News

By Mike Ebert 

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

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

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

By Kathy Litton 

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

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

By Shauna Pilgreen 

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

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

By Adam Miller 

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

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

By Adam Miller 

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

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

By Joe Conway 

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

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

By Mickey Noah 

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

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

By Tobin Perry 

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

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

By Joe Conway 

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

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

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

By Sara Shelton 

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

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