Viewbook 2025
We deliver network value that inspires each church to thrive in health, growth, and mission.
3085 Stevenson Drive Springfield, Illinois 62703
IBSA VIEWBOOK
The journey begins. The destination is known.
But exactly how we get there is not.
There are curves and crossings we may not expect.
And the stops along the way vary with each trip.
Yet, we trust the engineer. And he sends the conductor to reassure us as we travel.
The Illinois Baptist State Association, a network of some 900 local churches, serves as partner, collaborator, guide, and friend to pastors and church leaders navigating ministry through challenging terrain. Let us come alongside you for a better journey.
MY JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY NETWORK VALUE
y church has always brought great value to my life. I was taught the Bible there, and it was there that through the faithful witness of my teachers and my parents I came to know Jesus as my savior. From my earliest days when Miss Rose made me feel secure and loved in the church nursery, or when Mrs. McCormick taught me the Bible through the wonder of “flannel graph” pictures, my church loved me and pointed me to God. By the time my church witnessed my baptism, they were already my family.
Several decades later, I have now called ten different churches “my church.” In different seasons of life, each one has helped me mature and grow spiritually through loving, trusted relationships that were united by a common desire to know, worship, and please God.
I know I’m not alone. Many of us would speak of our church, perhaps more than one church, with similar affection and appreciation. Churches can deliver immeasurable value into our lives.
But there also came a time when my perspective on my church, and the churches I had known in my life, began to broaden. My dad, who had been a pastor for years, began a new role working with a network of Baptist churches in our area called an Association. I became better acquainted with other, likeminded churches beyond
my own, and discovered that many of those pastors and church leaders knew one another, encouraged one another, and worked together on a shared mission.
One night my dad invited me to go with him to a meeting of our network’s pastors and church leaders. There I learned the network had started the year after I was born, and that those pastors and leaders were celebrating their network’s 20th anniversary. I remember being surprised that only in my young lifetime had there been enough Baptist churches in our area to form a network.
I marveled at something else as well. As wonderful as Miss Rose and Mrs. McCormick had been in my life, and as valuable as the ministries of my church had been in my life to that point, the pastors and leaders at this network
meeting were of a different caliber. They talked about baptizing new believers in the river before their churches had buildings. They described the hostile opposition they experienced from city leaders who didn’t want “our kind” of churches there. They talked about the challenges of being “Southern Baptist” in a “northern culture,” where most people didn’t know Jesus personally, and where other religious traditions were deeply rooted, traditions that didn’t encourage personal Bible study or a personal relationship with Jesus. They discussed ways to help even the smallest and weakest churches in the network. And they planned mission trips to places that were just as spiritually dark as ours, multi-church mission trips that none of their churches could do by themselves.
1796 BAPTISTS GATHER
The first Baptist church in the Illinois met in the pioneer settlement of New Design, across the Mississippi from St. Louis. This riverside cabin was the first permanent meeting house.
1907 IBSA IS FORMED
The Illinois Baptist State Association was founded when 226 churches met in Pinckneyville, locating its office in nearby DuQuoin until 1930, then in Carbondale for the next four decades.
1971 FRESH MISSION FOCUS
IBSA turned its focus to underreached parts of Illinois in the 1950s. The new IBSA Building was constructed in Springfield, developing a center for ministry equipping and evangelistic outreach, as IBSA planted churches in every corner of the state.
What does network value look like in our state?
Planting new churches.
Because 9 counties in Illinois still have no Southern Baptist church, and 20 only have one, our state network delivers value by helping churches and church planters start 10-20 new churches each year.
Growing strategies.
Because the top request we hear from churches each year is “help my church grow,” our state network delivers value by teaching evangelism strategies, and by training church leaders in a variety of ministry skills.
Mission engagement.
Because churches want to send their members on meaningful missions experiences each year, the network delivers value by matching church groups with the needs of missions destinations. And because of the SBC’s large missionary network, there are few places in the world where an Illinois church can’t partner with a trustworthy and devoted SBC missionary.
Pastor cultivation.
Because 10-15% of our churches are without a pastor at any given time, our state network delivers value through pastor search training and referrals.
Approximately 900 churches and church plants comprise the statewide network. In addition, most of these churches belong to one of 33 local associations of Baptist churches, connecting for mission in our many contexts.
Continued from page 4
As a young man noticing things like this for the first time, I thought to myself, “These folks are serious. These folks are missionaries! They are working together sacrificially, under difficult circumstances and with few resources, to take the gospel where it is not widely known, and to start Bible-believing churches where they are rare.”
And I realized that the churches I had benefitted from all my life were there because someone else had done the same.
Looking back, it was meeting those network leaders and watching those relatively small and few churches grow even stronger as they worked together that started me on a lifelong journey of discovering not just the great value that a church can bring to a believer, but the great value a network can bring to a church.
A few years later, I was invited to be part of a team to plant a new
church in our young network. Our sponsoring church had already planted seven churches, but they were ready to send some of their best leaders to plant an eighth. Almost from the outset, our new church was larger than most of the churches in our network. Yet our selfless sister churches joyfully celebrated with us what God was doing. Grateful, it was our privilege from day one to give 20% of our new church’s offerings to the SBC’s Cooperative Program missions, and to planting another church in the network.
A few years later I joined the North American Mission Board staff, where we worked with thousands of Southern Baptist churches to help start more than 1,500 new churches each year. And though I had been a pastor’s son and a member of an SBC church all my life, I learned for really the first time how many missionaries, and new
churches, and trained pastors and leaders, and effective ministries our national SBC network facilitates for and through its churches each year.
So that’s the conviction with which I began serving the network known as the Illinois Baptist State Association. Churches can deliver great value to their members. And networks can deliver great value to their churches.
My list of how networks can deliver value could go on and on but let me close with this invitation. What does your church need? What would help your church move forward? Don’t go it alone. Invite your network into a conversation and discover how it can deliver true value to your church. Like me, you may find yourself on a joyful, lifelong journey.
Nate Adams is executive director of the Illinois Baptist State Association.
ONE BODY, MANY PARTS
IBSA IS PART OF A LARGER NETWORK
Our state association is one of 41 state conventions whose churches cooperate with the Southern Baptist Convention. Beginning in 1845 with a meeting of messengers in Augusta, Georgia, the SBC set out to be an “un-denomination,” not driven by religious hierarchy and more committed to missions and evangelism. That’s why they called it a “convention.”
The Convention immediately formed two mission boards—one committed to domestic missions and the other sending missionaries to foreign countries. They still work today as the North American Mission Board (NAMB) and the International Mission Board (IMB). These are the most effective sending agencies in the history of gospel missions, funded jointly by all the churches of the SBC.
nominations. We hold to congregational government and local church autonomy. The headquarters for the SBC is the local Baptist church. And the Convention and its entities always operate at the will and direction of church messengers who act in the SBC annual meeting. In this way, the Convention is the largest governing body of its type, where any messenger from any cooperating church can bring a motion or register an opinion, much like they do in the congregational business meetings back home.
In our mechanized, technological, and increasingly impersonal era, the operation of the SBC—the largest protestant group in the US, with its many moving parts—may seem quaint. But it works.
Committed to Baptist theology and polity, our Convention operates from the grass roots, in contrast to most de-
47,000 local churches
2 mission boards, IMB and NAMB
12 million members
And together our network of churches keeps missionaries advancing the gospel and baptizing new believers around the globe. Just like Jesus instructed.
