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Archives For November 30, 1999

Students on mission in Chicago

ib2newseditor —  September 14, 2016

Mission Illinois Offering Devotion Day 4

MIO-box-smallLily Ohl grew up thinking Chicago is a scary place. But the 17-year-old from Sherman found during ChicaGO Week that many people were open to hearing the Gospel. Each summer, teens travel to the city and assist church planters in reaching their communities. They learn firsthand how new churches are started and get practice sharing Christ. “It’s a big city, but people are willing to listen and you can really change a life,” said Ohl.

Showing students the value of planting new churches is just one way IBSA is leading efforts to reach America’s third largest city, where less than 10% of people are affiliated with an evangelical church.

Pray for the salvation of Chicago, and IBSA’s Chicagoland church planting team: Tim Bailey, Dennis Conner, Jorge Melendez, and John Yi.

Learn more about the Mission Illinois Offering at missionillinois.org.

Watch Lily Ohl’s story, “Students on mission in Chicago.”

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Mobilizing volunteers worldwide

ib2newseditor —  September 13, 2016

Mission Illinois Offering Devotion Day 3

MIO-box-smallThis spring seven Illinois women set aside their daily responsibilities for a week and said “yes” to a call to South Asia. There they worked with Muslim women. Team member Lindsay McDonald said it was a very dark and oppressed place, “but I think in the darkness, we were also allowed to see hope.” Even in a place of persecution, women raised their hands wanting to become followers of Christ.

“We went expecting to see certain things and then God delivers the unexpected!” said Carmen Halsey.

IBSA aids churches in sending more than 22,000 people each year to serve on mission teams, in their communities and around the world.

Pray for IBSA’s Carmen Halsey and Dwayne Doyle and the teams they help train. And pray for your church’s involvement in missions.

Learn more about the Mission Illinois Offering

Watch Lindsay McDonald’s story, “Mobilizing volunteers worldwide.”

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Ministering to Students

ib2newseditor —  September 12, 2016

Mission Illinois Offering Week of Prayer Devotion Day 2

MIO-box-smallTeens and college students today are seeking an authentic faith that leads to real life change. Through discipling events and campus ministry, IBSA missionaries and churches are doing their part to help kids understand that they are loved by God.

The biggest IBSA evangelism effort each year is Youth Encounter, held simultaneously at three locations on Columbus Day weekend. Junior high and high school students listen to well known bands, hear the gospel presented by dynamic speakers, and have the opportunity to respond to Christ. At YE 2015, more than 1,500 students attended, with 109 salvation decisions at the Decatur location alone. “My hope is that next year we would be able to have even more people,” said Erin Willis at the Chicago location.

Learn more about the Mission Illinois Offering

Pray for Mark Emerson and the Church Resources team who lead this work. Pray for the salvation of young people in your church and statewide.

Youth Encounter 2016 is Sunday, October 9, 2016 from  3 – 9 p.m. in Chicago, Decatur and Marion. Find out more at www.IBSA.org/ye2016.

Watch the slideshow below to see photos from YE 2015.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

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Investing in churches

ib2newseditor —  September 5, 2016

MIO-box-smallNow is the time of year when most Illinois Baptist churches are preparing to promote and receive the annual “Mission Illinois Offering,” which is devoted to advancing the gospel among more than eight million lost people, right here in our state.

Most of the time when we describe our mission priorities here in Illinois, we talk about the desperate need for new churches, especially in northern Illinois, and in large, lost cities like Chicago. And indeed, the MIO is helping start about 25 new churches every year.

And many times we talk about the vast and strategic mission field of Illinois college campuses, where thousands and thousands of tomorrow’s American and international leaders are being trained, often with little or no exposure to the gospel. The MIO supports collegiate ministries too, on more than two dozen campuses.

MIO supports our greatest missionary asset: the local church.

Your gift through the Mission Illinois Offering also helps support the Christian Activity Center in East St. Louis, and human need ministries like disaster and hunger relief, and IBSA-coordinated mission trips from Illinois to the ends of the earth.

But I received a promotional e-mail the other day that reminded me we often don’t talk enough about one of the most important ministries that the MIO makes possible—the ongoing investment of our missionaries and staff in the health and evangelistic growth of IBSA churches. Local churches are our greatest missionary asset as Illinois Baptists, and our investment in their health, growth, and leaders is as important as planting new churches, reaching college campuses, or meeting human and spiritual needs.

