SBC Life - Summer 2021 (Vol. 29, No. 3)

REACHING EVERY PERSON FOR JESUS CHRIST IN E V E R Y TO W N , E V E R Y C I T Y, E V E R Y S TAT E , A N D E V E R Y N AT I O N .

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Table of Contents

901 Commerce Street Nashville, Tennessee 37203 615-244-2355 E-mail: sbclife@SBC.net

7 Advancing the Vision

A Letter from Ronnie W. Floyd

Ronnie W. Floyd President & CEO

F E AT U R E D A R T I C L E S

18 Five Thousand New

Congregations ‘Reachable’

if Churches ‘Step Forward’

Jonathan Howe and Amy Whitfield Executive Editors

28 Ministry Calling Push to

Address Worker Shortage

Rebecca Manry Communications Specialist

36 Teens ‘Consumed with Christ’

Can Reverse Baptism Dip 10 International Mobilization At

Heart of SBC’s Vision 2025

SBC Life is published by the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.

44 CP Needs ‘All Hands on Deck’

To Reach $500 Million

S B C U P D AT E S

52 Serving with Integrity and

Skill—O. S. Hawkins Reflects

on a Half-Century of Ministry

80 Lottie Moon Christmas

Offering Hits Cumulative

$5 Billion

58 Long Hollow Revival Steeped

in Prayer Sees One Thousand

Baptisms since December

84 Tennessee Six-Year-Old

Inspires Church with Annie

Offering Gift

68 Americans’ Views of Life’s

Meaning and Purpose Are Changing

88 Almost Half of Teens Believe

Many Religions May Be True,

Pew Finds

74 Church Members Are

Minority in US for First Time,

Gallup Says

92 Presidential Reflections

by J. D. Greear

Andy Beachum Creative Director

Allison Young Publication and Project Coordinator SBC Life is published three times per year: Fall, Spring, and Summer. It is distributed to pastors, ministers of education, ministers of music, full-time denominational workers, chaplains, missionaries, and vocational evangelists.

Workers retiring from any of these groups may continue to receive the magazine upon request. Subscriptions are free of charge. Bulk subscriptions are available at reduced prices.

For SBC Life subscriptions, call 866-722-5433 (toll-free).

Any article without attribution is by SBC Life staff.

For advertising information, contact Hillary Krantz at hkrantz@sbc.net.

SBC Life (ISSN 1081-8189) Volume 29, Number 3 © 2021 Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee

SPONSORED

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A Little Girl’s Big Prayer: Missionary Faithful to Commitment She Made at Age Ten

26 Brotherhood Mutual 64 Voice of the Martyrs

5

A Letter from Ronnie W. Floyd

Beyond Vision 2025: The Cooperative Program is the Catalyst

V

ision 2025 is our opportunity to cooperate as Baptists on five strategic actions to stand tall with a passionate vision of reaching every person for Jesus Christ in every town, every city, every state, and every nation.

Even as we consider Vision 2025 for formal affirmation, being all in on it begins now. I believe our five Strategic Actions are things in which every church of every size, every ethnicity, and every language can participate.

These five Strategic Actions involve increasing our missionaries around the world, adding new churches in America, calling out the called, reaching and baptizing more teenagers, and funding this vision. You can read more detail on these actions in this issue of SBC Life, along with stories of those already giving of themselves.

But I’d like to go deeper on Strategic Action #5, which directly affects the other four.

STRATEGIC ACTION #5 Increase our annual giving in successive years to establish a new pattern of growth that will lead us to reach and surpass $500 million through the Cooperative Program to achieve these Great Commission goals.

While this may be listed last, it is the one that allows all the others to take place. The Cooperative Program is the catalyst for our Great Commission vision. Without our work together through the Cooperative Program, none of this happens.

Please understand, we know we find ourselves in a different world than last year or any other

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time in our generation. Never before in most of our lifetimes have we walked through a global pandemic. Therefore, our goal of increasing annual giving in successive years to establish a new path of growth is imperative and may cause us to see a turnaround in total Cooperative Program giving.

When speaking of total Cooperative Program giving, I am referring to the financial resources

our churches give through the Cooperative Program. Those monies contribute to Great Commission work regionally, across your own state, our nation, and all the nations around the world.

Let me show you what has been happening with our Cooperative Program giving over the past twenty years.

The image above shows something I believe is very important. The box in red shows the years of the Great Recession of 2008–2009. Do you see the decline after this and its lagging effect? Since this decline began, total Cooperative Program giving has not recovered to its pre-recession levels. In fact, it has not recovered as fast as other areas of philanthropy in the secular world. We typically trail the growth of the GDP, philanthropic giving, individual giving, and religious giving. While we are grateful God has provided, we are not at the level of the others since 2008–2009.

Since this is true, we have a glimpse of good news. If we can begin to realize the capacity we have to grow and catch up with the overall gains in giving already occurring, we have a future with great possibilities. We must discipline ourselves

in sharpening our focus on our eternal mission of sharing Good News with the whole world and stay consistent with our message of reaching every person for Jesus Christ in every town, every city, every state, and every nation. This is our greater cause.

In the fiscal year ending in September 2020, we were impacted by the pandemic for the six months of April through September. This present fiscal year of 2020–2021, we project a revised budget with a three percent decrease in comparison to last year. After the first four months, it appears we have budgeted correctly.

We can see in the next graphic that our 2020 fiscal year ended ahead of the year before; but with 2021, we may reach all the way down to $452.5 million due to the full effects of the pandemic. Yet as we move forward, we project our fiscal year of 2022 will begin moving us up in total Cooperative Program giving.

Please note 2023. In order to recover from the pandemic and move forward in funding all of our Great Commission work along with the needs of Vision 2025, we must work diligently to start

7

growing the Cooperative Program at a level of 2.65 percent beginning in 2023. Based off these projections, we have the potential to begin seeing significant upward growth in 2023, 2024, and 2025. Yes, the pandemic has set us back.

However, I believe when our churches hear the vision before us, we will begin to see progress and an upsurge in giving.

We need to show you when we may have the capacity to see this breakthrough. It is an important goal to see reached by the end of Vision 2025. We believe that if recovery occurs and an increase returns, we have the capacity to see a breakthrough and growth in our total Cooperative Program giving in the fiscal year 2023–2024.

Please look at the red line across the graphic above. It marks where that breakthrough occurs.

If we can see this glimmer of hope and the vision is moving forward, then perhaps it will lead us to greater giving in the years ahead. We are hopeful as we cast a vision for our greater cause.

Let’s take a look at individual church giving.

People give to the church. Then, the church

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gives through the Cooperative Program to further our mission together. The amount given is determined by each individual church.

The next chart breaks things down. We can compare 2008, the beginning of the Great Recession, to 2019. We now have fewer churches who are giving through the Cooperative Program and the ones who are, are giving a smaller percentage than in 2008.

What problems does this reveal?

1. We are not engaging our churches effectively.

2. We are not communicating with our churches effectively.

3. We are not sharing and living a consistent message of who we are with the churches because we keep walking on our own message.

4. We are not providing the churches with a concise and compelling Great Commission vision that will move them to support it.

However, to pastors and churches, help is on the way. For the greater cause, we need to learn from this data and listen to every church—from the smallest membership churches to the largest membership churches. The growth of the Cooperative Program is the certain way each of our churches can participate in funding these strategic actions of Vision 2025.

I extend to all of you the invitation to not only adopt Vision 2025, but to commit to promote, advance, and pursue this unified Great Commission vision together. Southern Baptists cooperate together for the greater cause—the propagation of the Gospel to every person in the world. We must begin to take this vision everywhere and listen to pastors, churches, associational mission strategists, state convention leaders, and national entities about how each one of us can own this vision personally and in ministry collectively. We must do this because this is our greater cause. Together, we can do this to the glory of God.

sbc.net/vision2025

This letter was adapted from Advancing the Vision, a weekly email from Dr. Ronnie Floyd. Sign up today at advancingthevision.com

RONNIE W. FLOYD is president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee.

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F E AT U R E D A R T I C L E

I N CREASE F U L L-T IME , F U L LY- F U N D E D MISS ION A R IE S

BY A N E T GA IN OF 5 0 0, G IV IN G US 4 , 2 0 0 F U LL-TI M E, F U L LY- F U N D E D MISS ION A R IE S T H R OU GH T H E I NT E R N AT ION A L MISS ION BOA R D.

A missionary gives a Bible to a Songhai chief in a village outside of Niamey, Niger.

Image Courtesy of IMB

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International Mobilization at Heart of SBC’s Vision 2025

BY DAVID ROACH

W

hen Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida, turned 150 years old in 2016, Pastor Willy Rice laid out an ambitious vision: plant 150 churches in a decade, including one hundred international churches.

They knew it wouldn’t be easy. A lot of church members would need to be sent out as missionaries, so Calvary developed a three-year process for identifying and discipling members who thought they might be called to missions. The process included monthly meetings, one-on-one sessions with a coach, and a requirement that each potential missionary start a disciple-making group.

It worked. Now halfway through the decade, Calvary is more than halfway to its international church planting goal—with more than sixty new congregations across the globe. It wants to help other churches launch similar missionary-development processes as the SBC strives toward the

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Paul Colton (right), pastor of international missions at Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida, with a church planting partner in South Asia.

Image Courtesy of Paul Colton

Putting our ‘yes’ on the table for sending immediately generated movement missions, because healthy churches have people in them that want to be sent.”

Paul Colton, pastor of international missions Calvary Church Clearwater, Florida

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first goal of a five-year plan knows as Vision 2025: increase the number of full-time, fully funded International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries by five hundred, bringing the total to 4,200.

“Putting our ‘yes’ on the table for sending immediately generated movement,” said Paul Colton, Calvary’s pastor of international missions, “because healthy churches have people in them that want to be sent.”

Mission leaders say the SBC’s goal is ambitious but achievable if churches of all sizes will establish pipelines like Calvary’s for identifying and developing international missionaries.

“The five hundred additional missionaries was a field-driven goal” based on the number of people groups across the world to be engaged and the workers needed to penetrate those groups with the Gospel, said Scott Ray, director of the IMB’s assessment and development team. “It is a need-based goal.”

Meeting that need will require broad cooperation in the Convention. Increasing to 4,200 IMB missionaries would constitute a 13.5 percent increase over five years. That would be the largest five-year percentage increase since the missionary total jumped 18 percent from 1994–1999.

Achieving the Vision 2025 goal also would mark a turnaround after the IMB’s missionary force decreased some 25 percent from 2014–2019 amid budget adjustments.

Ray and other IMB leaders are seeking to determine whether enough churches can be mobilized to achieve the goal.

Baptist associations will be among the IMB’s key partners in the effort, said Keelan Cook, associate director of Houston’s Union Baptist Association. This month, the association is piloting a missions cohort program to help churches assess missionary candidates, equip them, and get them through the IMB’s application and vetting process.

The cohort will combine classroom instruction and hands-on ministry. Over eight months, Houston Baptists considering missions will work

For the SBC to achieve its Vision 2025 goal, missions should be ‘infused into everything’ a church does.

IMB President Paul Chitwood and his family, along with fellow missionaries and volunteers, pray over Bogotá, Colombia.

Image Courtesy of IMB

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A volunteer doctor from the US speaks with a patient through a Thai translator during a medical mobile clinic in Thailand.

Image Courtesy of IMB

Raising up missionaries among underrepresented ethnic groups is another key facet of the IMB’s strategy to expand its missionary force.

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through IMB curriculum for missionary candidates and develop a cross-cultural missions strategy among one of the many international communities in Houston. The local cross-cultural ministry is designed to mirror the type of ministry missionaries will conduct overseas. Cook hopes other associations will emulate the Union Association’s model.

