Archives For outreach

Turn back-to-school ministry into a year-round opportunity

Lisa Misner —  August 26, 2019

By Jack Lucas

Pupils and teacher smiling at camera in library at the elementary school

Back-to-school season is upon us, offering your church a great opportunity to serve families, teachers, and administrators in your community. Much of our back-to-school outreach often centers around meeting physical needs. School supplies, free haircuts, new tennis shoes—all of those giveaways and donations are wonderful ways to help families in this busy, often expensive season.

But churches can also look beyond August and September for effective ministry to families and education leaders in their communities. In addition to your back-to-school outreach this year, consider adding one or more of these longer-term strategies:

Try to meet unique needs. One school in our community required each student to stock the office by bringing a ream of copy paper at the beginning of the school year. We asked the school what they needed most. Paper, the staff said, so our church provided enough paper for the year, so that families didn’t have to. Throughout the year, check in periodically with schools in your area to ask what unique needs your church can help meet.

Share your space. Another of our local schools had space issues in their gym. We opened our church gym so their teams could practice there, and also hosted school sports banquets in our fellowship hall. Families visited our church who first heard about us after their child met us through school sports.

Work with administrators. You may be surprised at how willing your local principal is to partner with your church. Even with the caution required to keep church and state separate, school administrators often understand churches want to help, with no other agenda in mind. Our church was blessed to build relationships with principals who sent people our way when they had a specific need. Seek out these relationships with school administrators in your community, asking how your church can help.

Don’t forget older kids. Teens in our community responded well to a back-to-school bash at the church. They came to the high-energy outreach to reconnect with their friends, and left with a calendar of events we’d planned for the year ahead. Your church can also do this around holidays, or at the end of the school year as you look ahead to summer activities. Let them know they’re welcome at your church, and that there are specific opportunities for them.

Expect a cumulative effect. The best way to sum up back-to-school outreach is that it often moves the needle little by little as your church builds relationships with teachers, administrators, and families. The impact you make will likely share a close correlation with how consistent and sacrificial your ministry is, and how prepared you are to interact with the families that do show up at church.

As you brainstorm ministry opportunities this fall and beyond, ask your leaders and volunteers these questions:

  • What can we offer teachers and school administrators in the way of resources and encouragement?
  • How can we position our church as a go-to resource for families in need of support?

Our church had the opportunity to minister to couples and families that we never would have had if we hadn’t provided school supplies for their children, or hosted basketball practice for their student’s team. This year, gear up for long-term ministry that really helps families.

Jack Lucas is IBSA’s director of next generation ministries.

Rsource Fall 2019This article is adapted from the Fall issue of Resource magazine, which is available at Resource.IBSA.org.

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The Briefing: New survey finds American churches are divided by politics

Meredith Flynn —  August 28, 2018

More than half of American churchgoers say their political views match those of most people at their church, according to a new survey by LifeWay Research. And 57% of Protestant churchgoers under 50 say they prefer to go to church with people who share their political views. “Like many places in America, churches are divided by politics,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research. “And churchgoers under 50 seem to want it that way.”

Search committee named to find next Southwestern president
A committee of nine Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary trustees has been appointed to find the Fort Worth school’s next president. The committee is tasked with finding a replacement for Paige Patterson, who was moved to emeritus status in May and terminated a week later, after coming under fire for his response to alleged sexual assault on the campus of Southeastern Seminary, where he previously served as president. The Southwestern committee includes an Illinois Baptist—Denise Ewing of First Baptist Church, Winthrop Harbor.

Southern Baptist chaplain exonerated
A U.S. Army chaplain accused of discrimination has been cleared of all charges, Baptist Press reported. Chaplain Jerry Squires told a soldier earlier this year he couldn’t perform a marriage retreat for her and her same-sex partner; he also rescheduled the event so another chaplain could perform the retreat. The Army dropped its investigation Aug. 24 after determining Squires had handled the matter in accordance with military policy.

Christian leaders advocate for refugees
A group of evangelical leaders, including Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore, sent a letter to the federal officials in August asking them to consider opening U.S. borders to 75,000 refugees for resettlement in fiscal year 2019. The number is about 50,000 higher than a limit reported being considered by the Trump Administration, The Christian Post reported.  