Watch the video, “Turn on the Light,” to learn more about why Nate Adams supports the Mission Illinois Offering.

The e-mail was from a church consulting firm. It offered training over a 3-day period on topics like church health models, conflict resolution, overcoming barriers to church growth, and individual church leader development. I thought to myself, ‘That’s what our staff does all the time!”

IBSA carefully measures our staff’s time investment in training and consulting with local churches. Consistently we have had direct consultation with 750-800 churches each year. Considering that ministry is delivered primarily by about 20 traveling staff, that means each staff member is serving an average of 40 churches, all year long!

But what really caught my attention about the church consulting firm’s letter was the cost of its 3-day training—$950 per student, with a minimum of 15 students. That would be over $14,000 for three days of help. To do that for 800 churches would cost more than $11 million. Our Mission Illinois Offering goal this year is $475,000.

I realize that’s not a precise apples-to-apples comparison, since Cooperative Program giving also funds our state mission work, and since IBSA does far more than training and consulting. But I hope it makes the point for you that it made for me. Every IBSA church has a staff of church health and growth consultants at its disposal, and their help is valuable! Your church’s gifts through the MIO and CP enable that staff to be available for your and hundreds of other IBSA churches—week in and week out.

Sometimes it’s awkward to ask for financial support. And maybe it’s a little easier to ask churches to support church planting and missions than to point to the “return on investment” that churches also receive through training and consulting. But if you stop and think about the value of what your church both receives and provides for other churches through your state missions giving, I hope it will make you want to give a truly generous gift through the Mission Illinois Offering this year.

Learn more about the Mission Illinois Offering and Week of Prayer September 11-18 at MissionIllinois.org.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association. Respond at IllinoisBaptist@IBSA.org.

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My spiritual blind spot

ib2newseditor —  August 29, 2016

Reaching the unreached in Illinois

unreached

I’ve lived in Illinois my entire life. I was born and raised in the capitol and attended college at ISU (Illinois State University). I’ve visited family each year in southern Illinois and taken countless road trips to Chicago and the northern suburbs. I’ve also been an Illinois Baptist my entire life.

MIO-box-smallHaving grown up here and very involved in the church, I know well the Baptist beliefs, as well as the spiritual state of this mission field we call home. What I didn’t know, though, is that there are 83 unreached people groups right here in the U.S… and almost 10 in our own backyard!

One (or both) of two barriers typically define what qualifies as an unreached people group: understanding and acceptance.

The issue of understanding largely comes down to language. And where many may think this is only a problem in third world countries and isolated jungles, you may be surprised to learn as I was that in Illinois, we have 9 official unreached people groups that fall into this category. Then there are many more who fall into the latter—those who are unengaged and simply refuse to accept the truth of the Bible.

Watch “Reaching the Unreached” to learn more about the unreached people groups in Illinois.

Combined, the total adds up to more than 8 million here who are lost.

And I’m sure it comes as no surprise to anyone that many of these unreached, unengaged people reside in the greater Chicagoland area—a region where approximately 70% of our state’s population lives. It’s not only the biggest, most diverse region in Illinois, but one of the nation’s largest cultural melting pots. Which is why the work of church planters there is as crucial as ever.

In this one city are millions of people from all walks of life and backgrounds. Isolated neighborhoods that look and function as if you were in a completely different country. Unreached people groups hiding among the throngs.

The potential reach of the gospel in Chicago is astounding. But the message of Jesus Christ is only going to go forth there as long as there are generous, prayerful people and willing church planters willing to support this Great Commission endeavor. To bridge the gap and meet these lost and searching individuals where they are, we must pray, give, and go.

Read the Sept. 12 edition of the Illinois Baptist to learn more about one Chicago church planter, Kenyatta Smith, and his mission to reach unbelievers and give people another chance in Christ.

My eyes have been opened to the unreached. What’s in your spiritual blind spot?

Learn more about the Mission Illinois Offering and Week of Prayer September 11-18.

– Morgan Jackson is an editorial contributor for IBSA and freelance writer living in Bloomington, IL.