“The association stands in a unique position” to help churches begin “identifying those we would send in our own pews and working together to equip them,” Cook said. Cooperation among local churches in missionary equipping “creates space for churches that feel they don’t have the resources necessary to lean into something like that” alone, he said.

Raising up missionaries among underrepresented ethnic groups is another key facet of the IMB’s strategy to expand its missionary force.

To that end, Ray’s assessment and development team is adding diverse staff members to help identify missionaries from Hispanic, Chinese, and Black churches among other ethnic groups.

Ray’s personal goal is for the percentage of missionaries from each ethnic group to “match up with the Convention as a whole.”

Asian Americans represent 5 percent of the IMB’s missionary force though they comprise less than 1 percent of Southern Baptists.

That will require expansion of the missionary force in some cases. Of the approximately 3,700 career missionaries serving with IMB at the end of 2020, just twenty (0.5 percent) were African American, according to the IMB’s 2021 ministry report. Overall, 6 percent of SBC church members are African American, according to Pew Research.

On the other hand, Asian Americans represent 5 percent of the IMB’s missionary force though they comprise less than 1 percent of Southern Baptists. And according to last year’s IMB ministry report, “God is opening an increasing number of pathways for Hispanic brothers and sisters to take the Gospel to Muslim contexts.”

One congregation leading the way in missionary sending is The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, where outgoing SBC President J. D. Greear is pastor. They have 295 active international mission personnel currently on the field and have sent 630 over the years, said Lori Frances, The Summit’s director of sending. That places the congregation among IMB’s top sending churches.

The Summit maintains its constant stream of international missionaries by seeking mission applications in each sermon. In fact, Greear sends

A Filipino missionary signs during a Bible study in Batangas, the Philippines.

Image Courtesy of IMB

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The Summit Church’s international missions cohort meets monthly to prepare and equip potential missionaries for service.

Image Courtesy of The Summit Church

his sermon notes to the missions team each week to help brainstorm applications. The church also maintains an international missions cohort that meets monthly to train, equip, and assess believers who think God may be calling them to the mission field.

The Summit hosts sending workshops twice each year to help other churches develop missionary pipelines. The congregation also puts resources for developing a missions cohort under the missions section of its website. Greear and his staff consult with others churches as well.

Too often, churches run their missions program “like an app instead of the operating system,” Frances said. For the SBC to achieve its

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SBC.NET | SUMMER 2021

Vision 2025 goal, missions should be “infused into everything” a church does.

Ray and his team at the IMB are available to consult with churches interested in developing missionary pipelines.

“We have been working with a number of associations, colleges, and some churches who are at different stages of developing these pipelines,” Ray said.

Ray can be contacted at sray@imb.org.

DAVID ROACH is a writer and senior pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.

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Grace Church’s newest campus launched in Peabody, Massachusetts, in March.

Image Courtesy of NAMB

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SBC.NET | SUMMER 2021

Five Thousand New Congregations ‘Reachable’ if Churches ‘Step Forward’

BY DAVID ROACH

S

oon after it launched in 2005, Boston’s Grace Church had a realization: nonbelievers would drive an hour for work or Little League, but they wouldn’t travel for church.

So Grace began plotting where its members lived on a map. Whenever they saw a cluster of twenty-five to thirty members in an area, they prayed for a leader to plant a church there.

Sixteen years later, Grace has used that method to launch nine new congregations (five church plants and four new Grace locations) that reach thousands across the Boston metro area each week.

“We don’t have time to waste,” Grace pastor Sean Sears said. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to start churches.”

Such urgency will be needed across the SBC if it is to fulfill the second goal of the Convention’s proposed Vision 2025: add five thousand new

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Lead Church Planter Bobby Williams (left) began Next Level Church with his wife LaKeisha in the New Orleans East community.

Image Courtesy of NAMB

Our biggest need today is more qualified church planters. As I have often said, we could increase our church plant count by one hundred this year if we had more planters for the mission.

Kevin Ezell, president North American Mission Board

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congregations to the Southern Baptist family by 2025, bringing the total to fifty thousand.

That goal, recommended to SBC messengers by the Executive Committee, aims annually for six hundred church plants, two hundred replants of declining congregations, one hundred new campuses of existing churches, and 350 new church affiliations with the SBC—for a total of 1,250 new congregations each year.

The goal is a tall order. The Convention has not topped 1,250 new congregations in a single year since 2009, according to SBC Annuals.

Climbing back to the needed annual total would mark a 38 percent increase from 2019, the last year for which data is available.

Leaders at Baptist state conventions and the North American Mission Board (NAMB) are asking whether enough churches can be mobilized to achieve that level of church starting.

“I am confident these are reachable goals, but they are goals that will require more churches to step forward and become actively involved in planting,” NAMB President Kevin Ezell said.

“The challenge is also for more churches to call out the called. Our biggest need today is more qualified church planters. As I have often said, we could increase our church plant count by one hundred this year if we had more planters for the mission.”

The Florida Baptist Convention is doing its part to help churches achieve the goal. The convention’s statewide goal aims for at least seventy-five new church plants each year. Since 2015, Florida Baptists have planted 284 churches and seen a 92 percent survival rate among those congregations.

In a partnership between NAMB and the Florida Baptist Convention, Florida churches planting new congregations can receive four years of funding toward the plants, with NAMB providing half and the state convention the other half.

“Every state convention has an opportunity to have a partnership with NAMB,” said Tommy

I am confident these are reachable goals, but they are goals that will require more churches to step forward and become actively involved in planting.

Kevin Ezell

Rob Warren, a Send Network church planting missionary in Madison, Wisconsin, launched a collegiate church plant that seeks to reach students at the University of Wisconsin as well as residents in the city.

Image Courtesy of NAMB

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Sunday morning worship at First Baptist Church in Nampa, Idaho.

Image Courtesy of NAMB

No church is too small to plant another church.

Three or four smaller churches may opt to plant together.

Just pray for God to raise up those church planters, and contact NAMB or your state convention for assistance.

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Green, executive director of the Florida Baptist Convention. “The North American Mission Board wants to be an active and viable partner with state conventions in planting churches.”

The partnerships “might look different in every state” depending on local needs.

No church is too small to plant another church, Green added. Three or four smaller churches may opt to plant together. Just “pray for God to raise up those church planters,” and contact NAMB or your state convention for assistance, he suggested.

Among the highlights of planting a church in partnership with NAMB, Sears said, is the postlaunch support it provides. NAMB “crushes coaching and mentoring” for planters and their sponsoring churches, he said. Grace Church has partnered with NAMB since 2009.

State conventions, NAMB, and the Executive Committee also are prepared to help with the new affiliations portion of the Vision 2025 goal, Ezell said. However, “all Southern Baptists own this goal because a new church affiliate is stepping into our family and immediately benefits from the partnership and the opportunities.”

Over the past five years, the SBC has averaged 251 new affiliations annually, with a high of 297 in 2019.

One church in process of joining the Southern Baptist family is Redeemer Fellowship in Saraland, Alabama. Its pastor, Joe Stevens, grew up in another denomination but read The Baptist Faith and Message and became convinced it was biblical. He planted Redeemer in July 2020 “with Baptist ideals” and soon led the congregation to cooperate with Southern Baptists.

Redeemer has affiliated with the local Mobile Baptist Association and is in process of cooperating with the SBC and the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.

One facet of the SBC that resonated with Stevens was the focus on missions, he said. “Where I come from, you hear that term being thrown out there, but it’s not really being executed. With the SBC, missions is a big deal, whether it’s on domestic soil or foreign soil.”

Redeemer Fellowship also was drawn to the church planting help available through NAMB and its state convention, as well as the college and seminary tuition discounts available to equip Southern Baptist church members. As an African American, Stevens wondered initially whether he and his church would be embraced in the SBC. But in “talking with African American pastors who are currently in the SBC, they had nothing but good things to say.”

Stevens urges other churches considering SBC cooperation to “get information from people within the SBC and hear what they have to say.” By joining the Southern Baptist family, “you would be instrumental in missions and promoting the Kingdom of God,” he said.

Sears acknowledged that pastors of existing Southern Baptist churches may feel uneasy about

A church plant in Madison, Wisconsin, conducts outreach to college students at the University of Wisconsin.

Image Courtesy of NAMB

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Travis Whittaker (right), lead pastor and church planter of Mile City Church in Detroit, prays over ministry leaders in their church.

Image Courtesy of NAMB

The proof of your [church’s] spiritual maturity is your ability to reproduce.”

Sean Sears, pastor Grace Baptist Church Boston, Massachusetts

supporting church plants, new campuses, or new SBC affiliations, worrying such ventures may siphon attendance away from the mother church.

But he urged churches to push through that reticence with faith.

“If you send out those fifty people, it’s my opinion that God will backfill them within a year,” Sears said. “Every time we’ve ever started a church, we had the exact same attendance [at our mother church] six months later and our offerings were higher . . . The proof of your [church’s] spiritual maturity is your ability to reproduce.”

DAVID ROACH is a writer and senior pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.

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SBC.NET | SUMMER 2021

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Keep being the Church.

We’ll be with you every step of the way.

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The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

SBC.NET | SUMMER 2021

OKAY, SO WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED

We don’t have to tell you how tough the last year or so has been. But, looking back, we’ve learned a few things…

We’ve learned how to wash our hands the right way, and that toilet paper is the first thing to go when people start to panic. We’ve learned that some of us have pretty bad mask breath, and that children’s ministry volunteers are superheroes.

We’ve learned some important things about the Church, too.

We’ve learned that the Church is resilient. We’ve learned that the body of Christ can come together in worship, despite division.

We’ve learned that we can still show our neighbors Christlike love and compassion, even from six feet away. At Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company, we’ve learned a lot, but mostly, the last year or so confirmed something we already knew – the Church is worth fighting for. We’ve been helping Christian ministries bear their burdens for more than a century. Through that time, we’ve seen the Church endure countless trials, standing firm in the faith and grounded in love. As we look to the future, we have hope, because we know that no matter what comes, the Church will endure.

So, keep being the Church. We’ll be with you every step of the way.

Copyright 2021 Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company. All rights reserved. Brotherhood Mutual is licensed in most states.

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F E AT U R E D A R T I C L E

I N CREASE TOTA L WOR K E R S IN T H E F IE L D T H R OU GH A N E W EM PH ASI S O N “C A L L IN G OU T T H E C A L L E D ” A N D T H E N PREPA RI N G TH OS E W H O A R E C A L L E D OU T BY T H E LOR D.

A volunteer from The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, surveys a map while on an overseas missions trip.

Image Courtesy of The Summit Church

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Ministry Calling Push to Address Worker Shortage

BY DAVID ROACH

A

year into his pastorate at Lakeview Baptist Church, Al Jackson was approached by three men who said they felt called to Gospel ministry. So he began meeting with them as a group one morning per week for a ministry training session.

Forty-one years later, the weekly ministry training sessions haven’t stopped. He still meets one morning per week with men called to ministry, most of them students at nearby Auburn University. Jackson assigns them a book to read each semester, and he lectures each week based on the reading. Then he discusses behind-the-scenes ministry at Lakeview. The group has ranged in size from two to forty-one. Typically, it’s twelve to fourteen.

“I didn’t set out to” train a large number of ministers, Jackson said. “But it is a very large number, more than two hundred, including those over-

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Lakeview Baptist Church pastor Al Jackson has mentored and trained men who are called to ministry for over forty years.

Image Courtesy of Lakeview Baptist Church

Two-thirds of pastors (69 percent) say it’s becoming harder to find mature young Christians who want to enter vocational ministry. Southern Baptist leaders are evaluating whether enough churches will emphasize ministry calling to reverse the trend.