Illinois churches ready families for fall with shoes, haircuts, backpacks, and prayer
Across the state, churches launched students and families into the back-to-school season with a number of outreach initiatives tailored to specific needs in their communities. In Harrisburg, Dorrisville Baptist Church gave away more than 500 pairs of gym shoes while in Chicago, Another Chance Baptist Church sent kids back to school with backpacks and new glasses. Read about back-to-school outreach and more from IBSA churches in the current issue of the Illinois Baptist, online at ibonline.IBSA.org.

-LifeWay Research, Baptist Press (2), The Christian Post, Illinois Baptist

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Curb appeal

Lisa Misner —  July 23, 2018

By Nate Adams

Picnic tables 2

If you haven’t visited the IBSA Building in Springfield recently, I hope you’ll find a reason to come this summer.

Perhaps you’ll join the thousands of tourists, families, and student groups who are drawn to the annual state fair, or to the perennial Abraham Lincoln sites. Or perhaps you’ll just drop by as you travel elsewhere, to say hello to your IBSA family at the corner of Stevenson and Dirksen.

If you do, I hope you’ll notice several improvements to our building’s “curb appeal.”
For one thing, the old Denny’s restaurant next door, that even I remember from my boyhood, has been demolished, and a new automated car wash is being erected in its place.

We’ve also made several improvements to our own building. The scraggly groundcover that we’ve been trying to tame since it was planted around the building in 1970 has been dug up and replaced with fresh new grass. New trees and flowers have been planted in fresh beds of mulch.

A new sidewalk leads from the front door around to a renovated patio area, which now offers picnic tables and benches. The parking lot has been freshly sealed and repainted. Inside, new customized carpet runners lead you from the doors to the elevators, and our reception area welcomes you with some new furniture.

Why the face lift? Well, it’s been about seven years since our last building renovation, and some of these things were intended and dreamed about then. Some of them are the answers to problems, such as the water main rupture outside our building last year. But most of the updates are simply intended to make our building more inviting, whether to IBSA pastors and church members, or to the building tenants who help pay our utilities, or even to the occasional vagrant who needs a cold drink or a bathroom.

1st floor lobby

If curb appeal is important at the IBSA Building, then it’s even more important for each local church. And summer is a great time to take stock and ask what kinds of repairs, improvements, or updates could make our houses of worship more inviting.

We tend to be blinded by familiarity and overlook the needs of our church buildings, just as we do in our own homes sometimes. But I guarantee that first-time visitors notice the wear and tear, the needed repairs, and the musty smells that we too readily take for granted.

I recently visited a small country church in central Illinois on its 150th anniversary. Unlike many churches that age, the original building had never been moved, or burned, or rebuilt. We worshiped in the same auditorium as the church’s founders.

But that didn’t mean the property had been neglected. A new foyer had been built on the outside, along with a ramp for accessibility. A new basement had been dug under the original structure. An attractive parsonage had been added next to the church building. And the grounds were beautifully landscaped, and freshly mowed and trimmed.

Everything about that country church said to me “come on in,” and “what’s inside is worthwhile.” That’s what curb appeal should be all about in all our churches. And that’s why it’s worth our time this summer.

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

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The Briefing: Christians respond to crisis at the border

Meredith Flynn —  June 26, 2018

For some Christians, immigration concerns at odds with battle for religious liberty
The Washington Post reports that while some denominations, including the Southern Baptist Convention, have publicly spoken against the separation of families at the border, the current crisis is a complex issue for many conservatives weighing it against cultural issues like abortion and marriage.

Baptist church receives donation from First Daughter
Ivanka Trump pledged $50,000 to a Southern Baptist church in Texas whose pastor tweeted about their desire to help children and families at the border. Prestonwood Baptist Church pastor Jack Graham, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said members of his church will travel to McAllen and Brownsville to assess needs for the immigrant children, and how churches should respond.

Related:

Religious restrictions on the rise—again
More than a quarter of 198 countries studied by Pew Research Center have “high” or “very high” levels of religious restriction, according to data released June 21. This is the second consecutive year that overall restrictions have increased in the countries studied, Pew reported.

