of Prayer on Wednesday evening. Following the pattern in Isaiah 6:1-8, messengers will be guided through a cycle of prayer:

  • Lament
  • Repent
  • Intercede
  • Commit

“We don’t lament anymore,” Adams observed. It’s not characteristic of evangelical culture to identify our sins and wail over them as the Jews do, or to pound our chest as the Orthodox do. Given the grievous sins of our culture and our nation today, a period of lament will require that we identify them, then think about them for a while before rushing to repentance.

The Isaiah cycle leads pray-ers to repent of their own sins and the sins of the nation, as Isaiah did when confessing the “unclean lips” of himself and his people.

A season of intercession for the lost will bring the needs of Illinois before God and His people, and ultimately, the need for God’s people to commit afresh to renewal of their service and seeking the salvation of lost people.

The musical group Veritas will help guide the phases in the Concert of Prayer, with seasons of worship at the beginning and end.

“Frankly, it’s uncomfortable for me personally to devote the core of our IBSA Annual Meeting to worship and prayer time where we simply gather and ask God to move in our hearts,” Adams said. “I’m a planner and a doer, and our Wednesday night sessions are usually well programmed. But this year our primary program is prayer. May the Lord honor our desire to hear specially from Him.”

For a complete preview of the IBSA Annual Meeting and Pastors’ Conference, go to www.IBSA.org.ibsa2014.

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Illinois Disaster Relief teams aid flood recovery in Michigan

Meredith Flynn —  September 15, 2014
An Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief is cheered by a job well done in Warren, Michigan. Volunteers traveled north to assist with flood recovery in August and September.

An Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief team is cheered by a job well done in Warren, Michigan. Volunteers traveled north to assist with flood recovery in August and September. Photo submitted by Butch Porter

Update: Local volunteers and teams are still working in Michigan, said IBSA’s Rex Alexander, but the work will likely be completed this week. An Illinois team scheduled to serve there this week was not deployed to Michigan.

NEWS | Lisa Sergent

The Detroit suburb of Warren, Mich., is the destination for four Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief teams in September. Three additional teams served there last month, after slow-moving storms dumped several inches of rain on the area Aug. 11.

“There are 40,000 affected homes in Oakland County alone,” Baptist State Convention of Michigan Disaster Relief director Wynn Williams told Baptist Press. “There are another 30,000 to 40,000 damaged homes in Wayne County and then all the work in McComb County. There was as much as 15 feet of water over some of the expressways. Homes have damage anywhere from a few inches to several feet of floodwater.”

The flooding went largely uncovered by national media, and few outside of Michigan were aware of the need for recovery assistance. Teams from First Baptist in Galatia, Sullivan Southern Baptist, and Capital City Baptist Association were the first Illinois volunteers to arrive, followed by four teams from Williamson Baptist Association scheduled to serve this month. Each team works five or six days, not including travel time.

“The majority of the homes belong to senior adults who are not able to do the necessary work to clean up and sanitize their homes,” said Rex Alexander, IBSA State Disaster Relief Coordinator. “The good news is that because the water entered homes through the basements, there is not much actual ‘mud’ present in the homes, only water damage.”

Teams removed furniture and appliances from basements, cut out walls, and sanitized surfaces. When they completed the jobs, they presented the homeowners with a Bible signed by them and then all prayed together. Bob Jackson, leader of the Sullivan Southern team, talked about the team’s experience at one home.

“We prayed with one couple where he was a Lutheran and she was Romanian Orthodox. They told us about growing up and being active in church as youths, but not anymore. We had just finished working on his man-cave in the basement. I told him they needed to remember the God of their youth. I like to make people think and to plant a seed.”

The teams also worked in neighborhoods with significant Muslim populations. David Howard, director of missions for Capital City Association, said one evening the volunteers were treated to a catered meal of traditional Middle Eastern food by a local imam.

Howard also noted the team had an opportunity to work in the home of a woman who was a new Christian. “She had recently received the Lord and been baptized. She was so excited to share with us about her newfound faith.”

After the first few Illinois teams had returned home, Alexander got a thank-you email from Tony Lynn, a pastor in Monroe, Mich. “Volunteers from our church worked alongside your teams,” Lynn wrote. “We saw firsthand, your teams share the good news of Christ with compassion and devotion. We saw discouraged residents beam with hope after your teams started their work….Residents’ sorrows were replaced with smiles because you showed them that there are more important things than possessions.”

The national Disaster Relief response in Michigan is expected to end by the second week of October. For more information about Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief, go to http://www.IBSA.org/dr.

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The power of praying for other churches

Meredith Flynn —  August 11, 2014

Daniel_WoodmanHEARTLAND | Daniel Woodman

Editor’s note: This column first appeared on Baptist Press (BPNews.net) as part of the Southern Baptist Convention’s call to prayer.