41 state conventions
1 national Disaster Relief agency, with partners including Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief
1 voice in the public square, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
1 auxiliary, Woman’s Missionary Union
6 seminaries, training pastors and missionaries
1 operating hub, the SBC Executive Committee
1 publishing house, Lifeway Christian Resources
A SEASON FOR CELEBRATING
‘Two
pillars of Baptist cooperation’ at 100
Two big events happened in 1925. Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting in Memphis that year approved the denomination’s first statement of faith. They also created a unified system for funding global missions that has proven to be the most effective stream ever for supporting missionaries on the field advancing the gospel.
Here at the 100th anniversary of these pillars of Baptist cooperation, IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams said, “The Baptist Faith and Message facilitates multi-church unity around God’s Word. The Cooperative Program facilitates multi-church cooperation in God’s mission.”
That’s an apt word picture for the two pillars that have united our diverse network together and have supported our work for a century.
Multi-church Unity
The Baptist Faith and Message was written at a time when theological liberalism was emerging as a threat in most major denominations. Baptists are not historically a creedal people, holding to the separation of church and state, and rejecting enforced endorsement of certain beliefs. Yet, as churches wandered away from their historic biblical roots, Baptist leaders of the time felt the need to clarify the beliefs of their relatively young organization.
With the respected theologians and pastors of the time, the short document made brief statements about God and Man, Salvation and the Church, and other topics common t0 systematic theology. Its simplicity, with its list of biblical references from which the beliefs were derived, was its beauty. No church is required to endorse the document, but if you want to know what Southern Baptists generally believe, the BF&M is clear and concise.
The statement has been updated through the years, adding language to address the emerging doctrinal issues of the times. Most recently, messengers added an article addressing the biblical nature of marriage and family.
Southern Baptist’s unity comes in part from knowing that all SBC entities, mission boards, and seminaries adhere to the theological standards of this statement of faith. While other denominations may have yielded to cultural or theological laxness – the BF&M has helped insure that Southern Baptist institutions maintain doctrinal fidelity.
Multi-church Cooperation
At the century mark of the Cooperative Program, Baptist historians are calculating how many missionaries have been sent, how many nations and unreached people groups have been engaged, how many baptisms have been reported, how many churches have been planted, how many pastors and church leaders have been trained, how many volunteers have been mobilized over the past 100 years.
Perhaps it’s far too many to count. Because when it all started, who could have imagined the impact this unusual system for usual giving would have.
No more endless appeals by innumerable missionaries trying to raise support to return to their fields. Instead, a few years into the five-year $75 million Campaign which was designed to get the financially troubled SBC out of debt, the leaders realized they had stumbled onto something that would become the lifeblood of missions.
Steady giving.
Steady, systematic giving.
Voluntary, percentage giving by local Southern Baptist churches.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
IMPACT G LOBALLY GIVE
O CALLY
We may not remember the kind of missional boldness and sacrificial commitments it took to start this historic, cooperative missions venture in 1925. It was our grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations that envisioned and then established the Spirit-empowered ecosystem that now takes the gospel around the world every day, and even while we sleep at night.
For us, it’s kind of a given. So long as we continue our faithful giving.
~Jesus
SERVING UNDERCOVER
Josh and Madison* are IMB Missionaries sent out from their church in Southern Illinois. They go with full funding and support through the Cooperative Program and are among a growing number of missionaries who stood “behind the panel” at their IMB Sending Celebration commissioning.
According to IMB President Paul Chitwood, “About 60% of our personnel currently serve in countries where they can’t get a missionary visa… That’s higher than it’s ever been.” As IMB missionaries have worked to engage more and more unreached people groups, it has taken them to more locations with security risks. Central Asia, where Josh and Madison serve, is one of those places.
The conditions there are challenging. When the couple and their children arrived on the field, they were told it may take years for them to see spiritual fruit. But Josh decided not to accept that diagnosis. Instead, they set out to pray that God would provide “fast fruit.” God delivered. Now they continue to evangelize their Muslim neighbors while tending to a growing flock of new believers and training indigenous leaders for new churches.
“Thank you,” Josh said to Southern Baptists. “The IMB has enjoyed a long history of that cooperative giving model, meaning that we can go to the field, put our hand to the plow, and not look back. That’s a privilege that not every overseas worker enjoys. That’s a privilege that we don’t take for granted.”
*Names changed
Give Local, Impact Global
The Cooperative Program is the unified giving plan participated in by tens of thousands of Southern Baptist churches that fuels missions and ministry in their local state, across North America, and around the world. The generosity of churches giving together means that far more can be done together than any church could do on its own. And churches large and small can participate in trusted missions work with a unified strategy that is sharing the gospel and changing lives both in the state they call home and around the world.
You
Out of God’s blessings to your household, you give a portion back to God to worship Him and recognize that He is the source of all your needs. The Bible refers to this as tithes and offerings, and it is given through your local church.
Churches
Local churches decide to cooperate together for missions and ministry. Your church prayerfully decides to commit a portion of the gifts it receives to missions through the Cooperative Program. Churches are encouraged to commit a percentage of its undesignated gifts monthly. This amount is forwarded to the Illinois Baptist State Association. 1 2
HOW CP WORKS
3 5
Illinois
In Illinois, 56.5% of gifts given by churches are retained for instate missions and ministry. These Cooperative Program funds are used to provide for and support work in three strategic ministries to churches, Health, Growth, and Mission. Church revitalization, pastoral support, leadership development and volunteer skills training, youth and children’s discipleship and evangelism events, summer camps, local missions opportunities, Disaster Relief, collegiate ministry, and church planting all happen in Illinois through these CP resources. The other 43.5% of Cooperative Program gifts are forwarded by IBSA to the SBC Executive Committee, where they are distributed to SBC ministries in North America and the world.
The World
The largest percentage of Cooperative Program gifts forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention are designated for use by the International Mission Board. These resources fully fund over 3,500 missionaries serving around the world, focused on sharing the hope of Jesus with people experiencing the world’s greatest problem – lostness. Additionally, through the international work of Send Relief, people around the world experiencing poverty, war, and natural disasters are provided care, food, opportunities, and the gospel.
4
North America
A percentage of forwarded CP gifts fund the ministries of the North American Mission Board, which plants hundreds of churches in strategic cities across America and Canada, facilitates ministry on hundreds of college campuses, and provides compassion ministries to people experiencing crisis through the work of Send Relief. A smaller portion of CP gifts helps support the six SBC seminaries providing ministry and theological training, as well as the work of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
When a church prayerfully designates a portion of the tithes and offerings it receives to missions through the Cooperative Program, they are a vital partner in strategic, comprehensive missions work that is changing lives in Illinois and around the world.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE COOPERATIVE PROGRAM
Numbers Tell His Story
3,299 church planters and missionaries serve with NAMB in North America
3,300 military and hospital chaplains are endorsed by NAMB
385 college students spent their summer serving in 21 GenSend locations
4.09 Million people were served by Send Relief worldwide, presenting the gospel more than 1.81 Million times
226,919 baptisms by SBC congregations in the United States
67 new people groups and urban centers were engaged by SBC missionaries in 2022
2 lost people die every second
4.6 billion people do not know Jesus
Around the world, every day, people are hearing the gospel from Southern Baptists. Here at home, throughout North America, and across the globe, missionaries are sharing Jesus with people who have never heard. Our churches are going to the four corners—and sending witnesses there.
3,515 IMB missionaries serve worldwide
21,231 new international churches were started in 2022 through IMB work
290 Million people are part of more than 3,161 UUPGs (Unengaged, Unreached People Groups)
63,481 global leaders received ministry training
1,300+ missionary candidates have applied to IMB to go
81 IMB missionaries call Illinois their home state
141,206 new believers through the work of IMB missionaries
HEALTH
The health of a congregation sometimes depends on the strength of its leaders. As Paul wrote to the Galatian church, “Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up” (Galatians 6:9).
