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  • November 30, 1999

Archives For November 30, 1999

Gifts that keep on giving

nateadamsibsa —  September 29, 2014

HEARTLAND | Nate Adams

Years ago when I worked in Christian magazine publishing, one of my jobs was to help write headlines for our subscription promotions. Almost every Christmas, we would go back to the tried and true headline, “Give the gift that keeps on giving.”

With one act of generosity you could send your gift recipients magazines several times throughout the coming year. It was a gift that allowed people to give over and over and over again.

In the days ahead, I believe that principle of year-round giving is something that we as Illinois Baptists need to apply more and more to the needs of our Illinois mission field. For one thing, those needs are now greater than ever.

Nate_Adams_blog_calloutAs I mentioned in my last column, North American Mission Board funding shifts have necessitated that IBSA absorb full responsibility for our state WMU and Women’s Ministry Director, for other missions positions and initiatives that are not specifically church planting, and for funding that assists local associations. We have also received notice that areas such as collegiate ministry, urban ministry centers, and disaster relief coordination will not be funded by NAMB in future budget years.

With Cooperative Program giving from churches currently about 4% lower than last year, it will be difficult to sustain many of these important ministries unless there is a substantial increase in gifts through the Mission Illinois Offering.

The “season of prayer” and emphasis on Illinois missions has traditionally been in September of each year. Thank you in advance for the gift you may have already given through your church this past month! But here are three additional ways that Illinois Baptists can think, pray and give through the Mission Illinois Offering, throughout the year.

1. Starting in 2015, IBSA will provide Mission Illinois Offering promotional materials starting in January, giving your church the option of promoting and receiving an offering for Illinois missions at any time during the year. This will also allow churches that have an annual missions conference to access videos and other information about Illinois missions at any time during the year.

2. Whether your church receives a formal Mission Illinois Offering or not (about half of IBSA churches do not), individuals can now give directly to the Mission Illinois Offering at any time during the year, though the IBSA website. Simply go to http://www.IBSA.org and choose “Give to MIO” from the Donate menu. This option will be especially helpful to those seeking to make an additional, tax-deductible gift before the end of the year.

3. Through the Baptist Foundation of Illinois, you can set up your own “Family Giving Fund,” sometimes referred to as a donor advised fund. It’s like a savings account for your or your family’s charitable giving. You can place money in the fund with BFI, and decide later the non-profit causes to which you want to disperse those funds.

Perhaps you want to save in order to help with the next disaster relief effort in the state. Or save to send Christmas gifts to students at the Christian Activity Center or the Baptist Children’s Home. Or maybe you want to invest in the statewide ministries of IBSA that I mentioned above, simply by directing your fund to the Mission Illinois Offering. For help setting up a
Family Giving Fund, simply contact Doug Morrow at the Baptist Foundation of Illinois (doug.morrow@baptistfoundationil.org or 217-391-3102).

Year-round giving isn’t for everyone, but if you are one of the Illinois Baptists whose heart God is stirring to give more than once a year, I hope one of these year-round options will help you do just that. Your gift to missions in Illinois is one that keeps on giving, even into eternity.

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

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Mission Illinois Week of Prayer: Day 8

Meredith Flynn —  September 22, 2013

MIO_blogDAY 8: Watch “Churches Together”

“Illinois is a mission field. It’s our mission field,” IBSA executive director Nate Adams said. But do Christians here really feel that responsibility?

“We simply have to have more aggressive evangelism, church planting, collegiate ministry, ministry centers – all these kinds of efforts to get out into the lostness of our state.” Illinois is a big state, and as believers, we are charged with sharing the Gospel here. At least two-thirds of Illinois residents don’t know Christ. And the lostness is concentrated in the urban centers.

1,000 churches and church plants comprise the Illinois Baptist State Association. IBSA can help churches “win lost people to Christ on their own mission field and in an Acts 1:8 ripple effect on the world,” Adams said. The impact of churches together is far greater than the sum of our individual efforts. Churches together advancing the Gospel can bring hope and faith to the 8 million or more lost people in our state.

Read: Matthew 12:38-41

Think: What is my personal responsibility for missions in Illinois?

Pray for the $475,000 goal of the 2013 mission offering. Pray we surpass the goal in order to expand our work. Pray about your commitment.