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seas, pastors, youth ministers, ministers of music, missionaries, military chaplains, even a few denominational workers and seminary professors.”

Across the SBC, churches will need to launch similar emphases on raising up ministers if the Convention is to achieve the third goal proposed in Vision 2025, which will be recommended by the Executive Committee to SBC messengers at the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting in June.

The third goal, increasing the total number of ministry workers on the field through a focus on “calling out the called” and preparing them, comes amid a decline of young adults entering the ministry. According to the Barna Group, the median age of US Protestant pastors jumped from forty-four to fifty-four between 1992 and 2017. Over the same period, the percentage of pastors under forty dropped from 33 to 15.

Two-thirds of pastors (69 percent) say it’s becoming harder to find mature young Christians who want to enter vocational ministry, Barna reported.

Southern Baptist leaders are evaluating whether enough churches will emphasize ministry calling to reverse the trend.

Jeff Iorg has noticed a decreased emphasis on ministry calling in recent years. When he speaks at conferences, Iorg likes to ask pastors for a show of hands if they have preached on the call to ministry over the past year. Out of every one hundred pastors, he sees two or three hands raised.

“When I was coming through the college years, I heard these kinds of messages regularly in conferences and in my church,” said Iorg, president of Gateway Seminary. Southern Baptists “have lessened our emphasis on this issue,” he said.

Many young believers wonder about ministry calling, Iorg said. In response, pastors should preach on calling from time to time, and churches should make available resources on the issue.

A consortium of twelve Baptist state conventions in the West is helping churches in that task through The Call Project, a five-year emphasis

A volunteer with GenSend, a collegiate missions effort of the North American Missions Board, serves in recovery efforts in Puerto Rico following the Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Image Courtesy of NAMB

launched in 2020. Under the emphasis, the conventions are giving away Iorg’s book Is God Calling Me? at high school and college events. They also are providing pastors with materials to help them preach on ministry calling. Additionally, the conventions are developing follow-up processes for churches to utilize with those who sense a call.

SBC entities are partnering to elevate the ministerial call as well. The website SBCcalled.com is set to launch this summer, with resources for high school students considering ministry and for the estimated nine thousand Southern Baptist college students currently preparing for ministry. The site is sponsored by the Executive Committee, the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, Lifeway Christian Resources, the six SBC seminaries, and the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary and College.

SBC entities are partnering to elevate the ministerial call. The website SBCcalled.com is set to launch this summer, with resources for high school students considering ministry and for the estimated nine thousand Southern Baptist college students currently preparing for ministry.

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Too many believers ignore their calls to ministry and go through life spiritually frustrated as a result. You don’t want to find yourself twenty years from now looking back at a calling you knew was on your life that you just didn’t want to fully surrender to.

Scott Pace, dean The College at Southeastern

iStockPhoto

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Scott Pace, dean of the College at Southeastern, speaks to prospective students during a preview day.

Image Courtesy of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

SBCcalled.com will include descriptions of various ministry roles, information about the SBC and guidance on sensing and confirming God’s call to vocational ministry.

Those emphases are much needed, said Scott Pace of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He fears the concept of a ministry call has fallen into disfavor among evangelicals and needs to be revived.

“Our efforts, rightly motivated, to include all believers in the work of ministry” have “neutralized” the concept that some believers are set apart for ministry, said Pace, dean of The College at Southeastern, the North Carolina seminary’s undergraduate school. “We’ve tried to help affirm that everybody has some type of calling. But in doing that, we’ve actually removed any emphasis on vocational ministry and the specific call to that.”

Discerning a call to ministry involves three elements, all referenced by Paul in Galatians 1, said Pace, author of Answering God’s Call.

• The private element involves conviction and convincing by God. • The personal element involves conversation with other believers about the call to ministry.

• The public element involves a church’s affirmation of the called individual’s ministry labor—eventually through ordination.

Too many believers ignore their calls to ministry and go through life spiritually frustrated as a result, Pace said.

“You don’t want to find yourself twenty years from now looking back at a calling you knew was on your life that you just didn’t want to fully surrender to,” Pace said.

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Every minister has been called to replicate himself.”

Brian Payne, new pastor Lakeview Baptist Church Auburn, Alabma

Luke Peterson was called into college ministry, and he found

Back at Lakeview, the emphasis on ministry calling remains strong. Jackson is retiring November 1 after four decades of raising up young ministers, and the congregation voted May 2 to call as his successor Brian Payne, one of the ministers who sat under Jackson’s training twenty years ago.

Payne, a professor for the last fifteen years at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Boyce College, likened his call to Lakeview to a legend from New College at Oxford. It is said that during the medieval construction of one of the campus buildings, workers planted acorns nearby so that one day—perhaps hundreds of years later—there would be plenty of wood ready to replace the building’s oak beams.

While every church is not required to have an official minister training program like Lakeview, Payne said, every church should find ways to invest in the budding ministers among them so they will mature into oaks of righteousness one day.

“Every minister has been called to replicate himself,” Payne said.

something he wouldn’t have expected—students are “a secret church-planting machine. They’re the perfect soil for the Gospel.

But more than that, they’re the perfect candidates for passing it on and helping plant a church.

Image Courtesy of NAMB

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DAVID ROACH is a writer and senior pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.

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Student baptism at Rolling Hills Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee.

Image Courtesy of Rolling Hills Community Church

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Teens ‘Consumed with Christ’ Can Reverse Baptism Dip

BY DAVID ROACH

A

steady stream of teenagers is coming to faith in Christ at Fayette Baptist Church in Somerville, Tennessee.

Madison had been attending the Memphis-area church for a year and a half and let youth leaders know she didn’t have a personal relationship with Christ. More than twenty-five people began praying for her salvation. Then at a Disciple Now event with the theme “Jesus is King,” she trusted Christ as Savior.

Payne likewise attended for months without knowing Jesus. One Sunday morning, next generation pastor Jon Gambrell noticed another student sharing the Gospel with Payne between Sunday School and worship. Through tears, he prayed to receive Christ.

In all, Fayette’s youth ministry, which averages 100–120 in weekly worship, saw some twenty teenagers baptized last year. Such fruitfulness stems from a culture of discipleship.

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Churches across the SBC will need to develop a culture of evangelism and discipleship among their students if the Convention is to achieve the fourth goal proposed in Vision 2025: reverse the ongoing decline in reaching, baptizing, and discipling teenagers.

“A group of my emerging leaders likes to meet on Wednesday before my youth service,” Gambrell said. “We take them through multiple layers of discipleship from apologetics to how to share your faith.” Young men called to ministry learn to preach. Other students learn to teach Bible studies. “But their favorite thing to do is go out door to door” sharing Christ, he said.

Churches across the SBC will need to develop a similar culture of evangelism and discipleship among their students if the Convention is to achieve the fourth goal proposed in Vision 2025: reverse the ongoing decline in reaching, baptizing, and discipling teenagers.

Student baptism at Rolling Hills Community Church.

Image Courtesy of Rolling Hills Community Church

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To reach teens for Christ, youth ministries need to get involved in their communities and youth pastors need to provide regular opportunities for students to respond to the Gospel.”

Ben Trueblood director of student ministry Lifeway Christian Resources

Meeting that goal would mark a stark turnaround from the SBC’s decades-long slide in youth baptisms. Convention-wide baptisms of twelve- to seventeen-year-olds are down 38 percent from 2000 and 47 percent from 1980.

In conjunction with Vision 2025, the North American Mission Board is investing $5 million in student evangelism over four years—in addition to the millions already earmarked for reaching teens. Still, youth ministry leaders are asking whether enough churches will reenergize their student ministries to reverse the baptism decline.

To reach teens for Christ, youth ministries need to get involved in their communities and youth pastors need to provide regular opportunities for students to respond to the Gospel, said Ben Trueblood, director of student ministry at Lifeway Christian Resources. He fears Gospel invitations are disappearing from youth ministry.

“It’s a mistake to completely remove the public invitation and public explanation of the Gospel

Student baptism at Fayette Baptist Church in Somerville, Tennessee.

Image Courtesy of Fayette Baptist Church

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Many successful student ministries are utilizing a “relational, adult volunteerdriven” model that assigns big events like camps and rallies a more focused role than they played in the twentieth century.

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Student baptisms at Long Hollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Images Courtesy of Long Hollow Baptist Church

and how to follow Jesus,” Trueblood said. “That is something we’ve seen happen in student ministries” as an overcorrection of manipulative invitations. “A healthier approach” is non-manipulative invitations, he said.

Building relationships with teenagers also is central to healthy youth ministry in the twenty-first century, Trueblood said. In contrast to the event-driven youth ministry of previous generations, many successful student ministries are utilizing a “relational, adult volunteer-driven” model that assigns big events like camps and rallies a more focused role than they played in the twentieth century.

In the ‘90s and early 2000s of student ministry, you could load a room and give an invitation and you would see a lot of response, now students are taking it slower.

They’re wanting to have more conversations.”

Ben Trueblood

Students kneel at the altar at Long Hollow Baptist Church.

Image Courtesy of Long Hollow Baptist Church

Teenagers “seem to be slower to respond [to the Gospel] than in decades past,” he said.

“Whereas in the ‘90s and early 2000s of student ministry, you could load a room and give an invitation and you would see a lot of response, now students are taking it slower. They’re wanting to have more conversations.”

That shift, Trueblood said, necessitates follow-up to big events and ongoing dialogue with youth.

Trueblood is not alone in strategizing about how to reach more teenagers. In February, student ministry leaders from SBC entities, state conventions, and churches convened a day-long Zoom call to compile suggestions for reaching students. Among the sixteen actions they proposed for churches: • “Create evangelistic opportunities where lost teenagers hear the Gospel proclaimed and are given an opportunity to respond.”

•

•

“Teach theology that leads to a biblical world view and Jesus-centered living.”

“Envision a seventeen-year-old, fully devoted follower of Christ, and shape every element of student ministry to that end.”

Caleb Freeman, nineteen, is the type of young adult the student ministry leaders hope youth groups will produce. Son of Oklahoma pastor Jeremy Freeman and grandson of evangelist Ken Freeman, Caleb was in a near-fatal car wreck at age sixteen from which he suffered brain trauma.

It took months of rehab for him to walk again.

His speech was altered too.

But amid his recovery, Caleb Freeman realized he had never trusted Christ as his Lord and Savior. He made that commitment, was baptized, and has been “consumed with Christ” ever since, his father said. Now Caleb and Jeremy Freeman speak at student events around the country, sharing their story. Thousands have been saved as a result.

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Student baptism at Long Hollow Baptist Church.

Image Courtesy of Long Hollow Baptist Church

Stories of redemption continue to resonate back at Fayette Baptist. Last month, Gambrell overheard a fifteen-year-old boy sitting with a visitor after a worship service and telling him, ‘Jesus is the only way to have your sins forgiven.’

Jeremy Freeman believes a component of reaching more teenagers is sharing powerful salvation testimonies like Caleb’s. The Freemans are developing a “But God” app to which testimonies can be uploaded and used as a witnessing tool.

“It’s not about Caleb. It not about the individual,” said Jeremy Freeman, pastor of First Baptist Church in Newcastle, Oklahoma. “When God redeems someone and they have a powerful story to tell, I think God uses [those] stories because they really resonate with people’s hearts.”

Stories of redemption continue to resonate back at Fayette Baptist. Last month, Gambrell overheard a fifteen-year-old boy sitting with a visitor after a worship service and telling him, “Jesus is the only way to have your sins forgiven.”

“That solid presentation of the truth in an authentic way is very powerful,” Gambrell said. We “don’t have all the answers, but we know who the answer is.”

DAVID ROACH is a writer and senior pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.