But it’s not only strength. There’s also the skill of reading a church’s vital signs, insight into the cultural influences on a community, and wisdom to take the right actions, in the right order, and at the right pace. Move too quickly, and you can blow up a church. Move too slowly, and it will drift into irrelevance until restoration seems nearly impossible.
With the right input from knowledgeable sources, a church can grow healthy and strong again. So can the pastor and leaders.
That’s why the IBSA Health Team is focused on revitalization. Because we’ve seen it work. Before a pastor moves on or a congregation surrenders to some sense of inevitability, an experienced team can serve as guides for a refocusing process.
The IBSA Health team has two overarching objectives:
• We coach pastors and leaders toward breakthroughs in personal ministry effectiveness.
• We guide churches in discoveries that lead to “next level” health.
Let the IBSA Health Team assist your church in gaining new vision for effective ministry.
LEARN MORE ABOUT CHURCH REVITALIZATION AND OTHER MINISTRIES TO HELP YOUR CHURCH
EVERY JOURNEY BEGINS WITH THE FIRST STEP
Effective ministry in local churches focuses on spiritual health, growth, and mission. So does IBSA. With teams dedicated to these three areas of ministry, IBSA is able to help pastors and leaders determine strengths and weaknesses in these areas, and bring fresh thinking to the processes that drive them. By using a “process approach” rather than ministry driven by programs at the state level, IBSA is able to customize its services and consultations with each church.
“What is your church’s next step?”
This is a question you will hear frequently in conversations with IBSA’s Health, Growth, and Mission Teams. Not long ago, most Baptist churches offered the same ministry programs, and did them the same way. Previous generations of IBSA staff were able to focus on one narrow niche as they served churches. But today, churches are far more diverse in their context and their
approach to ministry. It takes a team of generalists to help them. IBSA staff have broad experience in ministry on the local church level. With these multi-layered skill sets, our directors have ability to seek whole church issues and help discern whole church solutions.
Best of all, they can help pastors and churches take the next step. After all, every journey, no matter its destination, is taken one step at a time.
ASKING FOR A SEASON OF RENEWAL
“Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…”
Acts 3:19
Calls to return to God as our first devotion fill the Bible. In this season of rapidly changing culture, the need in many situations is for church renewal. The key word used today is revitalization. The IBSA Health Team is here to guide discoveries that empower breakthroughs.
Life-Giving Relationship
Health Team coaches are ready to meet with pastors individually, providing a place to check in about how they are doing spiritually, emotionally, and physically. They are committed to confidentiality and a posture of encouragement, ready to make sure pastors know they don’t have to serve alone. Through IBSA’s retreat centers, free prayer retreats are also available to help you replenish and refresh.
Honest Assessment
The Health Team has multiple assessments to discover how ready and resilient the pastor and church are as the pastor begins leading a revitalization journey. Using 1 Peter 5:1-2 as a lens, they can assist the pastor in becoming a wise elder, skilled overseer, and transformational shepherd. For the local church, they have assessments to help understand the church’s ministry effectiveness, along with its culture. By the time the church has completed these assessments, the pastor will have received a loving, honest, message from Jesus about how he sees that congregation. This type of honest assessment provides the type of conviction and self-awareness that can stoke the fire of revival.
A 2 Chronicles 7:14 Journey
The IBSA Health Team is ready to serve as pastors discover and live out breakthroughs in their lives and in the congregation.
• Coaches help pastors strive for personal growth and resilience.
• Pathfinders are ready to guide a church on its journey of spiritual awakening and church renewal over the months and years. God is calling us to demonstrate what Eugene Petersen called a long obedience in the same direction.
“If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14
REVITALIZATION AT WORK
Revitalization may involve any of a church’s main purposes: worship, discipleship, fellowship, evangelism, or missions. But ultimately it involves all of them. One church’s renewal, underway in the Quad Cities area where Baptists are thin on the ground, is showing up in its commitment to evangelism.
Jon Sedgwick is enthusiastic about green and blue ping pong balls for a good reason. The pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Coal Valley is leading the church to participate in the church revitalization process. “It’s encouraging to me to see the different colored balls,” he said. Green balls signify someone shared Jesus, and blue that they prayed with or for someone.
Church members write their names on the balls and place them in a clear box each week to chart the church’s progress. “To me it’s been surprising who’s been praying for and praying with people,” said Sedgwick.
Two IBSA teams and a zone consultant helped guide Sedwick through the revitalization process. According to Leadership Development Director Michael Awbrey, “It allowed them to have conversation about some things they haven’t talked about before, like the need for teachers and how to train the next generation. Now they’re being intentional about planning what to do.”
THE SURVEY SHOWS
About 40% of IBSA churches say they need revitalization now.
As IBSA has focused on revitalization ministry, the percentage of churches who said they need revitalization “now” or “urgently” has decreased by 34% since 2019.
Most churches say they need help with leadership development, evangelism, and discipleship.
IBSA has helped 250+ churches through Next Step consulting since 2021.
PERSONALIZED SERVICE FROM EXPERIENCED COLLEAGUES
Along with the staff who assist with age-graded and gender-specific ministries, IBSA has additional staff in the field who serve as your guy nearby. They are zone consultants. With a variety of ministry backgrounds and experiences in churches of all sizes, these are men who have served as pastors and leaders in Illinois congregations. They know the mission field, and they know the need of local churches.
It’s not easy being a Southern Baptist in the north, but these pastors have made it work. And they can bring expert counsel to fellow pastors who need fresh insight.
In addition to the zone consultants who represent IBSA in the various regions of the state, IBSA is in partnership with 33 local associations of Baptist churches. About half of these associations are older than the state association, which was founded in 1907. The oldest is Kaskaskia Baptist Association formed in 1830.
HOW THE NETWORK BECOMES A FRIEND
A recent Barna study revealed that 65% of pastors report feelings of loneliness or isolation, up from 42% just a few years ago. A separate LifeWay study found that 50% of pastors often feel the demands of ministry are greater than they can handle. Dealing with today’s church dynamics often magnifies these stresses. What a critical time this is to reach out to IBSA pastors, to voice appreciation and love for them, and to tell them in no uncertain terms that we are for them.
Our Illinois network of churches is developing more continuous pastoral care and building a stronger pastoral brotherhood. At IBSA, we are for the pastor. And we want pastors to feel encouragement and support in tangible, practical ways throughout the year.
IBSA is partnering with local associations and other Baptist partners to offer pastor retreats, pastor and wife getaways, confidential counseling services,
pastoral health self-assessments, resources for pastors’ families, and more.
We also survey pastors and gather them in listening groups to help our network better know and understand their current challenges and needs. We have added pastoral care elements to our training and gathering times. And we seek to develop closer comradery among pastors who share similar challenges and concerns.
Ministering more directly and personally to hundreds of pastors across our large state stretches our IBSA staff and will require the investment or reallocation of additional resources. But we can’t think of a better investment in healthy, growing, and missionary churches than to invest in the care and encouragement of the pastors that serve and lead them.
MINISTRIES ESPECIALLY FOR THE PASTOR
MULTIPLY HUBS
Held regularly in all regions of the state, these meetings offer equipping in a variety of ministry and leadership specialties, plus ongoing opportunities for development of relationships with colleagues through cohorts.
ONLINE EQUIPPING RETREATS
A new online resource center at IBSA.org provides instant help with ministry’s most frequent challenges. Online training sessions are easily available and convenient. And the “For the Pastor” webpage features Illinois leaders addressing soul care.