Russian churches work around evangelism ban for World Cup outreach
Evangelistic outreach around this summer’s World Cup will have to get creative as a result of the host country’s anti-evangelism regulations, Christianity Today reports. Across Russia, churches will open their doors for viewing parties and other events to share the love of God, and soccer.

More Americans belong to multiethnic churches
Diverse congregations are on the rise, according to new research from Baylor University that found nearly one in five American worshipers now belong to a multiethnic church.

Sources: Washington Post, The Christian Post, ERLC, CNN, Pew Research, Christianity Today (2)

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Going public

Lisa Misner —  April 16, 2018

Hundreds across Illinois take the baptism plunge on One GRAND Sunday

Net Church Staunton Group


Eleven people at NET Community Church in Staunton joined hundreds more that were baptized across the state on One GRAND Sunday April 8.

On Sunday, April 8, volunteers at NET Community Church carried a livestock feeding trough into the high school gymnasium where the church meets. The trough had a lofty purpose—11 people were baptized during the morning worship service. They wore shirts with the words “going public.”

“Their life stories were all very different, but their life conversion was the same,” said Pastor Derrick Taylor. “It was so exciting to witness each one going public with their new lives in Christ, thus declaring I’m not ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ!”

Across Illinois, hundreds of people were baptized on the day dubbed “One GRAND Sunday.” IBSA’s Pat Pajak first shared the goal of 1,000
baptisms in one day last fall. As word came in of baptisms around the state, Pajak celebrated the 321 reported so far, and the renewed excitement about evangelism that seemed to characterize the day.

“The real purpose of One GRAND Sunday was to remind churches that our responsibility and privilege is to have gospel conversations outside the walls of the church,” said Pajak, associate executive director for evangelism. The day “was a reason to reignite our passion for the Great Commission and rejoice in both salvations and baptisms, which some of our churches had not seen for many years.”

Read a few of the many stories from a day focused on baptism, and on “going public” with faith in Jesus.

‘I’m serious about this’
Brittany Miller grew up going to church, but when she went away to college, it never became a priority, she says. Over the past year, she felt a pull to go back. When a co-worker told her about his new church, NET Community in Staunton, Brittany decided to check it out.

“The pastors were so, so dedicated and just really believed in what they were preaching,” she says. “And I liked how it was just taken right from the Bible.”

There was a disconnect, though. Everyone kept talking about salvation, an unfamiliar concept for Brittany.

Net Community Brittany Miller

Brittany Miller was baptized by her pastor, Derrick Taylor, on One GRAND Sunday.

“I kind of just kept it all to myself,” she remembers. “I didn’t want to ask too many questions, because I didn’t want anybody to think I was a non-believer. Because I believed.” A personal relationship with God, though, was something she didn’t have—yet.

At a small group Bible study one evening, Brittany got up the courage to ask her questions. The group’s leader, Nancy Taylor, pulled in associate pastor David Baker, and together, they walked Brittany through what it means to have saving faith in Christ.

“After hearing what salvation was, I knew that that was what I wanted,” she says. “I wanted that relationship with God; I wanted to deepen my knowledge of him. I wanted him to live through me.”

There was one hang-up, however. “I was so worried that I couldn’t do this because I was going to let God down. And I didn’t want to do that,” she says. “It took a while for the pastor to assure me that that is not how this works.”

After two hours of talking, she prayed to receive Christ. “It all makes sense now,” she says. “It was God pulling me, little by little, to that moment.”

Over the next days and weeks, Brittany started telling family and friends what had happened to her. They were supportive in some cases, and skeptical in others. In some cases, the news didn’t go over as well as she had hoped. Brittany says she’s leaning on her church family to deal with the relational difficulty. She also downloaded a Bible app on her phone, so encouragement is always nearby.

Her baptism April 8 was a way to publicly give God the glory for her faith, and a testimony to the people in her life, she says.

“I need to do this so these people know I’m serious about this.”

All in the family
Willow Krumwiede decided to be baptized so she could share her decision to follow Christ with her church family, among others. Her public profession of faith April 8 also had a profound impact on her dad.