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F E AT U R E D A R T I C L E

I N CREASE OU R A N N UA L GIV IN G IN S U CC E SS IV E Y EA RS A N D E STA BL IS H A N E W PAT H OF GR OW T H TH AT WI LL L E A D US TO R E AC H A N D S U R PASS $ 5 0 0 M I L L I O N THRO U GH T H E COOP E R AT IV E P R OGR A M TO ACHI EV E T H E S E GR E AT COMMISS ION GOA LS .

Screen capture from the Cooperative Program video called “It’s Worth It.” To view this and other CP videos visit sbc.net/cp.

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CP Needs ‘All Hands on Deck’ To Reach $500 Million

BY DAVID ROACH

T

he Cooperative Program (CP) has caught on with Iowa Baptists—to say the least.

Since 2014, total CP giving through the Baptist Convention of Iowa (BCI) has doubled from $500,000 to $1 million. Over the same period, the state convention has increased the percentage of receipts it forwards to SBC causes from 20 percent to 60 percent. The convention’s sacrifice seems to have spurred on its cooperating churches, BCI executive director Tim Lubinus said.

“People are more generous around generous people,” he said. “We’re just relentless in trying to find new ways to serve and new ways to lower expenses so we can allow more funds to go through the Cooperative Program.”

Individuals and churches across the SBC will have to cultivate similar cultures of generosity if the Convention is to achieve the fifth proposed

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Reaching the World

Church Members

Local Churches

State Missions and Ministries

Southern Baptist Missions and Ministries

Church members give back to God a percentage of their income. This is traditionally called a tithe and represents 10 percent of what God has provided.

Churches receive tithes and offerings from church members and commit a percentage of undesignated receipts for missions and ministries beyond the church walls.

Messengers from local congregations vote to retain a specific percentage for state missions and ministries and forward the balance to the SBC. State missions and ministries can include evangelism, church planting, children’s homes, Christian higher education, compassion ministries, disaster relief, church health, age group ministries, and missions education.

The SBC compiles the gifts forwarded from state conventions for missions and ministries across the United States and around the world. Southern Baptist missions and ministries include North American and international missions, theological education, ethics and religious liberty, and general operating expenses.

CP is the SBC’s unified channel for funding missions and ministries. The SBC portion funds the ministries of the eleven Convention entities and the Executive Committee.

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Vision 2025 goal: increase CP giving in successive years and surpass $500 million for the yearly total.

CP is the SBC’s unified channel for funding missions and ministries. Under the CP giving model, each Southern Baptist church decides on a percentage of its undesignated receipts to forward to its Baptist state convention. Each state convention, in turn, decides on a percentage of its CP receipts to retain for in-state ministries and a percentage to forward to SBC causes. The SBC portion funds the ministries of the eleven Convention entities and the Executive Committee.

The Vision 2025 goal, which will be presented to SBC messengers in June, focuses on total CP giving from churches through their state conventions. Attaining the $500 million mark would mean reversing a twelve-year decline in CP receipts and increasing gifts by $38 million (8.2 percent) from 2018–19 levels.

The average Baptist church member may not know the term Cooperative Program, but they get excited when leaders talk about working with other churches on international missions, church planting, and other Great Commission ministries.”

Jordan Easley pastor First Baptist Church Cleveland, Tennessee

State and national CP leaders are asking if enough churches can catch the vision of sacrifice to reach $500 million.

One church to catch the vision is First Baptist Church in Cleveland, Tennessee. When Pastor Jordan Easley arrived in 2018, the congregation already was giving $300,000 annually through CP. Since then, they have increased that amount 37 percent, with plans to increase it more in the future. The average Baptist church member may not know the term Cooperative Program, Easley said, but they get excited when leaders talk about working with other churches on international missions, church planting, and other Great Commission ministries.

Pastor Jordan Easley preaches on Sunday morning at First Baptist Church in Cleveland, Tennessee.

Image Courtesy of FBC Cleveland

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In order for us to accomplish this grand task we must have all hands on deck— Southern Baptist pastors and churches from the smallest membership churches to our largest membership churches.

Ronnie Floyd president and CEO SBC Executive Committee

A church in the US has partnered to reach Haitians in the Dominican Republic for more than five years. Several members of the church are Haitian and have participated in the church’s ministry efforts in the Dominican Republic. This past year, a team from the church prayerwalked through a community where a local Baptist pastor hopes to start a church.

Image Courtesy of IMB

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Our people buy into big vision, and our people understand collaboration. First Baptist is not a Cooperative Program church. We’re a Great Commission church.

The Cooperative Program just happens to be the best vehicle for us as a church to accomplish the Great Commission in our day.”

Jordan Easley

“Our people buy into big vision, and our people understand collaboration,” he said. First Baptist is “not a Cooperative Program church. We’re a Great Commission church. The Cooperative Program just happens to be the best vehicle for us as a church to accomplish the Great Commission in our day.”

When Easley, who has served as an International Mission Board (IMB) trustee, tells stories about missionaries taking the Gospel to the nations, church members want to give to the IMB. That gives Easley an opportunity to explain how every tithe supports the IMB as First Baptist forwards a portion through CP. Similarly, as people came to Christ through Who’s Your One—an evangelistic campaign led

Worship at First Baptist Church in Cleveland, Tennessee.

Image Courtesy of FBC Cleveland

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Screen capture from the “How the Cooperative Program Works” video. To view this and other CP videos visit sbc.net/cp.

by SBC President J. D. Greear and the North American Mission Board—a church member was inspired and asked how he could give to Who’s Your One. “I said, ‘Give through the local church,’” Easley said. “Then I went on to explain that when you give to the local church, we give to these different entities that are funding ministry around the world.”

Willie McLaurin of the Executive Committee is encouraged by the sacrificial giving of churches like First Baptist. Along with other EC leaders, he is developing strategies to help congregations do more through CP. Those strategies include a focus on biblical stewardship to encourage generous giving by individual believers to their churches.

“The average person that gives to their local church gives less than 2 percent of their discretionary funds,” said McLaurin, EC vice president for Great Commission relations and mobilization. “So we’ve got to go back to the basics” of “biblical stewardship in the local church, because when the people in the pew begin to trust God in terms of how they give,” CP will receive a boost.

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Under the Vision 2025 emphasis, churches that already give through CP will receive encouragement from the EC to give more. (The average Southern Baptist church currently gives 4.82 percent of its undesignated receipts, down from 5.56 percent in 2010 and 8.13 percent in 2000.) The nineteen thousand Southern Baptist churches not currently supporting CP will be urged to give something. Additionally, “we’re going to continue to say thanks to churches that are already giving,” McLaurin said. “We’ve got a lot of churches that are faithfully, sacrificially giving.”

If the strategies work according to plan, CP will eclipse $500 million on its one hundredth birthday in 2025—a fitting birthday celebration, McLaurin said, for “the glue that holds the SBC together” and “helps us stick to the Great Commission.”

In Iowa, Lubinus sees three primary factors behind the doubling of CP receipts: receiving more funds from existing churches that caught the vision of joint missions support, planting churches that give sacrificially, and drawing new church affiliations to the convention. Those factors align with other Vision 2025 goals, which call for more missionary sending, more church planting, and new church affiliations.

Ronnie Floyd, Executive Committee president and CEO, has underscored the confluence of goals, telling Southern Baptists more CP giving is part and parcel of the entire Vision 2025 package.

“In order for us to accomplish this grand task,” Floyd wrote in a commentary for Baptist Press, “we must have all hands on deck—Southern Baptist pastors and churches from the smallest membership churches to our largest membership churches.”

DAVID ROACH is a writer and senior pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.

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Serving with Integrity and Skill

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O. S. Hawkins Reflects on a Half-Century of Ministry

BY ROY HAYHURST

O

n a clear day from O. S. Hawkins’s office in a North Dallas high-rise, you can see all the way to Fort Worth, his hometown.

It may be fewer than forty miles from Crenshaw Street on Fort Worth’s East Side, where Hawkins grew up, to GuideStone’s offices. But in many ways, it’s a world away and part of the culmination of a journey the Lord Himself orchestrated.

Raised in a moral, but not church-going, home, Hawkins’s parents were married a long time before he was born. An only child, Hawkins said his parents taught him a tremendous work ethic, respect and responsibility, along with sacrifice and dedication to family.

“They were great, moral people who loved me very much,” Hawkins recounted. “I never played in a ball game from Little League on that my dad wasn’t there.”

Hawkins first was introduced to the Lord in high school.

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“What a time to be in high school in the 1960s,” Hawkins said. “Those were the days of pep rallies and pom-poms, glass pack mufflers and drag races, Bass weejuns and Levi’s, madras windbreakers and buttoned-down collars, hayrides and sock hops—and the Beatles.”

COMING TO KNOW THE LORD

“But I was seventeen years old and never remember hearing a prayer in my home or seeing the Bible opened,” Hawkins said. “One day, after a basketball game one Saturday night, a young man witnessed to me about Christ and took me the next morning to Sagamore Hill Baptist Church in Fort Worth where I heard the Gospel and there trusted Christ as my personal Savior. I’m not what I ought to be today, but I’ve never been the same since.”

One day, after a basketball game one Saturday night, a young man witnessed to me about Christ and took me the next morning to Sagamore Hill Baptist Church in Fort Worth where I heard the Gospel and there trusted Christ as my personal Savior. I’m not what I ought to be today, but I’ve never been the same since.”

O. S. Hawkins

Hawkins’s parents subsequently rededicated their lives to Christ and served Him in the church the rest of their lives.

Hawkins desired to be a lawyer and worked two jobs after school and on the weekends in high school to save for college. That work ethic became even more important as he pursued his studies at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth.

“I worked my way through TCU,” Hawkins said. “As soon as I’d get out of class at noon, I’d go over to Fort Worth Pipe and Supply, drive a forklift, and load concrete pipes onto flatbed trucks.

When I got off there at 5 p.m., I’d grab a hamburger somewhere and then go over and begin at 6 p.m. working as an orderly in the emergency room at the Osteopathic Hospital.

“They didn’t have much business in there, so in between patients there were long periods where I could study.”

In joining Sagamore Hill, Hawkins sat under the preaching of legendary preacher W. Fred

Swank, who pastored the East Fort Worth congregation for forty-three years. It was also there that he met his lifelong friend Jack Graham, pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church in the Dallas area.

“Brother Swank gave us a love for Jesus, a heart for the people in the church, and a commitment to evangelism,” Graham said. “He gave us opportunities beyond our years and gave us the opportunity to fulfill that calling. We are forever grateful to have had him as our pastor.”

Swank forged the connection between Graham and Hawkins, putting them together in ministry opportunities. One such event was a mission trip to Brownsville, Texas, after a hurricane had devastated southern Texas and northern Mexico. On the bus ride back, Hawkins felt God calling him to the ministry.

Hawkins completed his bachelor’s degree in business, but instead of taking the LSATs to go to law school, for which he had been preparing since he was a child, he enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

A MINISTRY OF SERVICE AND PARTNERSHIP

While still in seminary, Hawkins joined the staff at Sagamore Hill. He would earn a Master of Divinity from Southwestern and later a PhD in Preaching from the institution. While on staff at Sagamore Hill, Swank recommended Hawkins to the pastor search committee at First Baptist Church in Hobart, Oklahoma.

“I was twenty-four years old when Susie and I, only married a short while, went to be their pastor,” Hawkins recounted. “It was at Hobart that I learned the pastorate is the people business and that life is about relationships.”

From there, Hawkins was called to the First Baptist Church of Ada, Oklahoma, where he was inspired to become an expository preacher. From there, he was called to the First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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It’s been my privilege to be his pastor the last quarter-century.

I’ve had a front-row seat to watching O. S. serve the Lord.

He passionately pursues God’s call in his life—he is always saying ‘yes’ to the Lord.”