Pastors and their families are welcome to a free overnight retreat annually at IBSA’s two camp facilities. With special lodging recently updated, Lake Sallateeska and Streator Baptist Camps are ideal for scenic getaways, prayerful time away, and personal refreshment.
COUNSELING
Pathways Conseling offers five free sessions for pastors of IBSA churches. Plus our Church Health staff is ready with assessments and coaching for pastors who feel stuck. And Zone Consultants across the state are always nearby to listen and to care.
A CHURCH’S OVERALL HEALTH
A church’s overall health and effectiveness are directly tied to the health and effectiveness of its pastor. When a pastor is struggling, impatient or immature church members may find themselves thinking that he should just move on. But mature church leaders will understand that the church’s first instinct should be to understand and encourage their pastor, and to help him. They will make sure the pastor knows that they are for him, even when times are tough. And they may well find that kind of investment in their pastor will pay dividends for years to come.
COACHING A BETTER
Pastor Search Process Search
At least 10% of IBSA churches are in pastoral transition at any given time. There are new challenges each year for churches in transition, which include rising costs of staff insurance and benefits, even as the number of quality candidates continues to shrink. Many churches must look at models other than the traditional full-time role.
Because of these challenges, it is not uncommon for the interim period between pastors to be longer, while churches find creative ways to bridge the gap.
IBSA step ups to help churches in transition. Our staff meets with churches, offers training to search teams, and serves as coaches through the process.
IBSA has assisted 45 churches in person in a recent 18-month period. Many more are utilizing IBSA’s online training course and pastor search website where churches can advertise their
positions. We see several benefits from these connections:
• Churches gain a better understanding of who they are and what type of leader they are seeking.
• Search teams are communicating with candidates better, which was the top criticism offered in a 2020 survey.
• Churches are taking seriously the spiritual side of the search process, engaging in robust prayer and seeing search teams grow spiritually.
Amid the challenges, it is easy for leaders to think their church may be too small, too remote, or too broken to find a new pastor. The reality is God loves all our churches. He has already chosen your church’s next leader.
ONLINE RESOURCES
One beneficial tool is an online training course IBSA developed to train search teams that is both self-paced and user friendly. Churches have used the training tool in weekend retreats, in weekly sessions, or as individual self-study. Each of these methods have been successful. One church recently called to say thanks after they overwhelmingly approved their new pastor. Even though IBSA staff had not personally met with their search team, they shared, “It feels like we know you well because you trained us.”
CULTIVATING THE FARM SYSTEM
Hanging in Associate Executive Director Mark Emerson’s office is a collection of red hats—St. Louis Cardinals hats. (Mark is an avid Cards fan.) Several hats are from the minor league teams in the Cardinals system. Starting with low A Palm Beach and ending in AAA Memphis, the hats are a reminder that players develop and advance to the next level through a “farm system.”
IBSA has identified the need for a church leadership farm system. With challenges to find candidates for open positions, the state network creates an environment where pastors challenge leaders to accept God’s call to become ministers and missionaries. The state network partners with local associations to develop church planters and deploy them into new areas of work.
The farm team is included in IBSA’s long-range planning with the goal of cultivating hundreds of leaders both for and from missionary churches throughout Illinois. Calling out the called and developing these leaders is crucial to the church’s future. For example, as students at IBSA’s Super Summer began identifying a ministry calling, IBSA directors started connecting and encouraging them on their journey.
Seeking and Finding
When their pastor of ten years announced his coming retirement, the people of First Baptist Church of Fairview Heights suddenly felt burdened. They had not called a pastor in a decade, and the process had changed. So had the prospects.
They called IBSA right away.
“We were able to come in and to consult at the very early stages of that process. We were able to share with the leadership about our training tools and our help in training search teams,” said IBSA’s
Local associations are also making the farm team a priority. As examples, two of our local associations are offering seminary extension courses. Another association holds a monthly preaching lab, then sends participants to hone their skills through pulpit supply.
Local churches are also key players. Several IBSA churches have begun internship or residency programs where young leaders gain experience working in strong churches and being guided by gifted leaders.
As Cardinals manager Mike Matheny once pointed out, the minor leagues have the best hitters, the fastest runners, and the most gifted fielders. The reason that many will not play on the major league team is consistency. They are unable to do it every day.
Through the farm system, IBSA seeks to give upcoming preachers, student ministers, and missionaries opportunity to hone their skills, and then do it every day.
Mark Emerson, who leads pastor search services.
“It was extremely helpful to just have a blueprint already written out for us,” a search team member said. “He provided all these materials and training for us, and then was always available to answer every question we had.”
Within a year, the church called Scott Douglas (pictured), and the atmosphere was described as a celebration, even before the vote.
Growth
Healthy things grow, horticulturalists remind us, as do ministry experts. In church life, however, it’s not a single plant or fruit or root that grows. A church has many parts, all connected and all interdependent. Sometimes it’s one age group or ministry area that needs attention. Sometimes it’s one subset of leaders who need fresh skills for contemporary challenges. And oftentimes these leaders turn to the pastor for direction.
As the writer of Hebrews told a church looking for leadership, “Remember your leaders who have spoken God’s word to you. As you carefully observe the outcome of their lives, imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7).
While he is out in front of the organization, the pastor cannot know every skill that every leader in every area needs for successful ministry. But he can grow in Christlike character and know who to call to find proven, doctrinally sound resources.
The IBSA Growth Team has these guiding objectives:
• We expand the personal leadership capacities of pastors and leaders.
• We equip church leaders with effective skills and accessible tools for ministry and growth.
Let the IBSA Growth Team assist you in developing leaders across all ages and stages of life.
LEARN MORE ABOUT GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES AND OTHER MINISTRIES TO HELP YOUR CHURCH
PARTNERS IN GROWTH
Growth happens better with others. Church leaders intuitively know this. When most pastors think of significant seasons of personal and spiritual growth, they point to the learning community they had in seminary or a mentoring relationship experienced early in ministry. No wonder they often appeal to get Sunday morning attenders into more intimate gatherings, whether it is a traditional Sunday school class or an off-campus small group.
Once established in a church, however, pastors often find themselves isolated from those same environments they advocate for their members, and that once helped them grow.
IBSA understands this. So we offer well designed opportunities for pastors and
church leaders to continue to grow. These focus on two key areas that any leader needs, competencies and character. New leaders need to develop competencies, or essential skills. Throughout the calendar year IBSA events help develop practical ministry skills for staff and volunteers of cooperating churches. These trainings, led by experienced practitioners from within the network, provide essentials and advanced skills for serving in ministries and managing regular church operations.
Skills training events are held centrally in the association’s state-of-the-art conference facility in Springfield, and also regionally, hosted at churches throughout the state.
For pastors and other church leaders who bear a greater degree of spiritual and organizational weight, IBSA has a process designed to grow advanced leadership skills and character. While larger conferences and events challenge and equip leaders, the most positive changes happen in smaller, ongoing connections. Through Conferences, Cohorts, Consulting, and Coaching, leaders experience opportunities to expand their capacity and deepen their intimacy with God and peers.
Whether your church needs training for volunteers, development for leaders, support for pastors, or help overcoming current obstacles, IBSA is ready to help you grow.
IBSA OFFERS
TRAINING FOR
Children’s ministries
Reaching teens Small groups Women’s
How Leaders Guide Leaders
Conferences
Statewide conferences such as the Midwest Leadership Summit and Illinois Leadership Summit, and regional gatherings including our Multiply Hubs challenge pastors to deepen, grow, and innovate.
Cohorts
These transformational groups of 3-6 pastors meet regularly for connection, encouragement, and accountability. They also help pastors put into practice innovations and strategies that they are learning.