Willow’s father, Tim, came to Grace Fellowship Church in Amboy on that Sunday morning to support his daughter. The church planned baptisms for the end of their first worship service, Pastor Brian McWethy explained, so Tim sat through the entire service that day. Unbeknownst to him, Willow, her fiancé Andrew, and their pastor were actively praying for his salvation.

Throughout the sermon on biblical baptism where McWethy explained why each person must choose to be baptized for themselves, Willow’s father faced his own life decisions. McWethy said he could see the Holy Spirit was at work in Tim’s life during that sermon.

Grace Fellowship Amboy

Willow Krumwiede’s baptism at Grace Fellowship Church in Amboy compelled her dad, Tim, to profess his faith in Christ and be baptized.

As the band played an invitation of “O Come to the Altar”, Willow’s father stood up. He stepped forward and grabbed McWethy by the arms, saying, “I just surrendered my life to Jesus Christ.” McWethy was thrilled at the news. Before he could say much, Tim also said that he was ready to be baptized. Today.

So, a few minutes later, Tim followed his daughter into the baptismal trough. After everyone celebrated with them, McWethy asked Willow, “Did you have any idea this would happen?” Incredulous, she smiled and replied, “No.”

The pastor gives all glory to God. “There is power in his word. There is power in the gospel.” One GRAND Sunday’s emphasis on baptism helped him and his church to focus not only on baptizing, but also evangelism, McWethy said.

“If I’m gonna baptize somebody, they’ve got to get saved.” McWethy has found a renewed focus in sharing Christ daily because he was given the charge to renew his commitment to baptizing believers. “If it did nothing else, it got our minds thinking about the lost.”

‘One happy Grandma’
McKenzie Boston and Kaitlyn Warren are 15-year-old cousins whose “carefree” lifestyle completely changed when McKenzie’s mother suddenly passed away February 8.

McKenzie and Kaitlyn were brought up rarely going to church despite their mothers’ Christian upbringing. But during their visits with their grandparents, John and Carol Warren, the church-going became more frequent.

“I had a burden for all my children and grandchildren,” Carol said. “But I had especially been praying for my daughters and granddaughters.”

Carol wasn’t satisfied with just praying, however, and put her prayer into action. She wanted her children and grandchildren to know where her faith stood. “Every time they visited, I would take them to church.” Carol’s influence paid off and her daughters began attending Emmanuel Baptist Church in Carlinville—the church where they had both been baptized.

Emmanuel Carlinville

Pastor Cliff Woodman of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Carlinville baptizes McKenzie Boston.

The death of McKenzie’s mom came as a shock to the family. The young cousins started thinking more seriously about their own faith and what happens after life on earth. Kaitlyn’s mom, Cheryl, began talking to both girls about Jesus and the salvation he offered from ultimate death.

“The girls were ready by this time to have a relationship with Christ,” Carol said. She laughed, “But they wanted to wait for their grandmother to talk to them.”

On Friday, April 6, Carol talked through the Romans Road with her granddaughters and prayed with them as they received Christ. “It was such an answer to prayer!” she said. “And such a relief for me to know the hope of their salvation.” After talking to their pastor, Cliff Woodman, they prepared to publicly proclaim their salvation to the church on April 8—One GRAND Sunday.

“It was a very emotional time for us all,” Carol said. “But perhaps most especially for me.”

Carol had led her own daughters to the Lord years earlier and had seen the two of them get baptized. Now, she was watching her own granddaughters, whom she had also led to Christ, get baptized in the same church.

“It was very special for me,” Carol said. “I’m just one happy grandma!”

-IB Team Report

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Building them up

ib2newseditor —  December 28, 2017
Graffiti2

In September, a group of seven Illinois pastors’ wives navigated the New York subway every day to get to the Graffiti 2 headquarters in the Bronx, where they assisted with behind-the-scenes work needed to facilitate outreach programs for kids and adults. Photos by Andrea Hammond

Subway

Riding in the subway.

For Illinoisans who live outside the Chicago city limits—or don’t often visit—the hustle and bustle of New York City would likely bring on a good dose of culture shock.

For Terry Kenney, a pastor’s wife in Beardstown, her recent mission trip to the Big Apple brought back memories of her childhood in Chicago.