Jack Graham, pastor Prestonwood Baptist Church Dallas, Texas

“For fifteen years, I had the privilege of being on the cutting edge of church growth, and for that decade and a half, we watched God do what few local churches have been able to see or experience,” Hawkins said.

In 1993, Hawkins was called to the First Baptist Church in Dallas, where he would succeed Dr. W. A. Criswell.

Hawkins’s friendship with Graham continued; for most of their ministries, they have served within thirty miles of each other. Graham followed Hawkins at Hobart. Both pastored in South Florida (Graham at First Baptist West Palm Beach) and again in North Texas. Hawkins assumed the presidency of what was then the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1997. Graham said Hawkins was uniquely qualified for his role.

“He is a friend of pastors and brought a shepherd’s heart to the role of president,” Graham said. “He’s always writing notes or making calls to encourage pastors even as he has taken GuideStone to the highest levels possible.”

Hawkins, a reserved man, lights up when talking about five tremendous influences on his life aside from his parents: Graham; Swank;

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Criswell; John R. Jones, his partner in ministry at GuideStone; and his wife and partner in life, Susie.

“I have been fortunate to have two remarkable mentors in ministry in Dr. Swank and Dr. Criswell,” Hawkins said. “Brother Swank consistently modeled the pastor’s heart before me and was my constant source of encouragement, correction, and counsel. After his death, Dr. Criswell ‘adopted’ me as his own. He was my biggest asset and greatest encouragement during my Dallas days. In fact, like Abel, they both ‘though dead still speak’ through my own philosophy of ministry.”

Graham and Hawkins have each served in ministry for fifty years—they were ordained the same night by Sagamore Hill. Hawkins laughs about their connection.

“God has woven our lives together,” Hawkins said. “We married in the same summer. We have vacationed together with our families. We even were diagnosed with prostate cancer within days of each other.”

The two have shared ideas, burdens, and blessings with each other.

“It’s been my privilege to be his pastor the last quarter-century,” Graham said. “I’ve had a frontrow seat to watching O. S. serve the Lord. He passionately pursues God’s call in his life—he is always saying ‘yes’ to the Lord. When he heard the call to leave the pastorate to become CEO of the Annuity Board, now GuideStone, he prayed for a long time, but when he was convinced of the call, O. S. said ‘yes’ as he always had.”

Jones, chief operating officer at GuideStone and a lifelong Southern Baptist, was selected to be Hawkins’s right-hand man during Hawkins’s first year as president. The two forged a deep and lasting friendship.

“John epitomizes the truth of what Asaph said of King David, that he leads with the integrity of his heart and the skillfulness of his hands,” Hawkins said. “John emphasizes that GuideStone is a ministry that utilizes best business practices. That is true, and the beneficiaries are the 250,000 men and women we serve every day.”

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But among those who know Hawkins best, his wife Susie is his closest confidante and partner in life.

“I am blessed and honored that my best and most loyal friend I have in life is Susie,” Hawkins said. An accomplished Bible teacher and author in her own right, she holds a Master of Arts in Christian leadership and a Master of Arts in theology from Criswell College in Dallas. Susie Hawkins also writes on the Engage blog at Bible.org, served on the committee that proposed The Baptist Faith and Message 2000, and currently serves on the board of the Lifesavers Foundation, a pro-life Dallas organization that serves families in crisis.

She also is co-writer and founder of Passover for Christians ministry, which encourages Christians to observe Passover from a Christian perspective as a part of their Holy Week traditions.

O. S. and Susie Hawkins have two daughters— Wendy (married to Brian) and Holly (married to David)—and six grandchildren, all of whom live in the Dallas area.

THE MINISTRY OF GUIDESTONE

Hawkins is passionate about several things—his family, God’s Word, TCU football, serving pastors in his role as President of GuideStone—but one of his top passions is Mission:Dignity, the GuideStone ministry that provides retirement assistance to Southern Baptist pastors and widows near the poverty line. “We’re on a mission at GuideStone to provide dignity to some forgotten servants, those retired pastors, and in most cases their widows, who need financial assistance,” Hawkins said. “It is a joy of my life that in our stewardship of GuideStone, we have raised $200 million for these pastors and their widows.”

That fundraising allowed GuideStone to relinquish its Cooperative Program allocation in 2008, returning more than $20 million to SBC mission causes in the last twelve years. One hundred percent of gifts to Mission:Dignity help a pastor or his widow in need; an endowment established many

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years ago provides for the administrative costs.

When Hawkins arrived at GuideStone in 1997, monthly payouts through what was then called the Adopt An Annuitant ministry were $50 per month. Today, the neediest couples can receive $600 each month in assistance.

In September 2020, Hawkins asked trustees to establish a search committee to identify the leader to whom he would pass the reigns of the ministry. Hawkins plans to remain on for a transition period to ensure a smooth and orderly transfer and then move into the president emeritus role in 2022, completing a quarter of a century of service to Southern Baptists through GuideStone.

“I’m only retooling, though,” Hawkins said.

Fit and spry at seventy-three years old, he has no plans to slow down. “I will dedicate my life to raising money for Mission:Dignity, writing, and teaching,” he said.

Hawkins is working to raise an endowment to help provide expense grants to Mission:Dignity recipients who may need dental work, a new refrigerator, tires for their cars, or similar expenses that can be prohibitive on the limited incomes of many retired pastors.

“On every desk at GuideStone is a small card that reminds us that the reason we come to work every day is this: ‘We exist to honor the Lord by being a lifelong partner with our participants in enhancing their financial security,’” Hawkins said. “As long as the Lord gives me the ability, I’ll continue living out that vision for His glory and the good of those we are so privileged to serve.”

ROY HAYHURST is director of denominational and public relations services for GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.

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S B C U P D AT E

Long Hollow Revival Steeped in Prayer Sees One Thousand Baptisms since December

BY SCOTT BARKLEY

Senior Pastor Robby Gallaty (left) assists Dylan, a former Satan worshiper who recently gave his life to Christ, in baptizing his friend Patricia, who had also worshiped Satan. Patricia’s baptism took place December 20, marking the beginning of a spiritual awakening at the Tennessee church that has witnessed more than one thousand baptisms since.

Image Courtesy of Jacob McKaig | Long Hollow Baptist Church

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T

hese days at Long Hollow Baptist Church, interruptions aren’t considered bad. The plan isn’t as crucial as the response. Things flow from a position of prayer, ultimately pointing toward Christ.

Structure exists, sure. There’s still an order of worship. Trained childcare workers remain ready and available. Pastor Robby Gallaty prepares and prays over his sermons. But anyone feeling led to come to the altar can do so at any time. Gospel conversations occur throughout the week. Baptisms are conducted while worshipers sing. They also take place after Gallaty’s message and invitation, continuing as long as forty-five minutes after the benediction regardless of lunch plans.

Such steps are needed to meet the response the Tennessee church has witnessed since December.

That marked the beginning of a wave of baptisms that exceeded one thousand on April 11. Gallaty, who began at the church in 2015, estimates that 70–75 percent of those are from first-time confessions of faith and 83 percent are adults.

He’s quick to point out that it is all due to God. And really, it couldn’t occur until Gallaty got out of the way. That realization happened after the suicides of two of Gallaty’s close friends: ministers Jarrid Wilson and Darren Patrick.

“Both of those men preached at Long Hollow within six months of their passing,” he said.

“They both sat at my dining room table. It made me realize that the last person to say he’s burning out or that ministry is tough is usually the one burning out.

LET’S ADVANCE GOD’S KINGDOM

together every day.

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Every great movement of God begins with not moving.

I would have never come up with what God brought to me—spontaneous baptism.”

Robby Gallaty, senior pastor Long Hollow Baptist Church Hendersonville, Tennessee

“The Lord allowed me to take an introspective look at my own life. I was tired. Tired of trying to keep people happy. Tired of trying to keep them from leaving. I went to my porch to pray for the Lord to fix the problems in our church and our country.

God showed me that the problem . . . was me.”

That led Gallaty to do something counter to his driven, competitive, Type A nature. He became still and began to “sit with the Lord.” Up to an hour each night, on his porch, he’d sit in silence, pray, and listen. On the night of December 15, he got an answer.

“Every great movement of God begins with not moving,” he said. “I would have never come up with what God brought to me—spontaneous baptism.”

December 13 had been the lowest-attended Sunday at Long Hollow since Gallaty’s arrival. Nevertheless, on December 20 Gallaty announced that anyone wanting to be baptized that day could do so.

The twenty previously-scheduled baptism candidates reflected the spirit of revival the church had observed. They included Dylan, a former Satan worshipper who had been led to Christ

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weeks earlier, baptizing his friend, Patricia, who had also worshipped Satan but now surrendered her life to Jesus.

Another was Andrei Iacob, whose wife and son had been murdered in their home just days before. After their funeral, Iacob spoke to Gallaty about accepting Christ, and Gallaty asked him if he would like to be baptized.

“I asked Dre if he was mad at the Lord for his family’s murder,” Gallaty said. “He told me that he was actually thankful he wasn’t at the house.

For had he been, he wouldn’t have been ready to meet God. ‘I’m going all-in for the Lord now,’ he told me.”

When Gallaty invited others forward to be baptized, he positioned himself beside the baptistry. The moment hung in the air for a second.

“Then, all of a sudden you could sense the Lord moving,” he said. “At the end of that first service we had baptized ninety-nine people. I got home and was sitting alone with God when He gave me an image. It showed that these were the first heavy raindrops before the torrential downpour.”

Long Hollow began baptism-only services the following Tuesday. Eighty-one people showed up.

“We were there for two hours and the spirit of God was palpable,” Gallaty said. On January 19 the church incorporated a prayer service that included in-person and online accessibility. It has since moved to Wednesdays.

Those gatherings continued as did the baptisms, with prayer a constant presence. During Holy Week the church opened from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. for prayer and baptized 201 people on Easter. As of April 13, among its campuses in Hendersonville and Gallatin, Long Hollow had baptized 1,048 since December 20.

“It’s been completely out of our control and an overwhelming move of God,” said Collin Wood, executive pastor.

The greatest hindrance to a move of the Holy Spirit is formality and structure. If God wanted to break into our services today, we’d have no time for Him. [At Long Hollow] we still have a plan, but we’re okay if God interrupts the service.”

Robby Gallaty

Gallaty’s intention when looking into the screen and inviting anyone to come to the church for baptism didn’t include a plane ticket. But that’s the choice some have made. While the responses have been overwhelmingly local, twenty baptisms have been of people from fifteen other states.

Some of those have decided to move to Hendersonville. All are encouraged to join Life Groups— whether at Long Hollow or something similar at their own church—for further discipleship.

Gallaty said that what is happening at Long Hollow can happen anywhere. According to the Annual Church Profile (ACP), the church baptized 162 in 2018 and 222 in 2019. In 2020 the ACP reported 13 baptisms amid a pandemic, but Gallaty pointed out that more than two hundred baptisms occurred in the last two weeks of the year.

“This is a genuine move of God. He gets all the glory,” Gallaty said. “The Lord has shown me that prayer births revival, and revival births prayer. It’s like adding logs to the fire.”

Robby Gallaty, senior pastor of Long Hollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee, conducts baptisms while the congregation worships on Sunday, April 11. “The greatest sermon I could ever preach on the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ is a person being baptized,” he said.

Image Courtesy of Long Hollow Baptist Church

Teams of Long Hollow volunteers pray before, during, and after the services on both campuses. “I think that was the key when this started,” he said.

“The final piece was the Tuesday prayer service.”

Gallaty will lead an hour of prayer to start the Send Conference in conjunction with the upcoming SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville. The focus, he said, will be for personal revival and spiritual awakening among churches.

