Alaska Baptist Convention

By Shauna Pilgreen

SAN FRANCISCO – A few years ago, I could sense that something was stirring in my husband’s heart. It was evident in his preaching. I could hear it in his voice. The pieces came together when Ben asked me to pray about church planting. With a deep breath and a wavering trust, I answered him, “I’ll do that. I’ll pray. Give me a few days.”

I began to think about how good we had it. We had a nice home in a safe neighborhood. Ben was in a good situation at the church where we served. The senior pastor was a mentor who poured daily into Ben. We loved our church. Our friends. Our sons were in a great school, and we were within driving distance to family. We even had season tickets to Silver Dollar City! Was God calling us to give all that up? I began to pray.

By Mike Ebert

ALPHARETTA, Ga. – Moving forward in his mission to shift more Southern Baptist resources to areas of North America with the most widespread lostness, North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell announced new missionary placements for several states in the northeast United States that have until now lacked a full-time missionary fully funded by NAMB.

“Every state should have at least one full-time missionary before any state has 20,” Ezell told trustees. The new missionaries will serve as church planting catalysts with a goal of assisting with the starting of four churches a year in their states and helping nearby existing churches with evangelism efforts.

His comments came in an address to North American Mission Board trustees who met May 15-16 in Alpharetta.

By Kathy Litton

ALPHARETTA, Ga. – Recently, I had to take a taxi to catch an early morning flight. At the ridiculous hour of 4:15 a.m. the driver was unfortunately quite chatty. After discovering I lead a ministry to pastors’ wives he asked me, with a fair amount of curiosity and skepticism, “Why do pastors’ wives need ministry?”

He had little contact with church culture so I found myself awkwardly grappling for an appropriate reply. It was sort of painful. Finally, he helped me out. “I get cabbies,” he said. Thank you driver, you summed it up for me.

By Kevin Ezell

Recently it came to light that a pastor I know well has hidden marital infidelity for years. The truth about this is continuing to emerge, but enough of it’s already out there to make me grit my teeth when I think about it. The reason I have such a strong response is because I know what a pastor’s sexual misconduct does to a church. My last two pastorates were at churches that had lost pastors to marital unfaithfulness. At my last church, even after 15 years there were members who still had a hard time trusting me because of what another pastor had done.

Wounds heal, but the scars often last a lifetime. God forgives, but a church never forgets when its shepherd strays. It’s incalculable what it does to the body of Christ and to the communities who watch from the outside.

By Adam Miller

ALPHARETTA, Ga. – Having enough missionaries to support the Southern Baptist effort to impact lostness in North America will require more intentional missionary development, Kevin Ezell told viewers of a May 1 live webcast.

Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board, said beginning in 2013, this missionary development system will provide a way for students (high school, college and seminary) interested in ministry to gain experience through summer/semester missions, internships and apprenticeships that will provide hands-on experience in North American missions.

By Kay Harms

SAHUARITA, Ariz. (BP) -- Robert McDonald knew God could work all things together for good, according to the promise of Romans 8:28. But a chain of events that began with catastrophe on Super Bowl Sunday has left him and his church family forever changed.

The McDonald family had joined friends to watch the Super Bowl at a home in Amado, Ariz., but all attention turned to 2-year-old Jace when he was found at the bottom of the backyard pool.

No one knew how long the child had been underwater, but he was blue when they pulled him out of the pool.

By Adam Miller

ALPHARETTA, Ga. – Pastor Dean Sisk is bringing four men to Georgia in July hoping they’ll return to Belle Aire Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., with new vision and new connections for expanding their reach.

“We came to a conclusion that our primary focus in missions needed to be on planting churches,” said Sisk, who’s led Belle Aire in assisting half a dozen church starts across North America.

By Tobin Perry

Andrew Wring has two reasons he enjoys participating in an annual 5K race at his church, Northside Baptist in Indianapolis. First, as a runner from his high school days, Ring gets a chance to be a part of something he loves in a place close to his heart—his church.

But Wring, after trips to the Pacific Rim during the past two years, has garnered a more profound appreciation for the final destination of the funds raised by the 5K.

Hip hop may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Southern Baptist partnerships or the work of the North American Mission Board. With The Rebuild Initiative, it may be essential.

In an effort to enhance the reach of the Send North America strategy, NAMB is embarking on a partnership with The Rebuild Initiative. Rebuild, the vision and passion of two urban church planters, has its sights on identifying, equipping and networking urban church planters and leaders.

By Mickey Noah

RIO RANCHO, N.M ­– Matt Sellers says the use of attractional, evangelistic events under the GPS (God’s Plan for Sharing) initiative is—for his two-year-old church plant—like throwing gasoline on an already blazing fire.