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Mission Illinois Week of Prayer: Day 7

Meredith Flynn —  September 21, 2013

MIO_blogDAY 7: Watch “Nations at our Doorstep”

Campus ministry is effective for evangelism. Young and exploring, college students are often open to the Gospel. But campus ministry is also a challenge. Illinois has 172 campuses and 800,000 students. Some 34,000 of those students are from foreign countries. Chase Abner welcomes those challenges as opportunities.

Since we first told of Chase’s work at SIU Carbondale, where he met and led students such as Feng Yu to Christ, Chase has joined the IBSA leadership team. He is leading ministry on campuses across the state. And he is helping churches reach out to the college and university students near them.

“Time and presence” is what it takes to minister to college students, he says. Often far from home, as Feng was, students simply need someone who will “be there” for them. And that opens a door to introduce the greatest friend of all, Jesus Christ.

Read: Jonah 4:7-11; Acts 17:10-12

Think: Coming to faith sometimes involves hard questions. What questions have you faced that may help others believe?

Pray for the 30 campuses with Baptist-led student ministries. Pray for collegiate evangelism strategist Chase Abner and campus pastors and leaders. Pray for IBSA churches to reach out to local college students.

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Mission Illinois Week of Prayer: Day 6

Meredith Flynn —  September 20, 2013

MIO_blogDAY 6: Watch “Bring Hope”

Pastor Cureton is optimistic about his new church in East St. Louis. With help from Illinois churches, Cureton is transforming a dilapidated storefront into a place of joy and celebration, welcoming 50 or more to worship on Sundays.

“Our shelter in this community was recently shut down so we have a lot of women and children on the street. They don’t have clothes, shoes. On any given day, 15-20 people knock our door. They’re hungry.”

Cureton is grateful for the partnership of his local association, several suburban churches, and IBSA. “We need more men and women who will stand up and fight for the cause of salvation, who will knock on doors and ask, ‘Mister, Ma’am, do you know Jesus?’”

Read: Jonah 4:1-6; Matthew 25:31-40

Think: What is the role of compassion in sharing our faith?

Pray for 28 new churches that IBSA helped start in the past year, including Light of Christ in East St. Louis. Pray for Pastor Cureton and planters who are reaching people with hope and faith.

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Mission Illinois Week of Prayer: Day 5

Meredith Flynn —  September 19, 2013

MIO_blogDAY 5: Watch “Choose2 Pray”

Together Illinois Baptist churches baptized more than 5,000 people last year. That’s good, but it’s only a start when you realize at least 8 million people in Illinois do not know Jesus Christ.

At the heart of it, Mission Illinois is about sharing the Gospel with lost people. Ultimately, it comes down to one person telling another person about Jesus. That’s why IBSA’s evangelism director Tim Sadler created Choose2, a prayer strategy that helps people and churches make evangelism a priority.

When we told Mindy Burwell’s story last year, she was one of two people her pastor’s wife, Vicki Hayes, was praying for. Since then, Mindy’s salvation has been part of a chain leading almost a dozen people in three states to faith – all because one person committed to pray twice a day for two lost friends.

Read: Jonah 3:5-10; John 4:19-26

Think: When Jonah preached, the people of Nineveh believed. When Vicki shared her faith, Mindy believed. How does God use ordinary people in saving others?

Pray for the 100 missionaries supported in part by the Mission Illinois Offering. Pray for Tim Sadler and others who help share Christ.

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Mission Illinois Week of Prayer: Day 4

Meredith Flynn —  September 18, 2013

MIO_blogDAY 4: Watch “Big City, Big Challenge”

Metro Chicago is a mix of neighborhoods and small towns and mid-size cities, all stitched together into the urban patchwork we call “Chicagoland.” With 2,000 people groups and 200 languages spoken, Chicago has many people who desperately need the Gospel.

As God draws missionaries, pastors, and church planters to share the Gospel with the region’s 10 million people, he calls some to come from far away. Others he calls to invest their lives in their hometowns.

“When God first called me, I wanted to go far away, like Jonah,” Pastor Marcus Randle said. “But he sent me right back here to the Southside.”

When we first introduced Randle, his congregation was moving into an old church-school complex, with big plans to expand their outreach to at-risk kids and homeless women. Settled in now, the challenges are big for Resurrection House, but the opportunities are bigger.