“I really believe that if all of us, as pastors, begin to press in and seek the Lord in prayer, calling out for God to move in our churches, that’s a prayer He’s going to answer,” he said.

“The greatest hindrance to a move of the Holy Spirit is formality and structure. If God wanted to break into our services today, we’d have no time for Him. [At Long Hollow] we still have a plan, but we’re okay if God interrupts the service.

“In the past the interruption would be just that, an interruption. Today the interruption is anticipated.”

This article was compiled from reports in Baptist Press.

SCOTT BARKLEY is national correspondent for Baptist Press.

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B

indi met her future husband in 2017, when her father brought a young coworker named Kande to their home in India’s Jharkhand state.

Among their earliest conversations was a discussion about someone named Jesus, whom Kande was eager for Bindi to know.

“He told me about his life-changing experience with Jesus and the peace he had been experiencing,” Bindi recalled.

“He helped lead me to accept Jesus as my Savior.”

Although Bindi’s parents held animist beliefs, they approved of their daughter’s decision to follow Christ as well as her desire to join Kande in marriage. After the wedding, the newlyweds moved into a home Kande had built in a nearby village, where they were the first — and only — Christians in the Hindu community.

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As they got to know their neighbors, Bindi and Kande often shared the gospel with them and prayed for those who were sick. Soon, however, their Christian faith caught the attention of village leaders. And some in the community started calling them names, eventually leading to threats of violence against the couple. “With prayer and our trust in God, we continued our journey with Jesus,” Bindi said.

An Unthinkable Attack Kande served at his church in a nearby city and, even after a long day of construction work, never missed a prayer meeting or Bible study. Out of obedience to Christ, he also helped the poor in various ways.

But his active faith continued to irritate local leaders, who eventually

 Bindi (above left) and Kande (inset) shared the gospel with their Hindu neighbors despite threats of violence.

asked Kande to publicly renounce his Christian faith at a community meeting.

In response, Kande gave a thorough explanation of his decision to follow Christ and said he could not reject Him. Radical Hindus soon visited Kande at home, pressuring him to participate in a puja ceremony honoring Hindu gods and to contribute to various Hindu causes.

When he refused, the radicals threatened to kill him.

Each time Bindi and Kande faced persecution, they prayed for strength to endure the attack. And Kande often read from the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the

THE VOICE OF THE MARTYRS kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10).

In 2018, shortly after the birth of their first daughter, a group of young men barged into their home, threatening and verbally abusing them for their Christian faith. When Kande responded boldly, the men grabbed Bindi’s mother, who was there helping with the baby, took her into the nearby jungle and sexually assaulted her. Four of the men were later convicted and are currently in prison.

Losing Her Pillar of Faith The violence didn’t end with the assault of Bindi’s mother or the arrest of her attackers. The family continued to receive threats for refusing to renounce their faith, and on the evening of June 7, 2020, Kande got an anonymous phone call from a man threatening to kill him. Kande told his wife about the call, and they immediately prayed about it.

Then, at about 8 p.m. that evening, during the family’s regular prayer time, someone knocked loudly on their door.

When Kande looked outside, he saw a group of armed men. “If God is willing to take away my life, it is His will,” Kande told Bindi. “If God wants to save me, He will save me. No matter what happens to me, you should not give up your faith in Jesus. In difficulties, you must continue to follow Jesus. Our Lord is able to provide for you even if my life is taken away.”

Moments later, one of the men broke down the door and dragged Kande out of the house. Bindi followed the mob, begging them to spare Kande’s life. When the men chased her away, she ran to a church member’s home, where she spent the night.

The next morning, Kande’s body was found on the side of the road leading to his church. His throat had been slashed.

After Kande’s murder, Bindi and her two daughters moved in with her parents. Although her father had never objected to her Christian faith and her mother had even come to faith in Christ, Bindi’s father suggested that maybe she

should stop following Jesus. His wife had been sexually assaulted and his son-in-law murdered, and he simply couldn’t handle it anymore. He worried about losing Bindi, too.

But in reply to her father, Bindi repeated something she remembered Kande once saying: “I will live for Jesus or die for Jesus,” she said, “but I will never turn back.”

Moving Forward in Christ Bindi has not returned to her home because Kande’s killer is still free and she fears another attack. But her husband’s murder hasn’t deterred her from following Christ. In fact, it has inspired her to do so more faithfully. “I saw a deep love and commitment from Kande toward Jesus Christ,” she said.

“Kande’s life example is helping me to keep following Jesus.”

Bindi said one of the things she misses most is Kande’s steadfast faith. Family prayer and Bible studies are different now.

“I still think of Kande’s last words and the way that he remained faithful and trusted the Lord until his last moment of life,” she said. “I must also trust the Lord and

continue to follow Jesus.”

Despite the great loss she has suffered, Bindi said she would try to forgive Kande’s killers. “I would dare to tell them, ‘My husband is in eternal peace. Why did you do this? Look at these two small girls; they are now fatherless.’”

Bindi said she has learned more about God’s faithfulness and purposes since Kande’s death. “God has provided what I need,” she said. “God is teaching me to remain strong so I can make other women strong.” 

Pray

Bindi asks us to pray that she and her daughters, ages 3 and 5, will grow in Christ and that God will continue to provide for them. She also asks for prayer that her husband’s killer will be brought to justice and come to know the Lord.

 The Voice of the Martyrs has

helped Bindi with living expenses and is helping provide education for her daughters and resources to start a business.

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Dear Heavenly Father,

We weep with those who weep, asking You to provide for families of martyrs and supply their every need.

May Your Holy Spirit grant them strength and hope each day as they continue to serve You faithfully.

We rejoice with those who rejoice, celebrating the victory we all have through faith in Your Son and the bold witness of Christians who share His gospel despite risk of death. May they continue to witness faithfully, driven by the knowledge that Satan is a defeated foe, and may we be inspired to do likewise!

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

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Find more ways to pray for persecuted Christians at vom.org

JUNE 29

HONORING THE FAITHFUL WITNESS OF

ROCIO PINO

FROM COLOMBIA

ROCIO WAS SHOT TO DEATH

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To download free Day of the Christian Martyr resources to inspire your family, group, class or church, and to learn more about Rocio, visit vom.org/martyr.

S B C U P D AT E

Americans’ Views of Life’s Meaning and Purpose Are Changing

BY AARON EARLS

A

s Americans attempt to move past the life-altering effects of 2020, their perspective is shifting on some of the most significant questions facing humanity.

A study from Nashville-based Lifeway Research finds, compared to a decade ago, US adults today are more likely to regularly wonder about meaning and purpose in this life but less likely to strongly believe finding a higher meaning and purpose is important.

Americans are also more likely to contemplate whether they will go to heaven when they die but less likely to strongly believe there is more to life than this physical world.

“In the midst of such a discouraging season, fewer Americans are convinced there is something more to this life than their daily activities,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “A large majority still lean toward there being an ultimate purpose for a person’s life, but instead of escaping the pandemic with thoughts of something greater, far fewer strongly

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hold such a view. A growing number of Americans have become open to the idea that this might be as good as it gets.”

Finding Purpose Most Americans (57 percent) say they wonder, “How can I find more meaning and purpose in my life?” at least monthly, with more than 1 in 5 saying they consider the question daily (21 percent) or weekly (21 percent). Few (6 percent) say they think about it yearly. Close to 1 in 4 (23 percent) say they never wonder about finding more meaning and purpose. Another 15 percent aren’t sure.

Compared to a 2011 Lifeway Research study, Americans today are more likely to regularly think about how they can find more meaning and purpose. A decade ago, 51 percent said they wonder about finding meaning and purpose at least monthly, with 18 percent saying they think about it daily and 19 percent saying weekly. Thirteen

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percent said they thought about that question yearly, and 28 percent said they never considered it.

“During COVID-19 many experiences, pleasures, and metrics of success became irrelevant overnight,” McConnell said. “It is not surprising that more people thought about their purpose and what matters in life.”

Most Americans say everyone’s life has a purpose, and it’s important to them that they pursue their deeper purpose, but US adults aren’t as sure about that as they were a decade ago.

Four in 5 Americans (81 percent) believe there is an ultimate purpose and plan for every person’s life. More than 2 in 3 Americans (68 percent) say a major priority in their life is finding their deeper purpose. Almost 3 in 4 (73 percent) say it’s important they pursue a higher purpose and meaning for their life.

Each of those percentages is similar to 2011.

There has been a significant shift, however, from strong agreement to more hesitant agreement.

Those who strongly agree with each statement dropped, while those who somewhat agree rose.

“Few Americans are ready to deny there is an ultimate purpose and plan for every person’s life,” said McConnell. “But more are stepping back from this driving their own pursuits. Life has become a more pessimistic pursuit with fewer going all out for something better.”

As Americans consider higher meanings, most believe they have found it. Close to 3 in 5 (59 percent) say they have found a higher purpose and meaning for their life, with 28 percent disagreeing.

Religiously unaffiliated Americans are the most likely to disagree (37 percent). Americans who belong to a religion other than Christianity are the most likely to agree (80 percent).

Among Christians, the more often they attend church, the more likely they are to say they have found a higher purpose and meaning for their life.

Half of those who attend less than once a month (51 percent) say they’ve found such meaning for

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Most Americans say everyone’s life has a purpose, and it’s important to them that they pursue their deeper purpose, but US adults aren’t as sure about that as they were a decade ago.

their life, compared to 69 percent of those who attend one to three times a month and 76 percent of those who attend four times a month or more.

More Than This?

Close to half of Americans (45 percent) say they wonder, “If I were to die today, do I know for sure that I would go to heaven?” More than a third (37 percent) say they never think about that question, and 18 percent aren’t sure.

Compared to 2011, more Americans today say they wonder if they’ll go to heaven daily (15 percent to 8 percent), and fewer say they never think about it (37 percent to 46 percent). More now also say they aren’t sure how often they consider the question than a decade ago (18 percent to 12 percent).

Christians who attend worship services four times a month or more (46 percent) are as likely to say they never wonder about their eternal destination as the religiously unaffiliated (47 percent), but perhaps for different reasons. Those religious nones, however, are more likely to say

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they never ponder if they will go to heaven when they die than Protestants (37 percent) and Catholics (26 percent).

“The question of going to heaven doesn’t cross the minds of people who don’t believe in heaven and those who are completely certain they will go to heaven,” McConnell said. “While the Bible teaches one can be certain a place is prepared for you in heaven, nearly half of Americans pause each year wondering if heaven is waiting for them.”

Even if most Americans aren’t regularly contemplating their admittance to heaven, the vast majority believe there is more to life than just what they can see.

More than 4 in 5 US adults (85 percent) believe there is more to life than the physical world and society. Few disagree (9 percent) or are not sure (6 percent).

The total agreement percentages are similar to 2011, but there is significant movement away from certainty. In 2011, 67 percent strongly agreed, and 21 percent somewhat agreed. Today, 43 percent strongly agree, and 42 percent somewhat agree.

In the latest study, Americans ages 18 to 34 and those 35 to 49 (87 percent) are more likely to say there is more to life than the physical world than those 65 and older (79 percent). The religiously unaffiliated are the most likely to disagree (20 percent).

Methodology: The online survey of 1,200 Americans was conducted September 9–23, 2020, using a national pre-recruited panel. Quotas and slight weights were used to balance gender, age, region, ethnicity, education, and religion to more accurately reflect the population. The sample includes an over-sample of Americans with evangelical beliefs providing additional reliability for breakouts of this group. Totals for all Americans reduce these responses to their correct proportion through weighting.