Consulting
When a leader feels unsure of how to proceed, IBSA can help them take their next step. Consultants come to listen, ask questions, and use tools to help the leader determine their best next step to take, then determine a plan and put it into action.
Coaching
One-on-one coaching helps leaders grow. In coaching, pastors are provided biblically based assessments to determine their current strengths and weaknesses. A coach guides them through a plan of action leading to change.
IBSA’s online resource center provides instant help with ministry’s most frequent challenges. This searchable library contains downloadable documents, articles, and videos in 15 categories. Our free, handy resources will answer ministry questions and help churches and pastors navigate today’s challenges.
GROWING WOMEN HELP CHURCHES GROW
Research shows women make up as much as 60% of the attendance at Southern Baptist churches. “I believe many of these women have a call on their lives to ministry,” said Carmen HalseyMenghini, an IBSA leadership director who works with churches to develop women’s leaders.
According to Lifeway’s State of Ministry to Women Study, most (57%) women’s ministry leaders say discipling women and encouraging their walks with Christ is the top priority for their ministries.
IBSA’s process involves helping women’s ministry leaders develop multiple on-ramps for discipleship in their churches. It begins by “peeling back the layers” with an assessment of strengths and areas in need of improvement. “As churches leverage existing groups and affinities, they can draw more women into the leadership pipeline,” she said.
The leader development process assesses the leader’s own discipleship journey, how she is abiding and developing in the Lord. It includes self-checkups that help
Increase Capacity
We want to help women understand how they are wired so they can work to their strengths. When we work to full capacity, we bring out our best. We get more done and feel God’s joy as we lead and serve others.
“ ”
Carmen Halsey-Menghini
her discover what is and is not working in her life. It is important for women to “develop rhythms in disciplines and to nurture balanced soul care. As they learn to lead themselves effectively, they’re better equipped to lead others.”
Women’s discipleship helps create healthy churches. Women who are intentional about discipleship and maturing in their faith are often the first to step forward, serving and cheering on what God is doing.
MULTIPLE ON-RAMPS FOR WOMEN LEADERS
IBSA has a robust strategy for developing and discipling women of all ages and stages of their lives through multiple large events and smaller gatherings. IBSA also offers women’s leadership development as part of its Multiply Illinois Hub training events.
IBSA’s ministry to women wants to see individual women’s lives transformed,
PRIORITY
Annual Women’s Conference
Priority is a two-day gathering of like-minded women who are intentional about being disciples who makes disciples. At Priority, women celebrate God’s faithfulness through worship and studying God’s word. They are equipped to live as followers of Jesus through educational breakout sessions. They leave ready to return to their area of ministry reminded that they are not alone on their journey.
but also entire communities transformed.
The IBSA Growth Team also helps women leaders create a culture of evangelism in their churches by training them to engage their families daily in prayer and to see their neighbors as a mission field. “We want our result to be disciples who makes disciples,” says Carmen Halsey-Menghini, IBSA Leadership Development Director. “We believe helping a woman increase her leadership capacity gives her more influence in the lives of her family, friends, and peers. This leads to more people becoming effective ambassadors for Christ.”
AWSOM
Weekend for Teen Girls
An acronym for Amazing Women Serving our Maker, AWSOM helps girls grow as disciples of Jesus. They see how they are part of the big picture of God’s church and kingdom. With girls in grades 5-12 from all over the state, they learn rhythms and habits for their spiritual lives, spend time learning from wise women leaders, and connect with other students who are trying to live out their faith in the real world.
PRIORITY
RETREAT
For pastors’ wives
Especially for women engaged in ministry as the spouses of pastors, this getaway conference offers spiritual support for the challenges of ministry. The pastor’s wife is often one-of-a-kind in a church setting. It can be lonely, so making connections with women in similar roles in other churches can be vital to spiritual survival. Priority Retreat focuses on the unique calling that comes with marriage to a pastor, and refreshes those who minister most closely to the pastor.
DISCIPLESHIP Cohorts for Women
In church-centered groups and online relationships, discipleship cohorts lead to transformation. Participants develop a better understanding of the Word. This leads to transformation in churches as women are sharing their faith—not only making their families and marriages stronger, but extending beyond their church out into the community. IBSA also offers a variety of online resources for teaching and strengthening women who follow Jesus.
A CRUCIAL TIME OF LIFE
PARTNERING CHURCHES AND CAMPUS MINISTRIES
Each year, over 450,000 college students gather on Illinois campuses to pursue their dreams for the future. These students come from all over the state, nation, and world. Each one is trying to figure out who they are, why they exist, how to find fulfillment, and what they’re going to spend their lives pursuing.
They want to make an impact and be a part of something that matters. At the same time they are realizing that there is something very wrong with this world. They feel the weight, anxiety and disconnectedness of our culture, and know there must be a better way.
This season is one of the most pivotal periods of time in their lives. It’s also one of the seasons where they are most open to and looking for answers to life’s biggest questions. The mission fields on college campuses are truly ripe for the harvest.
While that is a reality for students who have not encountered Jesus, there is another reality for students who have grown up in church. By the time a student is 19 years old, 90% of them no longer attend church. They’ve become disillusioned with their faith, yet deep inside they are looking for someone to show them it still means something. They desire to see how following Jesus
makes a difference right there in the middle of their college experience.
That’s why IBSA and its cooperating churches are so crucial to seeing God’s Kingdom come in Illinois. When churches intentionally create and partner with college ministries, there is a powerful synergy that produces life change on college campuses.
IBSA is intentionally working to reach college campuses around our state through support of six strategic campus ministries and in partnership with more than 20 cooperating churches. Our goal is to help connect churches with campus ministries to effectively reach college students.
As the lost encounter Jesus and as disciples are formed on our college campuses, they are sent back out into communities and churches throughout our state as missionaries.
When college students experience the power of Jesus in community and see his heart for them and their friends through these ministry partners, there is a passion that ignites inside them. That passion leads them to return home and reach the lost, invest in the family of God, and push back the darkness in our state.
HIGHER EDUCATION
78
four-year colleges and universities serve Illinois.
450,000 students are enrolled in these schools.
13% of their students come to Illinois from outside the U.S., providing ministry opportunities with internationals.
6 campuses in the system of Illinois public universities have IBSA-supported ministries.
SALT BRINGS LIGHT
Over 12 months, they baptized more than 50 students.
A great example of effective campus outreach is Salt Church in Normal, a new congregation reaching students at Illinois State University and nearby schools. This on-campus ministry was created with Salt Company, a campus-focused ministry that originated in Iowa.
18-22 years old is statistically the best age range for reaching adults with the gospel.
Salt Company connects with college students during the week, building relationships, and having deep conversations about life and faith. This allows them to connect those students into the larger church community of Salt Church. By being part of an on-campus college ministry that is associated with a local church, they are able to build a bridge that both reaches students and teaches them how to be part of the larger family of God.
FUTURE PROMISE NEXT GENERATION
MINISTRY RAISES
TOMORROW’S LEADERS TODAY
When we consider the statistics about reaching the next generation, the numbers paint a picture that is both hard and hopeful. Barna Research says 57% of millennials (those born between 1982-1998) who were raised in Christian households dropped that religious identify later in life. The majority of an entire generation (now aged 26-42) walked away from the faith. That’s hard to hear.
Yet some statistics are hopeful. Consider this one: 60% of Gen Z (those born between 1998-2015) say they want to learn more about Jesus, and about that same number trust the Bible to tell them about him. On the heels of a generation
that left their faith behind stands a new generation hungry to know more about Jesus.
IBSA is committed to help churches reach the next generation. That’s why IBSA partners with churches and leaders from across our state to host events that prioritize reaching and discipling kids and students.