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A walking, talking brochure

ib2newseditor —  August 22, 2016
South_Asia

An mission team member teaches girls at a missions center in South Asia last March.

The best kind of advertising is free advertising, I’m pretty sure I heard in my college “Introduction to Public Relations” class. When it comes to missions, I think my professor knew what he was talking about.

Have you ever talked to someone who just got back from a mission trip? It’s like the old joke (that has been given new life with modern phenomena like veganism and CrossFit):

How do you know someone just got back from a mission trip (or is a vegan, or does CrossFit)?

MIO-box-smallDon’t worry, they’ll tell you about it.

And isn’t that a good thing? To share missions stories and try to help the people who weren’t there understand why you felt compelled to go—and probably go back? Even better, talking about a mission trip gives you an opportunity to challenge them to go.

Mark Emerson recently described a mission volunteer as a “living brochure.” The woman he was talking about, Lindsay McDonald, is a pastor’s wife from Casey, Ill., who went to South Asia in March with a small team from Illinois. The group shared the gospel in villages  where more than 90% of the population is Muslim.

Watch the Mission Illinois Offering video, Mobilizing Volunteers Worldwide, to learn more about Lindsay McDonald’s South Asia trip

They also visited community centers where women are learning job skills and Bible stories.

When the team got back to Illinois, they started telling their stories. The group is contagious, Emerson said, but in the best possible way. And people are catching what they have.

When the team got back to Illinois, they started telling their stories. The group is contagious, but in the best possible way.

I went to Haiti with an IBSA GO Team in 2013. When I got back to Illinois, it was all I talked about for a few weeks. My husband was on the team too, so we talked about it at home. I wrote about it in the Illinois Baptist. We shared with our community group and local church about the trip.

Haiti was constantly on our lips and on our hearts.

Before you get too impressed, I should confess that a weekend spent binge-watching Downton Abbey has had the same effect on me. Without meaning to, I start using the cadence and accent of early 1900s Britain. That’s what an immersive experience does: We adopt the passion and language of the experience that has captivated us.

We become living brochures. And in the best cases, what we’re advertising is the call to sacrifice time, money, energy, comfort, even safety, for the sake of taking the gospel to a place and a people deeply in need of it.

Free advertising, for a really great product.

Learn more about the Mission Illinois Offering and Week of Prayer September 11-18.

– Meredith Flynn is an editorial contributor to the Illinois Baptist

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Students find joy in serving

ib2newseditor —  August 15, 2016

ChicaGO Week mobilizes youth to missions—and inspires me deeply.

Chicago Week Group

Photo op | Part of the group from First Baptist Church O’Fallon poses for a picture before starting the daily commute back to Judson University.

Two summers in a row now I have been completely immersed in the world of the Mission Illinois Offering – helping provide churches with state missions Bible studies, crafting guides for Illinois Baptists to prayerfully walk through with one another, and working to prepare hearts for giving and supporting missions right here in our own state.

MIO-box-smallThere is one area, though, which Mission Illinois giving supports that has become especially near and dear to me: ChicaGO Week.

I have had the opportunity to cover a number of incredible stories about work that IBSA churches are doing across the state – a small, rural congregation feeding thousands of people each month, urban church planters gathering together for mutual encouragement and solidarity, children whose Christlike actions have touched the lives of adults and entire communities.

Watch the MIO video, “Students on Mission in Chicago.”

But when I reflect on which stories have had the most impact on me personally – which testimonies and experiences have managed to stand out above all the rest – hands down they revolve around the selflessness and joy I’ve had the privilege to witness during ChicaGO Week.

As you can read about more in the upcoming August 22 edition of the Illinois Baptist, ChicaGO Week offers youth a unique opportunity to travel to this huge mission field and partner with local church planters whose goal is to reach the 9 million Chicagoland residents with the gospel, a large majority of whom don’t have a relationship with Jesus.

And trust me when I tell you that these students don’t take this partnership lightly.

Chicago Week Bubbles

Sports Camp | Local kids came to Transformation Church each day during ChicaGO Week as IBSA youth partnered with them to put on a sports camp — complete with bubbles and chalk drawing galore.