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The completed sample is 1,200 surveys. The sample provides 95 percent confidence that the sampling error from the panel does not exceed plus or minus 3.2 percent. This margin of error accounts for the effect of weighting. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups. Comparisons are made to a Lifeway Research survey conducted September 23–26, 2011 among 2,144 Americans using an online panel.

For more information, visit LifewayResearch.com.

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on April 6, 2021.

AARON EARLS is a writer for Lifeway Christian Resources.

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S B C U P D AT E

Image by iStock.com/Darwin Brandis

Church Members Are Minority in US for First Time, Gallup Says

BY DIANA CHANDLER

C

hurch members are in the minority for the first time in at least eight decades, with just 47 percent identifying with a congregation, Gallup said in a poll released March 29. The number was 70 percent in 1999.

A growth in adults with no religious preference and lower rates of church membership among people who do have a religion are major trends driving the decline, Gallup said.

Younger generations hold the highest rates of those with no religious preference, including

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31 percent of millennials and 33 percent of adult Generation Z (those born in the mid-1990s to the early 2010s). Concurrently, among those who do affiliate with a religion, declines since the turn of the century were highest among younger generations, with the share of millennials declining from 63 percent in 2000 to 50 percent in 2020.

Ed Stetzer, dean of the School of Mission, Ministry, and Leadership at Wheaton College, said the trend for people to drop their loose affiliation to religion will only accelerate.

“Unless we want to be a regional group of Christians who only talk to ourselves,” Stetzer said, “we’ll need to redouble our efforts in evangelism and church planting to engage an increasingly secular context.”

Pastor Larry Anderson, president of the State Directors of Evangelism, said the study has several implications for the church.

“Some people will do what I call ‘date’ your church for years, while never committing to participate in a formal new members’ class, but will be faithful in attending, tithing, and even serving,” Anderson said, “and we need to discern how we will count them moving forward.”

Anderson, an executive with the Baptist Resource Network serving Pennsylvania/South Jersey, is based in the Eastern region of the US, which Gallup identified as suffering the greatest decline (25 percentage points) since 2000. The South, home to the Bible Belt, suffered the lowest decline, but also saw a sixteen-point drop in church membership since 2000.

New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary apologist Bob Stewart said the task of apologetics has not changed, but the poll results could signify that the means used to communicate the Gospel might need to change. He clarified that he’s not a statistician, and that his comments are more speculative than critical.

“Apologetics is about commending and defending the Gospel; it’s about stating clearly why one believes that Jesus is Lord. To do that, we use evidence and reason, we don’t simply take a picture of where a group of people are on a particular day,” said Stewart, the NOBTS Greer-Heard chair of faith and culture, and director of the Christian apologetics program. “The task of the church hasn’t changed. But these findings may mean that the means by which we communicate the Gospel need to change.”

Some people will do what I call ‘date’ your church for years, while never committing to participate in a formal new members’ class, but will be faithful in attending, tithing, and even serving. And we need to discern how we will count them moving forward.”

Larry Anderson, president State Directors of Evangelism

Both Anderson and Stewart said the data could also reflect generational differences regarding how church membership is valued.

“First the loyalty to one church is not as common as it once was, as millennials and Gen Z will visit several different churches as they feel led,” Anderson said. “Second, the need to join a church and become a member under the authority of a pastor and submit to the ‘processes’ of church culture does not seem to be as appealing of an option to those who can come and go as they please with no pressure.”

Stewart said it’s not news that different generations behave differently.

“My sense is that millennials are very big on community but tend not to value ‘joining’ or ‘membership’ in a formal organizational sense.

This doesn’t mean that they don’t value belonging in an organic sense,” Stewart said. “The WW2

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With previous generations of Baptists the ‘invitation’ or altar call was emphasized; in many of today’s churches, invitations are downplayed.

That doesn’t mean that evangelism or discipleship is minimized, but the emphasis is no longer as much on joining, which is reflected in membership, as it is on serving and belonging.”

Bob Stewart, apologist New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

generation was largely composed of joiners who valued organization. Baby boomers, on the other hand, were church shoppers who bounced around from one church to another, depending on what their perceived needs were at the moment.”

The numbers may also reflect changes stemming from how people join churches today, Stewart said.

“With previous generations of Baptists the ‘invitation’ or altar call was emphasized; in many of today’s churches, invitations are downplayed,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that evangelism or discipleship is minimized, but the emphasis is no longer as much on joining, which is reflected in membership, as it is on serving and belonging.”

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Stewart emphasized the importance of such knowledge as which churches are losing members most, and whether they are evangelical, Baptist, mainline, or liberal.

“I do know that ‘none’ (those not affiliated with a religion) does not necessarily mean atheist or irreligious,” he said. “At the end of the day, my advice is: (1) pump the brakes, don’t overreact; (2) investigate, look critically at the entire survey; don’t just read the summary article; (3) critically examine what your church is doing and why; and (4) ask God how you should be about making disciples and commending and defending the Gospel.”

Anderson advised that churches will need to learn how to serve members who don’t attend every Sunday, and “not guilt or shame” those who no longer see attending every week as normal.

Churches will need to learn how to serve hybrid members who attend at times in person and at times online, and churches need to shift their focus to equipping and sending.

“We must stop seeing the church as the ending place but the sending place and shift our focus to counting those being equipped and sent out of the building,” he said, “as opposed to how many people we have coming into the building.”

The poll updates a 2019 Gallup analysis that examined the decline in church membership over the past twenty years. Findings are based on responses to a battery of questions Gallup asks Americans twice each year about their religious attitudes. Each three-year period consists of data from more than 6,000 American adults.

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on March 29, 2021.

DIANA CHANDLER is Baptist Press’s senior writer.

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This seven-volume series progresses through the Old and New Testaments, focusing on key biblical figures. By studying these flawed individuals, we can learn from their examples, recognize our own shortcomings, and see how God works through His people for His glory in the world.

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S B C U P D AT E

Image Courtesy of IMB

A Little Girl’s Big Prayer: Missionary Faithful to Commitment She Made at Age Ten

BY JANICE BACKER

A

little girl’s big prayer is stirring in northern Africa.

“If you want me to go to Africa, I will go,” vowed the ten-year-old girl as she put down the Girls in Action study book. She was actively involved in the missions education program of Woman’s Missionary Union, and she paid close attention to what she was learning in her study material and through meetings.

Thirty-five years later, Vivian Carter* fulfilled her promise to God. For the last eight years, Vivian has worked with women in Northern Africa.

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She has helped them develop skills so that they can set up their own small businesses and market products. They have also learned about bettering their health.

“The idea was helping women to help other women,” Vivian said. “And to share our life stories.”

Volunteers from different countries as well as local women showed peace and love as they interacted with them.

“We embraced women from different cultures and religions while we shared the story of the Son,” she said.

However, sometimes even good things must come to an end.

In the spring of 2020, she and her co-workers closed a project which had centered on small businesses. With little interest in the Good News among the women and the pandemic preventing them from selling their wares, Vivian and others decided to make some changes.

“With all these factors we felt sure that God was closing this season,” Vivian said. “Most importantly, we felt called to two new endeavors.”

Starting and waiting for changes is not new to Vivian. She understands that all things work together for those called to God’s purpose. Although she had made a commitment to Him at a young age, she, like many young adults, rebelled.

She then married a non-believer.

“I was thirty-two when my husband left me for another woman,” she said. Shortly after that, God called her again while she was reading Isaiah 6:8.

“Yes, Lord, I will go, but I don’t know how with three small children to raise on my own,” she said. Although she told no one about this re-commitment, her parents offered not only to pay for a volunteer trip to Hungary, but also to take care of her children. It would be the first short trip of many to confirm her determination to serve. When her children were through college and doing well on their own, she took early retirement from teaching school to become a fulltime worker in northern Africa.

“My favorite memory during these years has been to see women grow to love each other despite our differences,” Vivian said.

She is preparing for two new ventures.

One is a program designed to start the process of healing from emotional and mental pain and trauma. Using Scripture stories of struggle, pain, betrayal, and loss, participants share in a healing activity and pray for each other. They also learn to express their own personal hurt while relating to people from the Bible who experienced suffering.

She said that emotional, physical, and sexual abuse is a big problem where she lives. Like in the US, the problem “crosses all faiths and socio-economic statuses” with one difference.

“In the states, I would help a woman move to a safe place, but here there are no shelters,” she said. “And the woman keeps silent because of the shame if anyone finds out.”

Vivian said she hopes that in addition to helping women deal with trauma, the program will also multiply the opportunities to share the Father’s love and reconciliation.

“Anyone who completes the course is encouraged to start a new small group,” she said. “And later there are follow-up programs about how to forgive and how to cope with COVID-19.”

She and her co-workers also hope to create an internet presence to answer people’s questions and lead them to the Gospel.

“The lostness is overwhelming here,” she said. “And consequences of accepting a new faith is great—banishment from your family, or even worse, death threats.”

Vivian knows that even with COVID-19, changes in focus, and lack of religious freedom, God has always been in control. She asks that believers pray the following: That Vivian will become more fluent in the language of the people group she serves.

For the women with whom Vivian worked who still do not know Jesus.

For the groups in the new program to help heal wounds and multiply into more groups that help others. Earnestly pray that the website will be a way for people who are seeking truth to find it.

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on April 5, 2021.

JANICE BACKER is a contributing writer for the IMB.

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Image Courtesy of IMB

Lottie Moon Christmas Offering Hits Cumulative $5 Billion

BY MYRIAH SNYDER

I

nternational Mission Board leaders are celebrating a monumental milestone in Southern Baptist life: On March 31, 2021, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering surpassed $5 billion total gifts since collection to send missionaries to China began in 1888.

The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is an annual offering collected by believers around the world to support international missions. The offering is unique because 100 percent of the gifts are used to provide for missionaries who are spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

“I praise God for this significant milestone in giving through the Lottie offering as it indicates

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that the love of Southern Baptists for the lost has not waned, nor has their commitment to sending and supporting missionaries through the IMB,” said Paul Chitwood, president of the International Mission Board.

“It also reveals the incredible success of the WMU in advocating, since 1888, for every nation, tribe, people, and language to have the opportunity to hear the Gospel—a partnership for which we are so grateful.”

Gifts were calculated from the inception of the Woman’s Missionary Union in 1888, when the organization first began raising money for international missions.

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Pastor Li-Show-ting (left), a former Confucian scholar, is shown baptizing a believer in East Asia during the early 1900s.

More than a century later, believers are seen being baptized in Mberengwa, Zimbabwe. Because of Southern Baptist gifts to the International Mission Board and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, the Gospel has advanced and people have believed and been baptized for nearly two centuries.

Image Courtesy of IMB

In 1918, this international missions offering was named the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions to honor the service of Lottie Moon (1840–1912), a single missionary who dedicated her life to serving in China. While overseas, she wrote letters challenging churches in the US to send and support more mission-field workers.

“WMU was birthed to pray for and systematically raise money for missions,” said Sandy Wisdom-Martin, executive director-treasurer for National WMU. “It’s simply astonishing to think what started as a WMU offering in 1888 to send two women missionaries to help Lottie Moon has surpassed the $5 billion mark.

“This is absolutely a fishes-and-loaves story.

Because commitment to the Great Commission was embedded in the hearts of WMU members, they gave sacrificially to fuel the Southern Baptist missionary enterprise. When the offering became a church-wide emphasis in the 1960s, the legacy of Lottie Moon beckoned all Southern Baptists to generosity for the sake of taking the Gospel to the nations.

“We’ve been blessed by the sacred opportunity to join a long heritage of faithful Christ followers to offer our resources to be deployed for the Kingdom. And just look what God did!”

Through funding from the Cooperative Program and the Lottie offering, statistics gathered since 1845 indicate the IMB has been equipped to send more than twenty-five thousand missionaries to serve in 189 countries. These dedicated men and women represent 228,000 years of Gospel service.