Read: Jonah 3:1-4; Isaiah 6:1-6

Think: Why does God send people to minister in places where, at first, they refuse to go?

Pray for 80 church planters and their families working in Illinois today. Ask that they have favor in the many neighborhoods without a church.

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Mission Illinois Week of Prayer: Day 3

Meredith Flynn —  September 17, 2013

MIO_blogDAY 3: Watch “Help Others”

The cheerful woman in a yellow shirt will willingly wield a hammer, turn a shovel, or push a wheelbarrow. But if those tasks are covered, she would rather be talking. Mostly she talks about Jesus.

As a Disaster Relief chaplain, Jan is a vital member of the team on the scene after storm clouds pass and flood waters subside. Every DR team has a chaplain who focuses on devastated homeowners while other workers “mud out” their devastated houses. “The owner of the little white house was saved today,” Jan reported from a flood site in Peoria in May.

IBSA supports SBC’s Disaster Relief, the nation’s third largest relief agency, with 1,600 volunteers and Rex Alexander, the IBSA staff member who trains and deploys them.

Read: Jonah 1:17-2:10; Isaiah 61:1

Think: What does Jonah’s prayer show us about the needs of people in distress? How shall we pray for them?

Pray for 1,600 Baptists from Illinois who are trained as Disaster Relief workers. Pray for the chaplains on each team who share the Gospel with hurting people, while other workers cook, clean, and rebuild after crisis.

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Mission Illinois Week of Prayer: Day 2

Meredith Flynn —  September 16, 2013

MIO_blogDAY 2: Watch “Share Christ”

Gosen Church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is a large building with silk flowers hanging from the ceiling. Illinois volunteers helped build this church over three weeks last November. Cinderblocks with artful designs cut out of them make up the windows, and the doors are always open.

When Meredith and her team went there to work in July, they met at the church building to sing and pray together. Then they went to work building houses in a community hard-hit by Haiti’s earthquake in 2010.

This team was one of many from Illinois serving on international mission trips, creating long-term relationships and sharing Christ with people around the world. In fact, more than 25,000 Baptists from Illinois are engaged in missions and mission trips each year.

Read: Jonah 1:10-16; Habakkuk 2:14

Think: How does God use catastrophic events, such as storms and earthquakes, to reveal Himself and His plans?

Pray for IBSA’s Bob Elmore, who helps arrange mission trips, including several each year to Haiti. Pray for your church’s next mission trip.

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Mission Illinois Week of Prayer: Day 1

Meredith Flynn —  September 15, 2013

MIO_blogHEARTLAND | More and more, churches in Illinois are responsible for missions in Illinois. This is where we live, work, shop, and go to school. This is where our families, friends, and neighbors live – 13 million of them. And at least 8 million don’t yet know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

In the face of such great spiritual need, some of our denominational partners are focusing on church planting as their main method of evangelism. That is a worthy tactic. But it means that Illinois Baptists must make up the difference in other areas that are still fertile for advancing the Gospel. We must focus on missions that remain vital to us here in Illinois, including compassion and crisis ministries, outreach on college campuses and in inner cities, and the education and mobilization of church members for missions. Children, students, and families in Illinois need the life-saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. And Illinois churches need help in dozens of ways that are funded only by Illinois Baptists.

Many of these ministries and missions efforts would not be possible if not for the Week of Prayer and Offering for state missions each September.

DAY 1: Watch “Partner to Plant”

Pastor Peters is passionate about winning lost people. Perhaps it’s because as a kid growing up in Chicago, he never heard the Gospel. Or because so many family and friends still living there do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. “We have to win the cities, because that’s where the people are,” Peters says of the teeming metro areas. Pastoring a church near St. Louis, Peters has led his congregation to engage in ministries nearby. And he has led them to partner with several churches in metro Chicago.

Read: Jonah 1:1-9; Isaiah 62:6-7

Think: Is our reaction to big cities and people we don’t know more like Jonah’s opinion of Nineveh, or Pastor Peters’ feelings about Chicago?

Pray for the 200 places in Illinois already identified as needing an evangelical church. Pray for IBSA churches to pray, partner with existing churches, and plant new churches.

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