Following its introduction in 2010 by the North American Mission Board and most state conventions, the second phase of GPS is under way across the Southern Baptist Convention. In 2012, GPS is focused on event evangelism.

By Joe Conway

ALPHARETTA, Ga. – God’s Plan for Sharing, the decade-long national evangelism emphasis of the North American Mission Board, marked its second major milestone at Easter as churches throughout the Southern Baptist and Canadian National Baptist conventions use evangelistic events to reach out to their communities.

Churches were encouraged to use the events to connect with their neighbors. By design, GPS is adaptable in nature so it can be easily customized for any church or community. Even if churches have yet to participate, they can begin at any point, says GPS team leader Ken Ellis.

By Tobin Perry

FRESNO, Calif. – Three years into God’s Plan for Sharing, a bold plan to share the gospel with every person in North America by 2020, Southern Baptists are working together across state lines to make the vision a reality.

“One of the greatest things about GPS is that it came out of collaboration with our state partners,” said Ken Ellis, the GPS team leader at NAMB. “Working with our state partners, associations and churches, is how GPS originated. We have no intention of changing that now.”

By Joe Conway

SEATTLE, Wash. —Crazy. Not the first description that comes to mind for church planting, but for Keith and Kristine Carpenter the word comes up often.

The couple, married 21 years, moved to Seattle four years ago and helped launch Epic Life Church. The church plant celebrated its two-year anniversary in September 2011. God used a still, small, yet extremely direct voice to move the Carpenters to their new home.

“I was sitting in church, minding my own business,” said Keith. “ I felt like God tapped us on the shoulder and said, ‘I want you to go start a church.’ And I was like, ‘What?’” One week later Kristine received a message.

By Tobin Perry

It’s safe to say SouthPark Mall in Strongsville, Ohio, hasn’t seen a Sunday quite like Easter 2012. Typically closed on Sunday, on Easter weekend the commercial center of Strongsville was full of scurrying children looking for Easter eggs and bouncing on inflatables.

And thanks to a brand new Southern Baptist church plant in the town and its sending church, the mall had a worship service with 180 in attendance and 14 people accepting Christ as Savior.

By Sara Shelton

NEW YORK – Every day when pastor Freddy Wyatt arrives at his New York City church plant and sits down in his office, he looks out the window. There, on the side of the Broadway Plaza Hotel, is a four-story billboard that is home to ads for products like Coca-Cola and Vitamin Water. The Gallery Church has shared the corner of 27th and Broadway with this billboard for close to three years now and, every few weeks when the advertisement changes, members of the congregation can’t help but notice.

Last week, when Wyatt sat down at his desk and let his eyes drift to the billboard, he was shocked at what he saw. There was a new ad for Vitamin Water, a brand of Coca-Cola Co., featuring a half-naked woman with the phrase “xxx you’re up” covering her chest as the four-story focal point of the billboard. The ad was promoting a flavor of the drink called XXX.

By Adam Miller

NEW ORLEANS, La. – There’s no better time than June to visit New Orleans. Add to jazz, beignets and the French Quarter the attraction of city residents who have grown to love Southern Baptists and you have a perfect chemistry for a successful Crossover 2012.

Hundreds of SBC volunteers—from Louisiana and across the nation—will join together June 15-16 for the key evangelistic outreach event prior to the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting, slated June 18-19 in New Orleans.

By Tobin Perry

Kyle Miller wanted nothing to do with church when he met Jeremiah Brown, a North American Mission Board church planter in Indianapolis. “I’m an agnostic, and my girlfriend and I are not married” were Miller’s first words to Brown.

Despite the awkward introduction, God clearly kept working on Miller’s heart. He agreed to join Brown for a Bible study he was leading. Recently, as they were studying the book of Nehemiah, Miller abruptly got up and walked out of the room. When one of the Bible study participants pressed Miller about why he left, he said, “It was getting a little too Jesus for him.”

Over the next week, God continued to work in Miller’s life. He started reading the Bible on his own. Next time Brown saw him, Miller said he wasn’t ready to believe the Bible, but he wanted to find out more

By Tobin Perry

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Pastor Matthew Hallenbeck got a phone call no pastor wants to get on a Sunday morning. His church was on fire.

An incapacitated driver had plowed into Bellewood Baptist Church in Syracuse, N.Y., early that morning causing massive damage—and a fire. That morning the church decided—as they worshipped together outside on a cool, crisp October morning—to rebuild again. Yet no one worshiping on the church lawn that morning knew exactly how the congregation would come up with the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would take to do so.

Frank Cox, pastor of North Metro Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga., for the past 30 years, talks with host Larry Wynn about how to transition a stagnant church into one that is impacting its community with the gospel through a fresh focus on evangelistic outreach. Wynn is vice president of evangelism for the North American Mission Board.