These include DNow (DiscipleNow) student weekend retreats held at Streator Baptist Camp and Lake Sallateeska Baptist Camp. Student leaders are able to invest in their students in an intense spiritually-focused setting. And IBSA’s
long-standing next-gen ministry includes summer camps and Super Summer discipleship for emerging leaders.
Other events such as AWSOM Girls Conference or Forged Guys Retreat are annual events that invest in teens’ spiritual development. Youth Encounter is a staple for Baptist teens in Illinois. Each year, this conference drawing nearly 1,000 students offers unique opportunities to hear the gospel and build foundations of their faith.
With a generation of young people longing to know Jesus, IBSA assists churches to make disciples of the next generation.
TRAIN UP A LEADER
To train up a child in the way he should go, as Scripture says, the church first needs to equip the leaders and volunteers whose ministry focuses on children. In addition to the events IBSA holds for students themselves, our team of leadership directors offers training for trainers.
KIDS MIN
IBSA brings to Illinois experts in children’s ministry to teach the teachers. In addition to skilled leaders from Lifeway Christian Resources, the SBC’s publishing house, innovative and proven children’s workers from Illinois share their expertise.
VBS
One-fourth of all baptisms in SBC churches result from gospel presentations in Vacation Bible School. Each year, IBSA works with local associations and churches to hold VBS training clinics across the state.
PEER LEARNING
Our regional Multiply Hubs offer opportunities for specialized ministry leaders to meet regularly in cohorts to share what works for their agegraded discipleship ministries. Hubs are offered in North, Central, and South locations, in English and Spanish.
KEEPING KIDS SAFE
Churches that take seriously their commitment to protect minors and vulnerable adults need equipping and resources to make sure their leaders and volunteers are prepared. Together with national SBC entities and other Baptist state conventions, IBSA has developed resources for training and screening children’s workers. Teaching sessions are offered several times each year as part of regional training. Additional training can be arranged with IBSA leadership development directors. And IBSA has online resources explaining screening processes and linking to organizations that handle background checks.
All workers should be screened and trained to protect our children. Contact IBSA for information on best practices.
After abuse
When abuse is reported in a church, that church will need help with its next steps. The person claiming abuse, the person accused, and the church body need specialized ministry. Claims of abuse cannot be ignored. And the church leadership’s first steps after such a report are extremely important. IBSA has trained staff who can help guide the local church’s response if requested.
The SBC has developed training for churches to minister to abuse survivors. The Caring Well Initiative is a curriculum for abuse prevention and recovery in a ministry setting.
ILS/MLS
The Illinois Leadership Summit includes training tracks in kids ministry and student ministry. At Midwest Leadership Summit, pastors and leaders can grow as mentors for their volunteers in family ministries and evangelism.
LEARN MORE ABOUT RESOURCES TO DEVELOP A SAFE CHURCH
ONE WEEK COULD CHANGE LIVES
“I want to stay here!”
That’s what a student at one of IBSA Summer Camps said as the week was coming to a close. That same student had shared with their youth leader before coming to camp about how nervous they were to be spending the week away from home.
For them, camp was a place where they made friends, enjoyed recreational activities, and were discipled by loving, caring adults. They left camp having had a profound spiritual encounter that week.
This is a story often repeated throughout the summer. This is just one of the reasons IBSA is committed to helping churches conduct summer camp.
IBSA partners with local associations to help them reach and make disciples of the next generation. Together we hold multiple weeks of camp at two IBSA owned camp properties: Streator Baptist Camp outside of Streator and Lake Sallateeska Baptist Camp near Pinckneyville. These camp facilities provide an ideal environment for a week away.
By partnering together, camps are made affordable, churches are brought together, and kids and students experi-
ence a week spiritual investment. In a world filled with distractions, camp has become an oasis where boys and girls are able to unplug and live a different pace of life. In this setting, many young people encounter God for the first time.
Hundreds of kids and students enjoy the outdoors and recreation of the camps while growing in their faith. Dozens make professions of faith and many share that they feel called into missions or ministry.
In addition to the weeks of camp held at Streator and Lake Sallateeska, IBSA also partners to conduct a week of Super Summer. In recent years Super Summer
has been held on the campus of Hannibal-LaGrange University.
Super Summer is targeted toward students who have already made a profession of faith and are maturing in their faith. It is designed to be a week of leadership development and investment in the lives of the students. A specially designed curriculum builds from year to year as students grow.
IBSA camps and Super Summer are strategic ways cooperating churches can invest in the next generation.
FUN, FUN, FUN (and some serious moments too)
Daniel Johnson was looking for a camp experience for his 13-year-old son Jacob, who is visually impaired. Johnson said his son has attended both camps. Both IBSA camp facilities are ADA compliant. Streator runs one week each summer especially for kids with disabilities. Jacob participated there last summer.
Though the teen navigated the camp with a cane, with a little assistance he was able to participate in the outdoor recreational activities. “He did all the
MEETING CAMP
The numbers tell the story in this collection from summer 2024.
8 weeks of IBSA camps
40
participants at associational camps, up 72 from the previous year professions of faith producing 22 baptisms
big week of Super Summer 1
228 professions of faith producing 20 baptisms
5
36 13 757
984
called to ministry called to ministry or missions, and 22 other decisions participants, up from 222 the previous year
Totals:
camps participants and 45 salvations reported
challenges and the games,” the boy’s father said. “He had a kill shot with archery. He did very well with axe throwing, but none stuck.” But Jacob’s specialty was a game called Gaga Ball.
“He was winning at Gaga Ball!”
COST EFFECTIVE
Compared to other week-long camps that run $400 or more per camper, IBSA camps average less than half the cost for well-programmed activities and discipleship training, all in beautiful country environments.
GET QUIET, MEET GOD
Adam walked with God in the cool of the evening in the Garden of Eden. And there are at least two places in Illinois where such a spiritual retreat is still possible. “Our whole focus for the campground itself is to be a place where we remove the distractions of the world,” said Brock Vandever, where people can “meet with Jesus.”
Vandever is manager of Lake Sallateeska Baptist Camp near Pinckneyville, one of two camp facilities owned by IBSA. The other is Streator Baptist Camp, named for the small town located nearby.
Both camps are lush and green in the summer, bright in spring, and colorful in autumn. Even winter is refreshing with its brisk snowy forests. And both are inviting places for church retreats, get-
away weekends for pastors and families, and personal renewal.
Lake Sallateeska was owned first by the Illinois WMU and gifted to Illinois Baptists in 1941. The lake surrounded by 148 acres of woodlands and hiking trails was named by a missionary who visited there to teach a women’s group. For IBSA churches, Lake Sallateeska is part of a rich heritage in Baptist life.
Streator Camp was acquired in 1969 to serve churches in the northern part of the state. It, too, has a lake stocked with fish. And its rustic red barn serves as a visual center point on its rolling 141 acres. Streator has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, with expansion of its facilities.
Both camps have meeting halls and dining halls with commercial kitchens, a variety of lodging options for small and large groups, and innumerable spots to relax and recreate.
“It’s a really great opportunity for pastoral wellness, that we get to see them come and take a break,” said Streator camp manager Jacob Kimbrough. “Pastors are going through a lot, how to be good pastors and good dads.… And they get to come for two days and do archery and go fishing with their kids.” The camps are also excellent for sermon planning retreats, local leadership training, plus deacon, women, and student groups.
Many Illinois Baptists come every year, returning home with a charge of spiritual vitality for their local churches.