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“Since the documented record-keeping of its missions offering reaching back to 1888, Southern Baptists have been faithful to take the Gospel to a lost world through the IMB,” said Price Jett, IMB’s CFO. “Five billion dollars across 133 years is a phenomenal investment in the Great Commission, and we are so grateful for the trust Southern Baptists have placed in us to steward these funds well for the sake of the Gospel.”

While people in close to two hundred countries have been reached through Southern Baptists by their commitment to the IMB, the need to continue praying, giving, and going is still urgent. Research indicates 7,070 people groups remain unengaged, and 4.5 billion people are unreached globally.

“But as we consider the task before us and look to the future, the need to reach lost souls is even greater—so great that it is sometimes difficult to wrap our minds around the work we have yet to do to reach the billions who have yet to hear,” Jett said. “The lives and eternities of real people are at stake. We have a great opportunity to reach them.

“Thank you, Southern Baptists, for allowing us to serve you in carrying out the Great Commission for these past 176 years.”

Gifts to sustain and grow IMB’s missionary force—generosity that transforms lives for eternity—may be given online at imb.org/give.

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on April 12, 2021.

MYRIAH SNYDER is senior writer/editor for the IMB.

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S B C U P D AT E

Aaron and Haley Parker along with their children, Maci, six, and Jenna, one, pose for an Easter Sunday photo April 4 at Hilldale Baptist Church.

Image Courtesy of Haley Parker

Tennessee Six-Year-Old Inspires Church with Annie Offering Gift

BY BRANDON ELROD

P

astor Larry Robertson of Hilldale Baptist Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, saw the young Maci Parker out of the corner of his eye, respectfully waiting to address her pastor.

“I excused myself from my conversation and kneeled down to say, ‘hey’ to her,” Robertson said. “She held up a little change holder, and I asked what she was giving to me. She simply said, ‘Annie Armstrong.’”

Maci, six, was the first child in the church’s Mission Friends class to return the change holders

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each child had put together to raise money for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American missions. She raised $54 for the Annie offering.

North American Mission Board (NAMB) President Kevin Ezell noticed Maci’s story after Robertson shared it on social media.

“So many pastors and churches have shared their stories about the Annie Offering this year,” Ezell said. “But stories like Maci’s have an extra impact because you see that even the youngest among us can make a difference on the mission field.”

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After being challenged to be a part of raising money for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering at Hilldale Baptist Church in Clarksville, Tennessee, six-year-old Maci Parker presented the $54 she earned through doing chores for her family to Pastor Larry Robertson.

Image Courtesy of Larry Robertson

Maci made her parents, Aaron and Haley, proud with her heart for others.

“She came home a couple of weeks ago after Wednesday night service and class,” Haley said, “and Susie had taught them who Annie Armstrong was. She was excited to tell us about Annie and who Annie told others about, Jesus.”

Susie Yonkers teaches the Mission Friends class, an effort of Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU), at Hilldale and takes time to teach the church’s preschool students about missionaries who are serving across North America and around the world.

“Each week, we will talk about specific missionaries, where they’re stationed and learn what they do in their communities,” Yonkers said.

“During Easter and Christmas, we talk about specific missionaries who did something great for the mission field, Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon.”

During their class, Yonkers and the children made coin holders out of toilet paper rolls and encouraged the kids to perform acts of service to raise funds. Every time they did so, Yonkers also encouraged them to share that the money was for missionaries and to tell them about Jesus.

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“It’s important for the smallest members of our churches to know they are a part of God’s big plan,” Yonkers said. “I’m always telling them that you don’t have to be a big person to tell someone about Jesus.”

Maci took that to heart, doing chores around the house and for other family members.

“She worked really hard,” Haley said. “I actually heard from one of the teachers at her school that she was also telling her friends about Annie Armstrong. So, it was very heart-warming for us.

She wanted people to know who Annie Armstrong is and what it is that she did.”

Maci also blessed her pastor when she approached him with her offering.

“To see what’s happening with our younger generation is encouraging,” Robertson said.

“We’ve got so much negativity in the world, so many naysayers about the state of the church and all of that, but when stuff like this happens, I’m reminded that this is God’s church. He is the one sending out the laborers into the harvest.”

Maci’s story, Robertson said, reminds him that while human perspective is often short-term, God sees the bigger picture as well.

“God is thinking beyond our immediate needs when he talks about workers for the harvest,” Robertson said. “He is thinking about the years and generations to come. That’s what I think about with a young girl like Maci. I think, ‘What will God do with someone like Maci?’”

Everything given to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering goes to support and provide resources to missionaries serving in the field. For more information, visit anniearmstrong.com.

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on April 9, 2021.

BRANDON ELROD writes for the North American Mission Board.

S B C U P D AT E

iStockPhoto

Almost Half of Teens Believe Many Religions May Be True, Pew Finds

BY DIANA CHANDLER

T

he largest portion of teenagers in the US believe that more than one religion may be true, Pew Research said in its latest revelation from a study of the religious beliefs and practices of teens and their parents.

Among thirteen- to seventeen-year-old teenagers, 45 percent believe many religions may be true, far outpacing the 31 percent who believe only one religion is true, Pew said. A much smaller portion, 15 percent, believe there is little to no truth in any religion, and 8 percent believe no religion is true.

Pew included a teenager and a parent from each household surveyed, and found that the religious

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beliefs of teenagers largely mirrored those of their parents. The largest portion, 47 percent, of parents included in the study said many religions may be true, compared to 33 percent who expressed an exclusivist view of religion, and 19 percent who said there is little or no truth in any religion.

When divided by religious affiliation, evangelical Protestant teenagers registered the largest portion of respondents, 66 percent, who believe in one religion, compared to 28 percent of the subset who believe many religions may be true, Pew said.

A majority, 57 percent, of respondents who identified as mainline Protestant told Pew they

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Among thirteen- to seventeenyear-old teenagers, 45 percent believe many religions may be true, far outpacing the 31 percent who believe only one religion is true.

believe many religions may be true, compared to 28 percent of mainliners who believe only one religion is true. Catholic responders more closely mirrored mainline Protestants, with 54 percent of Catholic teens professing many religions may be true, and 31 percent saying only one religion is true. Among teens in the study who professed no religious affiliation, 6 percent said only one religion is true, and 46 percent said many religions may be true.

Regional differences also hold, with the largest group of teenagers expressing a pluralistic view of religious truth, 61 percent, residing in the Northeast, Pew said. Only 16 percent of teens in the Northeast are exclusivist, and 12 percent said there is little truth in any religion. Elsewhere, 36 percent of Southern teens said only one religion is true, 41 percent said many religions may be true, and 14 percent said there is little truth in any religion.

In the Midwest, 28 percent of teens believe only one religion is true, compared to 51 percent who believe many may be true. Others in the

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Midwest believe there is little or no truth in any religion. Western teens were more evenly split, with 37 percent saying many religions may be true, 34 percent saying only one religion is true, and 28 percent saying there is little or no truth in any religion.

Pew has previously released other findings from the study conducted March 29 to April 14, 2019, among 1,811 pairs of teens and one of their parents. Eligibility of adults to participate was based on whether they were the parent of a teenager between thirteen and seventeen.

Results cited here do not necessarily equal one hundred, as some respondents did not answer all survey questions. Findings are accessible at pewforum.org.

A version of this article was published in Baptist Press on April 27, 2021.

DIANA CHANDLER is Baptist Press’s senior writer.

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J. D. Greear addresses the SBC Executive Committee during a 2019 meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Image by Eric Brown

Presidential Reflections

BY J. D. GREEAR

N

obody saw 2020 coming, right? Just about every pastor in the SBC had just finished their “Vision 2020” series, feeling creative and unique with our play on terms, when COVID-19 locked our country down. I know I speak for many when I say it has been the hardest year of ministry I’ve ever experienced.

The lockdown revealed a lot of things about our churches, and us, that were challenging. Many of us had to stop gathering altogether, at least in the ways we were used to. Many of us grieved over the deaths of church members, and we felt the strain on church unity. We understood the dangers of gathering, but we also understood the devastating effects of living in isolation.

Then we had to cancel the SBC annual meeting, and I became the answer to a Baptist trivia

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question—what SBC president served three years but was only elected to two terms? Worst of all, we missed meeting together. Absent the fellowship we experience at the annual meeting, some of our disagreements got exaggerated. Southern Baptists—Great Commission Baptists—unify best when our focus is on our shared mission, united around our precious Gospel. As my predecessor, Steve Gaines, loves to say, “Baptists are like hunting dogs. When dogs are hunting, they work in harmony. But when they stop hunting, eat supper, and stare at each other, they start growling and fighting. When Baptists evangelize the lost, we work together. When we stop, we fight.”

We also saw the Lord work in tremendous ways. We saw Great Commission work continuing and even thriving in our entities, and true revival

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breaking out in many of our churches. Coming together in Nashville will be a celebration—in large part because we’ve missed being together. We’re family. We love the Gospel, the Scriptures, and each other. And we want to push the accelerator on the Great Commission.

As I approach the end of my term, my hope is that we will remember these values going forward.

WE ARE GREAT COMMISSION BAPTISTS.

It has been incredible to watch the Lord work through “Who’s Your One?” and Go2. I pray we will continue to champion individual soul-winning, one person at a time. I pray that Go2 will become the default of every one of our college graduates and young professionals—to give their first two years after graduation to the mission of God: either overseas or on a church plant in the US. And I pray that we will continue to champion the gifts of both men and women as we seek to reach all peoples with the Good News of Christ. Our sons in the church will thrive only as our daughters thrive along with them.

WE PRIORITIZE THE GOSPEL ABOVE ALL.

The Gospel for us is not one doctrine among many, but is, as the Apostle Paul said, of first importance.

Alignment on second-order political questions, shared cultural heritages, and preferences in worship are not what brings us together. A love of the Gospel and our trust in the infallible, inerrant Scriptures is. As far as I can tell, Jesus only made two overtly political statements: “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” and “If my kingdom were of this world, my followers would fight.” There were problems in the Roman Empire, but the church as an institution didn’t get entangled in them. This doesn’t mean we ignore societal struggles—as Paul taught, vertical reconciliation with God leads to horizontal transformation with others. That informs how we engage and how we vote. But Christians can be united in the main things even when

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they disagree on the secondary ones. By God’s grace, Southern Baptists have been a people committed to truth, and by his continued grace, we will never falter in speaking clearly where the Bible speaks clearly. But we have a Gospel too precious and a mission too urgent to let anything secondary stand in our way.

WE COMMIT TO BEING PEOPLE OF TRUTH AND INTEGRITY.

James, Jesus’ half-brother, recognized that a culture of suspicion grows naturally out of a fallen heart—he calls it “the wisdom from below” and considers it demonic. What separates the “wisdom from above” from the “wisdom from below” is not just its content, but the spirit in which it is held. The wisdom from above is “peaceable . . . full of mercy and good fruits.” That means we assume the best about one another’s intentions. And when in doubt, we give each other the benefit of the doubt. God doesn’t make us righteous by demanding righteousness, but by extending grace. In the same way, we don’t cultivate trust by demanding it, but by extending it.

Every second of this experience has been an honor and a privilege. What a joy it has been serving Great Commission Baptist people in forty-one state conventions across this nation, and the missionaries they have sent out to nations all around the world. I am encouraged and energized by our future. I pray God will bless our efforts as we continue cooperating for His Kingdom. The future, as Wiliam Carey loved to say, remains as bright as the promises of God. Through many dangers, toils, and snares, we have already come—’tis grace that brought us safe thus far and grace ‘twill lead us home!

J. D. GREEAR is president of the Southern Baptist Convention and is pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina.

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