If you attended the Southern Baptist Convention in Baltimore or watched online, you know prayer played a big role in this year’s annual meeting. Messengers spent time praying together in the convention hall, and also adopted a resolution on praying for other churches that are struggling, “so that together…we can more effectively reach our neighbors and our nation with the Gospel.”

The resolution was a response to a growing number of churches taking action and praying for local sister churches. Emmanuel Baptist Church in Carlinville, Ill., is one such church.

Noticing the need for unity among local churches, Emmanuel began praying for sister churches in its local Baptist association on a weekly basis. The church prays for three churches and their pastors each week, rotating the list to pray for all 27 churches in the association multiple times each year.

Church members and leaders alike began to observe a noticeable, positive impact from this prayer focus. Taking note of the cause/effect relationship of the power of praying for local churches, Emmanuel recently expanded its regular prayer list to include two church plants outside of the association.

The church prays a specific, scripted prayer for each church and pastor each week: for “the physical and spiritual protection of the pastor so that he would deliver the message that God has given them, and to lead the people with passion to reach the lost in their community.”

This scripted prayer addresses an eternal need for each church, according to Cliff Woodman, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church: “I wanted it to be a specific prayer that could apply to any church. The mission of every church is to reach the lost and make disciples.”

If more Southern Baptist churches take this kind of initiative to pray for each other and unify under the banner of Christ, then communities will come together spiritually and the Kingdom of God will expand as a result, Woodman said, citing Jesus’ words from His high priestly prayer: “I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23).

Daniel Woodman is an entering freshman journalism major at the University of Missouri and a member of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Carlinville.

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An especially good Sunday

nateadamsibsa —  July 28, 2014

HEARTLAND | Nate Adams

It feels like I have had more than a few challenging days of ministry recently. But today is an especially good Sunday, and I’d like to tell you about it.

I leave home very early, to drive almost 200 miles to an IBSA church where I know the pastor, but have never attended on a Sunday morning. It’s their 70th anniversary, and I have a nice plaque from IBSA to present to them. In all those regards, it’s not really an unusual Sunday.

Nate_Adams_July28What’s a little more unusual is that my wife, Beth, is traveling with me. Our youngest son Ethan is leading the worship team at our home church in Springfield, and Beth would like to be there too. But by evening we will be at the church where our middle son Noah is youth pastor, and so she has decided to come along. So it’s already an especially good Sunday.

We drive past one, two, three IBSA churches, and eventually past the one where I recall speaking three years ago when my oldest son Caleb also shared his testimony. He had just returned to the Lord after years as a prodigal. And as I realize that today my wife is with me, and that all three of our sons are worshiping and serving in an IBSA church, I realize that this is an especially good Sunday.

At the church celebrating its 70th anniversary we are greeted warmly, with appreciation for both IBSA and for our long drive that morning. I watch as an effective pastor loves his people, and they love him back. I meet a 93-year-old former church planter and pastor, who tells me he helped plant one of the first SBC churches in northern Indiana. He’s surprised I don’t recognize his former supervisor’s name, until I remind him I wasn’t born yet.

Later when I’m presenting the plaque, I tell both the 93-year-old church planter and the 70-year-old church that my wife and I are on our way, after church, to IBSA’s first “ChicaGO” student camp at Judson University. It’s a pilot church planting camp that we hope will continue to produce church planters, church plants, and eventually 70-year-old churches. And as I describe this picture of church planting across the generations – I realize that this is an especially good Sunday.

We arrive at Judson University late in the afternoon, and help greet students and chaperones from 11 different IBSA churches. Then a bus-load of IBSA All State Youth Choir students unload, and I remember they are there for a couple of days too, to join the ChicaGO mission week, and share a couple of concerts in the area.

That night the choir sings at Calvary Baptist Church in Elgin. In addition to being my mom’s and son’s church, this is also the church where Wilma and Jack Booth are members. During the concert, IBSA Worship Director Steve Hamrick reminds us that Wilma was one of the leaders that started the IBSA All State Choir 36 years ago. And as I reflect on the blessing of tomorrow’s worship leaders being equipped for churches across the generations – I realize that this is an especially good Sunday.

I will have to wait until my next column to tell you about the “week in the life of church planters” that follows this special Sunday. But let me punctuate this account by telling you that as the All State Youth Choir led us in singing “Jesus Messiah,” I found my eyes welling up with tears. God was reminding me that, though there will be challenging days, He is steadfastly building churches and growing leaders across the state and across the generations here in Illinois. And whenever I can see that as clearly as I do today, well, it’s an especially good Sunday.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association.

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More photos from Streator

Meredith Flynn —  July 25, 2014

SUMMER | Check out these great photos from Tim Starner of IBSA’s co-ed missions camp in northern Illinois.

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