“New Yorkers do not think anything about walking” to get from place to place, said Kenney, whose husband, Brian, pastors First Southern Baptist Church in Beardstown. For the team of seven pastors’ wives from Illinois, navigating the city streets and the subway and taxis was a new, stretching experience. But a positive one.

“I never had a desire to go to New York,” Kenney said, “but now I’m going to take my husband back and let him see it.”

City reachers
The Illinois team was in the city to partner with Graffiti 2, a community ministry based in the South Bronx. Started a decade ago, Graffiti 2 is an offshoot of Graffiti Church, a Southern Baptist church planted in the early 1970s. The Graffiti ministries are grounded in a mission to meet the physical and spiritual needs of New Yorkers.

Toward that end, Graffiti 2 runs an after-school program for kids in the neighborhood, and also has started a jobs program that gives people the skills they need to learn and succeed in a career.

Standing in front of an intricate stained glass window in Graffiti’s new headquarters, the Illinois women watched one of Graffiti’s artisans at work at her sewing machine. The goods produced by Graffiti 2 artisans are sold through WorldCrafts, a fair-trade ministry of Woman’s Missionary Union.

Herself a seamstress, Kenney said it was nice to climb upstairs in the old church building and see where the artisans work, and hear about their needs. The Illinois team also helped Graffiti 2 with some administrative tasks resulting from their recent move to the building.

“We prayer-walked around their neighborhood in the South Bronx before meeting artisans and touring their new location,” said Andrea Hammond, a pastor’s wife from Grace Southern Baptist Church in Virden. “We experienced how they impact their community for Christ by finding out what their needs are, meeting them, then sharing Christ through those needs.”

Calling in common

stainglass

At the Graffiti 2 headquarters in the Bronx, artisans create fair-trade products and learn career skills.

Carmen Halsey came up with the idea for the New York mission trip as she was brainstorming ways to help pastors’ wives connect with one another. Inspired by the concept of “destination weddings,” Halsey, IBSA’s director of women’s missions and ministries, wanted to find a place that would let wives retreat to an attractive location, while also working together to fulfill a mission.

As they worked together on a large mailing project for Graffiti 2, Halsey said, the women had an opportunity to hear each other’s stories, and share their own. That was the special part, she said, watching the multi-generational group support each other and get to know one another.

“It’s a lonely job,” Terry Kenney said of being a pastors’ wife. There aren’t too many people you can confide in, she said, and the New York trip let the women open up to one another. That part of the trip was helpful for Ailee Taylor, who serves with her husband, Derrick, at NET Community Church, the congregation they planted in Staunton last year.

“I have not been a pastor’s wife for very long, and it is a group of women that I have not been around before,” she said. “In addition to learning and serving alongside the team at Graffiti 2, I was able to connect and grow alongside other women that share the role of pastors’ wives.”

The trip also had benefits that are transferable to her own ministry in Illinois.

“Even though New York is an urban environment, I learned things that apply to my rural environment,” Taylor said. “I also learned that we have a lot of things that we easily take for granted in Illinois.”

The mission trip was a renewing experience, she said, using decisive words for how she felt about returning to Illinois: “Filled, challenged, and fired up.”
For more information about upcoming missions opportunities for adults, students, and kids, go to IBSA.org/missions.

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Not waiting to worship

ib2newseditor —  December 18, 2017

jail cell

A worship service I attended recently was like no other I’ve ever seen. And I have seen quite a few.

When I arrived with the pastor and three other leaders, 10 minutes before the service was scheduled to begin, no one else was there. Then, precisely on time, about 70 worshipers arrived.

The first 10 minutes or so were “fellowship time,” as each and every worshiper joyfully entered, hugging the neck or shaking the hand of the pastor and leaders, including me as their guest.

As they did so, many of them volunteered to serve or lead during the service. The pastor noted each of their offers, and told some of them they would have to wait until next time, because we only had two hours to worship.

The good news has arrived, and those who have received it are free to celebrate.

Those who did join us in leading the service shared special music, or recited passages of Scripture they had memorized, or gave brief testimonies of God’s grace and goodness in their lives. One especially memorable man apologized for taking so long to slowly walk to the front, assisted by his cane. He said he was 71 years old, but more alive today than when he was 18, because of the Lord’s work in his life. He then sang a moving and joyful spiritual that had all of us clapping and joining in.