Last summer I watched as kids braved the summer heat and accomplished more yard work in a few hours than that church planter and his family could have gotten done all week. I thanked God for a young group of girls as they bravely talked to strangers and told others about Christ in this huge city they’d never even been to before. And this summer I couldn’t help but be filled with joy as 30+ students poured their time and energy into simply playing games with kids in the local community – eating ice cream together and showing them the love of Jesus.

Letting them know that they matter.

And the planters. The students during ChicaGO Week only get a brief glimpse into the daily lives of these church planters – seeing just a peek into the challenging, sometimes grueling and heartbreaking, yet oh so rewarding world of starting a new congregation. But getting to speak to these men and their families gives youth the opportunity to see the need for the gospel in our state, and it has given me such a greater appreciation for where my MIO dollar is going.

So I encourage you to give to the Mission Illinois Offering, and give generously. Because I’ve seen firsthand the life change and the souls that are won for the Lord when these planters have the resources they need to fulfill the mission that has been placed on their hearts.

Learn more about the Mission Illinois Offering and Week of Prayer.

– Morgan Jackson is an editorial contributor for IBSA and freelance writer living in Bloomington, IL.

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The stories will convince you

ib2newseditor —  August 1, 2016

Focus on state missions starts September 11

Wrap cover artOver the course of almost five years, I have traveled to the far corners of Illinois looking for stories. Mostly they’re stories to support the Mission Illinois Offering & Week of Prayer, stories of God’s people whose work is made possible by the missions commitment of Baptists in our state. My partner in this venture, videographer Paul Wynn, and I joke that we’ve spent the last five Mother’s Days together. His kids are grown now, so his wife doesn’t mind if he’s away from home on her holiday. Maybe having a quiet house is what makes it a holiday for her.

On those May weekends and many others, we have visited new churches and compassion ministries. We’ve been from Elgin to East St. Louis, Davis Junction to Iuka, Plainfield to Metropolis, and many points in between. We’ve talked with pastors and joyful believers they’ve led to Christ. We’ve followed teenagers who braved city streets, sharing the gospel with strangers for the first time. And we’ve heard story after story from IBSA missionaries whose life-changing work brings them—and sometimes all of us—to tears.

I suppose the numbers should be compelling enough: There are 13 million people in Illinois, and at least 8 million of them do not have a faith relationship with Jesus Christ. I lived in Chicagoland 15 years, and there the “numbers” are ever before you. So many people. So few believers. I learned what it means to be in the minority, because Christians are so far outnumbered.

The biblical command should be convicting: Jesus said, “Go.” Isn’t that enough?

But what is most convincing is the stories. The stories and the people who share them convince me afresh every year that our mission work in Illinois is vitally important, worth our personal service and our prayer and our giving and our going.

Calling all churches

Hart Family

Hart Family, church planters in Breese, IL

I admit I felt out of place at a bar in Breese, Illinois, but it was Sunday morning and technically the bar wasn’t open. They were having church, and I knew the songs. I’m still smiling about how the young church planter and his wife started a church—in a bar—in his hometown—which, as most hometowns do, knew too much about him. I celebrated when he sent word a couple of weeks later that the church baptized its first new believers in a horse trough.

Their story is featured in our collection for the 2016 Mission Illinois Offering & Week of Prayer.
• Plus, there’s the story of a pastor’s wife we met in Casey soon after her international mission trip to aid oppressed women in South Asia.
• And the student group making its second trip from Sherman to the big city streets during ChicaGO Week.
• And the pastor planting another church nearby his downtrodden neighborhood, hoping to reach unreached people with another chance at hope in Christ.

These stories will all be featured in the Illinois Baptist. And they are included in the Mission Illinois Offering prayer guide for September 11-18, which will be distributed in participating churches. A week of devotions also is included in the special supplement that wrapped this edition of the newspaper. And all the materials are on our new website: missionillinois.org.

Our statewide goal this year is $475,000. The offering supports IBSA’s missions work, including the areas we’re highlighting this year: church planting in rural Illinois, students reaching Chicago, mobilizing Illinois volunteers for missions worldwide, and sharing Christ with unreached people. Yes, there are people in Illinois who have never heard.

Please encourage your church to participate in the Mission Illinois Offering & Week of Prayer. And please pray about your own gift for state missions. If you’re like me, the stories will convince you.

See all videos and mission study materials at missionillinois.org. Contact MIO@IBSA.org if we can help your church observe the Week of Prayer for state missions.