Mission
We all want to see the gospel spread as it did in the Book of Acts—like wildfire. The accounts recorded there are still amazing, with salvations daily in the thousands from the very birth of the church. “The word of the Lord spread through the whole region,” Luke wrote (Acts 13:49).
Considering that world population was up to 300 million at the time Jesus instructed his disciples to go into all the world, global evangelism starting in provincial Jerusalem seemed like a tall order. When we realize that there are now more than 8 billion people on the planet, the Great Commission seems even more challenging.
But the command is still the same. And the mission still motivates us, starting in the local church. It’s amazing today how a congregation that gets motivated by this mission finds itself healthy, and growing, and energized to go farther with the gospel, starting from its own street.
The IBSA Mission Team is committed to two objectives:
• We catalyze compassion for the lost and commitments to evangelism, missions, and church planting.
• We provide pathways and partnerships for each church to “turn inside out” into the lostness of its community and world.
Let the IBSA Mission Team assist you in engaging your community and the world with the gospel.
LEARN MORE ABOUT MISSION OPPORTUNITIES AND OTHER MINISTRIES TO HELP YOUR CHURCH
ILLINOIS IS STILL A MISSION FIELD
Our Illinois culture is changing and the demographics are shifting. Illinois is still a challenging mission field, even after over 207 years since it became a state. Even after the first Baptists started a church in swampy land beside the Mississippi River in 1796.
There are still communities right here without a vibrant, evangelical church to reach those who don’t profess Jesus as Lord. There are cities and towns which need more churches to reach their citizens. And there are neighborhoods where the populations have changed and where new churches are needed to connect with the people who live there now.
While Illinois’ population has remained relatively unchanged in recent years, its
population make-up has not. About 12.5 million people call the Land of Lincoln home, nearly identical to the total 20 years ago. Yet over that same period, the ethnicity, age, and geographic distribution of Illinoisans has taken on a new look.
The major university communities of Bloomington-Normal and Champaign-Urbana have grown, alongside the Chicagoland counties.
Illinois’ growing areas are more ethnically diverse than before, with increases among Hispanics (53%) and Asians (77%). Dozens of languages from around the globe are spoken at home by our new neighbors, and they need new churches to effectively reach them.
These same cities surrounding growing universities and businesses are also younger than less urban parts of the state. Data shows that new congregations are significantly more effective at reaching both young people and unchurched people than churches that are 15 or more years old.
While there are needs for church planting in the more populous regions of the state, the rural areas also need new churches. There are currently nine counties without an IBSA church, mostly in rural northern and north central Illinois. Many small towns and villages across the state have aging populations, emphasizing the urgency to reach our elderly neighbors with the gospel.
AN OVERVIEW OF SPIRITUAL NEED
0.77 million Asians in Illinois About 900 IBSA churches serve here, but… Illinois
12.5 million residents
2.3 million Hispanics
9 counties have no IBSA church
35 counties have only 1 IBSA church per 10,000 or more people
10-20 new churches are planted by IBSA each year
A PLAN FOR REACHING ILLINOIS
It is normal for a new church plant to gain 60-80% of its new members by reaching the lost and unchurched. This holds true for its first 10-15 years. To see a salvation movement among Illinois’ over 8 million lost people, starting new congregations must be a priority.
The IBSA Church Planting Team, working in partnership with the North American Mission Board’s Send Network, starts between 10 and 20 new churches in Illinois each year. How does a new church come to life?
Church Planting Catalysts work with cooperating churches. First they pray for a sending church to have the passion to plant. Then they pray for a new church planter to respond and commit to the call. Planters then go through the process of evaluation and training.
Church planting is hard. New pastors and their families need to be prepared for the emotional and spiritual challenges ahead. IBSA provides support and encouragement throughout the process.
Growing counties, growing opportunity
As recently as the 2022-2023 census data, these Illinois counties were seeing population gains. That includes the Chicagoland counties and the I-80 corridor, but there’s also growth among downstate counties with college campuses and strong manufacturing centers.
We help candidates navigate evaluation and training, and connect the new church with resources. And we help the fledgling congregation overcome early challenges.
Many new churches are started in high population areas with few IBSA churches, or in areas where there is an influx of new people. However, with lost and unchurched people in every community across the state, IBSA also prioritizes church planting in smaller, rural communities. In 2024, new churches were planted in the urban area of Chicagoland, but also in small towns including Ashley (pop. 462) and Mt. Sterling (pop. 2,000). Neither had an existing Southern Baptist Church.
Whether God moves to birth an entirely new congregation from nothing, or a healthy church incubates a new church to reach a new ethnicity in their neighborhood, or a dying congregation chooses to give new life by becoming a replant, IBSA is committed to reaching Illinois through church planting.
YOUNG, VIBRANT, CHURCH PLANTS
With most of Illinois’ population growth coming through Hispanic and Asian immigration, there is a need for more ethnic churches to reach these changing communities.
That’s what happened when Ministerios Yahweh started. This Hispanic church plant launched in 2024 to take the gospel to the 20,000 Hispanics of Macon County. The new ethnic congregation was launched out of Logos Church in Decatur, which was itself a 2022 IBSA church plant. The two congregations share a building, but they are reaching different people.
Like Hispanic churches nationally, these ethnic congregations have membership younger than the average church. About 72% of those attending Hispanic congregations are under age 50. Younger congregations tend to have more children. This adds life, vibrancy, and dynamism to their churches.
Illinois is growing older.
Between 2000 and 2022, people over age 50 grew by 38% (from 3.3 million to 4.5 million), while all demographics under aged 50 shrank.
In America, about 7,000 churches close their doors every year, and only 4,000 open. It is estimated that 2,000 churches need to be planted per year to keep up with national population growth.
BAPTISTS SEND RELIEF GLOBALLY AND LOCALLY
When Moriah* landed in Greece with her small twin boys, the widowed mother had escaped the worst of the brutal conflict that threatened their lives in Syria. The perilous journey was over, but now she faced another great challenge. Still struggling with the sudden loss of her husband, she immediately had to bear that grief while navigating the uncertainty of survival in a foreign land. But in Greece she encountered Southern Baptist Send Relief.
Send Relief is a collaboration between the North American Mission Board and International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Through compassion ministries, they respond to crisis and strengthen vulnerable communities in North America and around the world by meeting physical and spiritual needs in Jesus’ name.
In North America, a network of 19 ministry centers in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico provide a consistent presence in major metropolitan areas, like St. Louis and Chicago. And by partnering with state
and local Baptist associations, as well as local Baptist churches and community service organizations, Send Relief delivers community development, mobile medical and dental care, and food and water in communities experiencing crisis.
Overseas, Send Relief responds to people in crises, like families experiencing war, earthquakes, floods, drought, and famine.
They also work proactively to provide opportunities for men and women to develop the skills they need to make a reliable income. Whether it’s training human trafficking survivors in Thailand in sewing or craft skillsets, helping former addicts in Kenya to start a small business through microloans, or enabling a village in Malaysia to start a fish-farming operation, Send Relief works with local leaders, churches, and IMB missionaries to meet needs in ways that seek to develop rather than form dependency, all while sharing the hope of Jesus.
HOW HURT LEADS TO HOPE
*Name changed
Across Illinois and throughout the Midwest, Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief provides immediate help to communities experiencing devastation from floods, tornadoes, fires, and other crises. With more than 450 trained volunteers mobilized through a network of local DR units, they respond by providing a wide range of services when disaster strikes. Nationally, they combine with Disaster Relief organizations in every other state or region to
comprise Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, the third largest relief agency in America.
“Being able to help homeowners, but not only that, having those we helped come up to you and just say how grateful they are. Knowing that you did something good for people and showed them the love of Christ,” is why IBDR volunteers like Steve Ohl give their time to train and serve.