The open prayer time was passionate. One man transparently thanked God for recent victory over a temptation in his life, while another prayed through tears, thanking God for a healing contact from his ex-wife, the first one in 34 years.

When the pastor gave me an opportunity to speak, I found myself citing a passage from my own devotional time that week, rather than a more carefully rehearsed message. As I spoke from my heart and sought to apply that passage to their lives, the worshipers gave me their eager attention, and encouraged me with their amens and other signs of agreement.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing to me about that worship service, however, was that I was told there is a “waiting list” to enter it that is about four times larger than the room can hold. You see, that unusual worship service was within the walls of one of our Illinois prisons on a Saturday night, and those worshipers were its residents. The leaders were from one of our Baptist churches that has led a ministry there for over 20 years.

As Christmas now approaches, I am reminded that the good news of Jesus’ birth came first to a humble group of shepherds. They were in many ways “confined” themselves, in poverty, in low social status, with limited freedom or opportunity, and with little hope of a brighter future. Yet the Bible tells us they were also men who were “abiding” and “keeping watch.” When the good news about Jesus invaded their darkness one night, they eagerly received the news and ran to meet him.

That’s what I felt in prison that Saturday night. There was certainly a darkness, a sense of oppression as I walked through multiple security checkpoints. But inside, the good news had arrived, and those who had received it now enjoyed a freedom to worship and celebrate that is all too rare outside the prison walls.

As we encouraged those worshipers to share the good news about Jesus with others, as did the shepherds, their enthusiastic responses told me they already were. I guess that’s why there is a waiting list for the Saturday night worship service. And I guess it’s why we should all receive the good news humbly this Christmas, grateful that we do not have to wait to worship him.

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

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Summer of love, summer of hate

ib2newseditor —  September 7, 2017

White common daisy flower isolatedAs warm weather descended on San Francisco that year, so did the hippies, as many as 100,000 of them. The Haight-Ashbury District became ground zero for a festival that lasted for weeks: young people with flowers in their tresses singing and dancing and cavorting in public spaces, doing a little protesting of the Vietnam War, and smoking a lot of what their mothers wouldn’t approve.

They called it the ‘summer of love.’

Ironically, that summer in 1967 was also marked by fear and terror and rioting, as large sections of Detroit went up in flames just as Watts in Los Angeles had two years earlier. In Detroit, the violence that started after police raided an unlicensed bar ended with 2,000 buildings destroyed, more than 7,000 people arrested, over 1,000 injured, and 43 deaths. Free love on the West Coast, and unrestrained hate in the Midwest.

Here, 50 years later, we have witnessed another season of dichotomy, a tense summer of issues—and people—in conflict. The political tensions and threats of nuclear attack were topped by violent marches in Charlottesville that killed one young woman and revealed the breadth of a racial rift in America that few imagined existed.

As is 1967, the summer of 2017 was on some fronts a summer of hate. But from our vantage point, we can say, too, it was a summer of love.

There were stories in our pages that attested that: mission trips around the world where the love of Christ was shared. In downstate Cairo and Brazil and many other places, people received Christ as Savior. We saw children learn about Jesus at IBSA camps and Vacation Bible Schools everywhere.

And to cap it all, the eclipse. Carbondale was epicenter this time as millions from Oregon to South Carolina looked upward, many seeming to search for something beyond themselves. A famed Chicago weatherman wept on air for the beauty of nature. More important, Baptists in southern Illinois shared Christ, and lost people came to faith.

When they look back on the summer of 2017 to give it a name, no one will look at the protests and nuclear threats and political martial arts and call it ‘the summer of love.’ But seeing the totality of our Christian outreach this season, and the genuine outpouring from God’s heart, maybe we will.

-Eric Reed

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Cover your eyes; but open your heart during rare outreach opportunity

ib2newseditor —  August 18, 2017
totaleclipsecolumbiasc.com

totaleclipsecolumbiasc.com

When the sun goes dark Aug. 21, southern Illinois will be one of the best places to catch the first total solar eclipse visible from the U.S. since 1979. Churches in the region, along with others across the country, are planning to use the event as an opportunity to share the gospel.