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In the Middle

Lisa Misner —  September 21, 2015

HEARTLAND| Nate Adams

I am reminded lately of the song “Stuck in the Middle with You.” The song was written by Gerry Rafferty and Joe Eagan, and recorded by their band, Stealers Wheel, in 1972. The song was inspired when Rafferty and Egan were seated at a restaurant table with record company representatives on one side of them and producers on the other. The executives were talking across them, conducting business, and the singers were “stuck in the middle.”

Neither the IBSA staff and missionaries nor I feel “stuck” in any sense of the word, but I do feel we’re in the middle of something. As a middle-sized state convention here in the middle of the country, and now in the middle of a funding challenge, we are also in the middle of some crucial questions about how we do ministry, how we advance the gospel, and how we sustain our shared work financially.

Nate Adams

In the previous issue of the Illinois Baptist, I outlined reasons that inspire me personally to give through my church to the Mission Illinois Offering each year. (See IBSA.org/MIO.)

I unapologetically ask IBSA churches to receive an annual offering for state missions. But there are some additional dynamics that make the Mission Illinois Offering even more important this year.

For one thing, Cooperative Program giving in Illinois, the primary funding source of our missions and ministries, has not yet rebounded from what’s now called “The Great Recession” of 2007-2009. Yet expenses, especially “people costs” such as healthcare and travel, continue to rise. For example, IBSA’s healthcare premiums will increase 20% next year, or almost $65,000. Yet CP income planned in the 2016 IBSA budget is actually $340,000 less than we received in 2009.

Compounding the CP shortfall is a strategic shift by our partners at the North American Mission Board to focus almost exclusively on church planting in larger cities. Of course church planting is a top priority for us in Illinois too. But now funding for staff and ministries such as WMU and women’s ministries, collegiate ministry, IBSA’s church consultants and partnership with local Associations, and soon our funding of the Christian Activity Center in East St. Louis, must come 100% from the IBSA budget, rather than being shared by both NAMB and IBSA.

We appreciate the partnership NAMB provides for church planting, especially in Chicago and metro St. Louis. But we must ask how other Illinois ministries can continue to be funded. The Mission Illinois Offering is the single most important factor in answering that question.

Over the past five years, larger state conventions have downsized by a third or more. Smaller state conventions who are much more dependent on NAMB funding have needed to focus their attention more exclusively on church planting, often at the expense of assisting existing churches.

While we in Illinois have also downsized and economized, we’ve done so gradually, without layoffs or major loss of services or ministries. In a sense, we benefit from being “medium-sized,” with enough resources to be somewhat self-sufficient, and yet not so many institutional obligations that limit our options for trimming budgets.

You and your church can help through generous participation in the Mission Illinois Offering. If your church does not collect the Mission Illinois Offering, you can contribute directly. Visit www.IBSA.org and click on the “donate” tab. Or mail your gift labeled “MIO” directly to IBSA at 3085 Stevenson Dr., Springfield, IL 62703.

And for the record, there’s still no place in the world I’d rather be than here in the middle with you.

Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association. Respond to his column at IllinoisBaptist@IBSA.org.

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MIO Devotions: Day 8 Generous Giving

Lisa Misner —  September 20, 2015

This is the Week of Prayer for the Mission Illinois Offering. Pray for our missionaries and that we will reach the $475,000 statewide offering goal.

Giving to the Mission Illinois Offering aids in the continued health and strength of local churches right here in our own state.

This offering supports the salaries of church planters, missionaries, and leadership trainers. It supports campus ministries and reaching the thousands of Illinois college students. It provides ministry supplies, equipping for church leaders, and the mobilization of mission volunteers. But overall, it supports the goal of living out the Great Commission and carrying the gospel to those in Illinois who are lost.

Pray: As Illinois Baptist churches collect the offering this week, pray that hearts will be moved to give.

Pray that God will prompt people to be generous with their resources and that each congregation will reach its goal. Pray that the overall state goal will also be exceeded. And pray about your own financial commitment, that God will reveal how he is calling you personally to support state missions through the Mission Illinois Offering.

Take time to pray today

Mission Illinois Offering: The Week of Prayer

Learn more about the Mission Illinois Offering at IBSA.org/mio. #mio2015

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