Disaster Relief volunteers can receive training in multiple different areas of response,
Mobile kitchen units are equipped to provide thousands of meals per day to victims of natural disasters, as well as first responders and DR teams.
Chainsaw units deploy after tornadoes and violent storms, common in the Midwest, quickly clearing downed trees and limbs, allowing people to begin repairs or regain access to their property.
Childcare teams are trained, equipped, and background checked to care for children whose families have been affected in times of crisis, allowing parents and guardians to focus their attention on immediate recovery needs.
and show up in their signature yellow shirts, ready to serve as ambassadors of Christ.
While the physical labor of DR teams provides the most immediate impact, the spiritual work done during callouts produces eternal results. Chaplains and other volunteers seek opportunities to share about the forgiveness and hope found in Jesus, and people respond to the gospel during many callouts. And when work is completed on a job site, the volunteers gather as team to
pray with the homeowners and present them a Bible.
Disaster Relief is a powerful way for Illinois Baptists to cooperate together to impact their communities in great times of need, said IBSA Executive Director, Nate Adams. “Your church has lots of opportunities to train volunteers for service so that when a disaster strikes, we have an opportunity to serve people and point them to the love of Jesus Christ.”
Shower trailer teams supply mobile laundry facilities and multi-stall shower trailers on site during disaster recovery.
Fire-recovery units help homeowners remove debris and clean up after experiencing structure fires.
Chaplains receive training to meet the spiritual and emotional needs of adults and children suffering the trauma and loss of a disaster.
Send Relief
Local churches support this joint mission work of NAMB and IMB through Cooperative Program giving. In a single year, Send Relief reported:
4.09 million people served 1.81 million gospel conversations
162,000+ decisions for Christ
1,304
new areas opened for gospel work
REACHING FAMILIES IN NEED
Founded as an orphanage during the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918, Baptist Children’s Home quickly found a place in the hearts of IBSA churches. Volunteers from nearby churches give many hours of service. Through the annual Mother’s Day Offering and the Fall Festival with its popular quilt auction, Illinois Baptists feel a strong sense of connection to the ministry. As one of the entities of the overall Illinois Baptist State Association, BCHFS provides a range of services
for children and families in need. As times have changed, so have the needs and the services offered to meet them.
BCHFS seeks to strengthen families in Illinois by offering hope in Christ.
BCHFS in Carmi
The residential facility is licensed for four cottages, two each for boys and girls. Most who come to the children’s home are there for a few weeks or months. The goal is usually to restore them to their families. Counselors address the issues, both in parents and children, that necessitated separation from their homes.
Angels Cove
The maternity home for young women with crisis pregnancies is located in Mt. Vernon. This residential facility provides a homelike setting for mothers before and immediately after their pregnancies.
GraceHaven
The newest ministry of BCHFS is a pregnancy resource center in Mt. Vernon that offers guidance from a pro-life perspective. Pregnant women can see their
unborn babies with sonograms offered by trained technicians, support groups and training, and supplies needed for newborns.
Faith Adoption Services
This ministry matches children in need of a home with parents who wish to adopt. Utilizing Christian staff, this fully licensed service provides training for birth mothers and prospective parents, and follow-up when children are placed.
Pathways
Counseling
With 14 locations across Illinois, licensed professional Christian counselors help clients address marriage and family issues to recovery after death, divorce, addiction, and more. Compassionate, grace-based counseling is the aim of Pathways.
LEARN MORE ABOUT BCHFS
Firm Financial Foundation
The Baptist Foundation of Illinois helps individuals and churches respond to God’s call of stewardship, by connecting financial resources with ministry opportunities that transform Illinois with the gospel.
Judy Shoemaker said before investing through BFI she “thought it was just for preachers and church staff members.” She likened her previous investing to the parable in Matthew 25 about burying money in the ground. “I realized I was the one burying the money,” she said. “Putting in a bank account and only getting 1%. You don’t have to have $20,000 you can just have $1,000 and put it
together with other people’s money and do good things with it.”
“I should have done that years ago,” Shoemaker declared. “I should have saved up when I was working. I wish I’d done that.” But it’s not too late.
BFI has helped almost 200 families create Christian Estate Plans, which will produce $250 million in Kingdom giving. At the tenth anniversary of expansion of the church bonds program, BFI has written 92 bond issues and raised more than $21 million for church loans. And BFI manages 1,715 custodial accounts valued at more than $64 million.
Offering brighter future
First called the Baptist Annuity Board, Guidestone Financial Services provides a wide range of services to help pastors and church staff prepare for retirement. More than 100 years old, the ministry has expanded to include retirement plans, investments, health plans, insurance for those who answer God’s call on their lives. In addition, Guidestone continues to support retired pastors and their widows who need extra help through Mission Dig-
nity, a monthly stipend. Guidestone is one of the SBC’s historic boards, along with Lifeway Christian Resources. The institution has 250,000 members and manages $22.2 billion in assets.
Pastors whose churches are partners with IBSA may receive disability insurance as a gift of the State Association through Guidestone.
Learn more at guidestone.org
Custodial Investing
BFI offers high yield cash management with full liquidity, in addition to short-term investments and bonds that support ministry capital projects.
Christian Estate Planning
Kingdom planning can take care of family and ministry beneficiaries with a variety of options, including donor advised funds, family charitable endowments, and more. With an initial investment as low as $100, the plan to bless the kingdom can begin with disbursements beginning when the fund reaches $5,000 and continuing in perpetuity.
Church Loans
These low-cost loans are for church construction and capital improvement projects. They are usually 20-year loans with no balloon payment. The loans are funded by a bond program in $1,000 increments. Following approval, a loan typically closes within 30-45 days.
Scholarships
Every January, BFI receives applications from college and seminary students, then blesses them and the kingdom with scholarships. In the past ten years, BFI has made 392 awards totaling $817,575.
LEARN MORE ABOUT BFI
THIS IS WHAT WE’RE ALL ABOUT.
It may be a horse trough in a gymnasium, a glass-front baptistry in a sanctuary, or a spot down by the river, but wherever it happens, this is what Illinois Baptist churches are about—making disciples and baptizing them.
It’s a sacred moment when someone makes a commitment to faith, and a pastor plunges the new believer under the water in the way of Jesus. A grandmother’s prayers are answered. A father breathes a sigh of relief. In many churches, the witnesses gathered ‘round break into applause as the fresh-born son or daughter of God is raised to new life.
It’s a beginning.
Their families may have been praying for years, as have Sunday school teachers or ministry leaders whose hearts have been burdened for people who don’t know Jesus. And now their church families will spend more years teaching the new disciple to live like Jesus and share the gospel with someone else who will make that the same faith commitment down the road.
One day the believer may engage a seeker with the gospel in the same way Philip shared with the man riding in a chariot on a desert road, eager to hear the seeker ask:
“Look, there is water. What would keep me from being baptized?”
When you are ready to go, we can help you get there.
From today’s challenges, to becoming the church of tomorrow.
Whether your church needs a mission partner, a problem-solver, or a guide, you can trust IBSA to help you move forward on your journey.
Our network is built on a solid foundation of the unchanging Gospel. Our clear commitment is to help propel churches forward as they fulfill their calling and the Great Commission.
For over a century, we have made it our mission to help churches accomplish theirs.
We stand ready to help you.
LEARN MORE ABOUT BECOMING AN IBSA COOPERATING CHURCH
OUR VALUES
MEASURABLE EXCELLENCE for churches
PRACTICAL HELPFULNESS to churches
COOPERATIVE ENGAGEMENT with churches
GOSPEL ADVANCE through churches
To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 3:21