Everyone in the contiguous U.S. will be able to see at least a partial eclipse, but the 70-mile-wide “path of totality,” in which a total eclipse will be visible, will pass through 14 states, including Illinois. Makanda, Ill., located just south of Carbondale, has been cited as the “greatest point of duration,” or the place where the eclipse will be visible the longest—2 minutes and 38 seconds, according to a city website devoted to sharing eclipse information.

Lakeland Baptist Church in Carbondale hosted an area-wide prayer and worship rally Aug. 14 to spiritually prepare for the influx of people. And Nine Mile Baptist Association, through a partnership with IBSA, plans to distribute 50,000 gospel tracts during the weekend prior to the eclipse. Additionally, people will be stationed at each of Carbondale’s four entry points to pray over every car that enters the city. “We want to cover our city in prayer,” said Lakeland Pastor Phil Nelson.

Elsewhere in the eclipse’s path, churches are utilizing the unique ministry opportunity to meet spiritual needs in their community—whether it’s inviting eclipse viewers to use their parking lots, or using the event to launch future ministries.

In Casper, Wyo., Mountain View Baptist Church and College Heights Baptist Church have partnered with Child Evangelism Fellowship of Central Wyoming to purchase copies of a DVD titled “God of Wonders,” which explains how creation reveals God and how salvation is available through Jesus Christ. Church members will distribute the DVDs during the eclipse along with 3,000 evangelistic bookmarks.

“Additionally,” Mountain View pastor Buddy Hanson said, “if our parking lot is utilized for eclipse watchers, we will take that opportunity to try and share the gospel.”
In Lincoln, Neb., the launch of Hope City, a North American Mission Board church plant, is set to correspond with the eclipse. The congregation’s first service is slated for Aug. 20. That day and during the eclipse, the church will distribute 2,000 “college survival kits” at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tenn., will host a gospel concert on Sunday, Aug. 20, and is inviting people to watch the eclipse from their parking lots the next day. “We have already handed out over 4,000 eclipse viewing glasses and have several hundred more for those needing them,” said Executive Pastor Bruce Raley.

Beginning just after 10 a.m. local time in Lincoln Beach, Ore., the total eclipse will take approximately an hour and a half to pass over Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Viewers are strongly encouraged to wear eclipse glasses or other protective eyewear.

– From Baptist Press, with additional reporting by the Illinois Baptist

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The key to successful outreach

ib2newseditor —  March 13, 2017

VBS Concept Metal Letterpress TypeIf you’ve ever planned a big event, you know how it feels when it’s over. All the work and energy and trial and error that went into planning and executing the project can be exhausting, and when it’s finally over, all that energy seems to fly out the window too.

But for church leaders, the end of an outreach event is only the beginning.

This is heavy on my heart as we enter Vacation Bible School season, and I’m reminded how crucial a church’s follow-up process is to their overall VBS strategy. That’s why I advise churches to recruit a follow-up director. His or her only job is to connect people from VBS or any other outreach with other people and opportunities at the church. Encourage the director to have their follow-up strategy before the first person ever walks in the door, including:

Effective registration. The follow-up director will likely work with other VBS leaders to accomplish this. The truth is, you can’t follow up with someone you can’t find. Make sure you have the full name and contact information for every person who attends your VBS. It’s important to know these things not only for follow-up, but in case you need to get in touch during VBS with someone related to the child.

Follow-up teams. Ask the director to recruit pairs or small groups of people who can make personal visits to families. The church I previously served sent our deacons two-by-two to follow up after VBS. We found in-person visits to be most effective, but some of our teams felt more comfortable making a call first to set up a time to visit.

Connection points. When our follow-up teams made their visits, they made it a point to take something that would forge a connection with the family. For example, one year the children decorated frames during VBS and we attached a calendar of church events for the deacons to deliver.

Above all, remember that a follow-up strategy doesn’t have to be complicated; it just needs to allow you to make significant contacts with people who otherwise may only encounter your church through one event. The goal of any VBS or outreach effort should be to connect unchurched people with the church for the purpose of expanding God’s kingdom. We can’t do that if we don’t follow up.

Jack Lucas is IBSA’s director of next generation ministry.

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