GPS momentum builds across U.S. and Canada

By Adam Miller

Members of Haitian Evangelical Baptist Church in Philadelphia stuffed plastic bags with Find it Here evangelistic material along with an invitation to their church's Easter program during last years God's Plan for Sharing pilot outreach effort. Photo by Adam Miller

Members of Haitian Evangelical Baptist Church in Philadelphia distributed flyers during last year's God's Plan for Sharing pilot outreach effort. This year the same church will do the same as part of a Convention-wide evangelism effort. Photo by Adam Miller

Known nationally as God’s Plan for Sharing: Across North America, the effort is designed to touch every household with the Gospel in anticipation of Easter Sunday services.

“In our county we’ve got 42,000 homes that we are attempting to touch,” said David Gifford, pastor of Calvary Baptist. “Our church couldn’t do that by themselves … but when we break this up and we see the body of Christ working together, man it’s exciting to be on board with that.”

That’s the idea behind Across North America and the multi-year God’s Plan for Sharing, an effort facilitated by the North American Mission Board with the participation of state and associational Southern Baptist leaders. By linking evangelism efforts across national, state and associational levels, churches are able to plug in to the larger cause and accomplish things that would have been difficult otherwise.

In all, state conventions have ordered or produced 17 million pieces of literature to be placed on each door in neighborhoods throughout the United States and Canada. In addition, NAMB has coordinated the purchase of more than 25,000 television ads, more than 7,000 radio spots and additional exposure through newspaper ads, billboards, yard signs and banners.

NAMB produced the ads and sent $1.2 million to state convention partners for the purchase of print space and airtime. State partners have contributed more than half a million dollars to the purchases, bringing the total media buy to more than $1.7 million.

Advertising will direct people to a website—www.findithere.com—or a phone number—1-888-JESUS20 (1-888-537-8720) where they can view a Gospel presentation or interact with a spiritual encourager.

In Kentucky, evangelism leader Ross Bauscher said in early summer 2008, he and his staff became excited about the possibilities of God’s Plan for Sharing. By December, the Kentucky Baptist convention voted to proceed full-steam ahead. The result: Detailed plans are now in place to touch up to 1 million homes with prayerwalking and packets that include a Gospel tract and church literature.

An adaptable approach

Southern Baptist churches across 43 state conventions will begin in March to prayerwalk and canvas their communities in the weeks leading up to Easter.

Through saturation and media outreach strategies, Southern Baptist churches, their associations and Baptist state conventions will reach millions of homes, sharing the Gospel and inviting people to Easter services.

Each region has adapted GPS to its own strategy and context. A church in the arctic will do outreach differently than in more temperate climes, for example.

“In 10 degrees and 25 mile-an-hour winds prayerwalking is more like prayer driving,” says Pastor Bruce Rowell of First Baptist Church in Palmer, a suburb of Anchorage, one of Alaska’s few urban areas.

In the Matanuska-Susitna (Mat-Su) Valley, GPS may look a little different than it does in the lower 48. Hanging bags on doors or mailboxes, for example, becomes problematic, as most people have to drive to the Post Office to pick up mail. So churches in the Mat-Su Valley congregations benefit from the flexibility of the GPS strategy. They can adapt GPS resources to meet challenges and reach goals.

“This is exactly what we needed,” Rowell said, emphasizing how a common effort such as GPS can unify and mobilize churches in an area, even one as frozen and spread out as Alaska.

First Baptist was able to partner with 10 churches situated along easily driven highways. The Mat-su Valley association covers more than 600 miles, and some of its churches are only accessible by plane. But in coming weeks as energy and anticipation build around pre-Easter events, those 10 churches within driving distance will rally at First Baptist in anticipation of what God will do in their region.

Southern Baptist churches in Alaska plan to distribute more than 40,000 pieces of God’s Plan for Sharing materials. People who respond to literature and media spots will be directed to websites, telephone numbers and eventually a contact at a local church, and they’ll hear Gospel presentations all along the way.

Pastor Rowell says he’s anticipating a harvest on Easter Sunday.

“We hope to double our attendance that day through our outreach,” Rowell said. “And each person there gets their own Evangecube. We ordered around 400.”

A far reaching, but simple approach with good results

Flashback to early last Spring in a Philadelphia neighborhood, where Christian Cesar, pastor of Haitian Evangelical Baptist Church, showed up about 9 a.m. to coffee, pastries and more than a dozen church members sorting literature-filled bags into piles of 20. This was part of a pilot phase of the initiative in 2009.

Within the next hour, members were halfway through the task of visiting every home in the neighborhood with GPS materials and information about their church.

“Over the past year we’ve seen our community brighten,” Cesar said. “Not as many drugs, not as much darkness and more people look to our church as a haven.”

Situated near major intersections in a low-income area, Haitian Evangelical Baptist Church sits in a strategic location for building its community. Following last year’s initial outreach, contact and communication have increased between church and community.

At least three people accepted Christ during this initial outreach effort. Many residents showed up to the majority Haitian congregation on Easter Sunday and many continue to frequent its doors.

In St. Louis, Mo., an invitation like those planned for March can lead to life change among people not normally interested in church.

“We are told that 80 percent of unchurched people in America would be open to attending church on Easter Sunday if they were invited,” said Gary Taylor, state director of missions for the Missouri Baptist Convention. “This is so huge for the state of Missouri and little towns where people are going to share and saturate their towns with the Gospel.”

Missouri churches ordered 750,000 GPS pieces, and merely talking about it to their congregations has given pastors a chance to lead people to Christ.

“A 70-year-old man came up after a service saying he needed what the pastor was talking about. Another church shared a similar story,” Taylor said. “It excites me to no end. We’re already seeing fruit and we haven’t even distributed the first piece!”

More than 40 associations, roughly 1,000 churches are participating. Churches in Jefferson City have prayerwalked their whole community. Television and radio ads are hitting the major hubs of St. Louis, Springfield and Kansas City, with ads playing during the Final Four basketball tournament, “The Bachelor” and “Oprah.”

Churches on the west coast hope to gain similar traction.

The California Southern Baptist Convention has ordered 1.5 million pieces covering English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian and Vietnamese people groups. To illustrate how simple it is Mark Beigle, pastor of Liberty Baptist Church in Moreno Valley, Calif., had a door set up near his pulpit on a Sunday morning. He took a bag, hung it on the doorknob and said “There. You’ve been trained.”

The convention also will broadcast Find It Here advertisements more than 3,000 times through local television stations. The 42 other state conventions will use, in addition to television spots, billboard ads, radio spots and yard signs to send people in their communities to online or telephone-based opportunities for Gospel presentations.

It’s a long-term strategy

GPS is a long-term strategy rolling out over the course of 10 years with the goal of every believer sharing, every person hearing by the year 2020.

“We are experiencing unprecedented cooperation from our state partners, associations and churches,” said Jerry Pipes, GPS coordinator for the North American Mission Board. “We see this as a long-term effort, but we are sprinting right from the start with Southern Baptists excited to be a part of something that could dramatically influence life in North America.” 

The first step on the 10-year initiative is called “Across North America” and is the first of six two-year campaigns that will carry GPS through 2020. This first leg of the vision is to saturate areas with the Gospel message through four primary vehicles and activities:

• A three-week targeted media saturation taking place March 20 – April 11, 2010 (TV, radio, billboards, newspapers, etc).
• Prayerwalking their communities on the weekend of March 20.
• Churches on March 27 distributing clear bags containing a Find It Here Gospel drop-in piece and an invitation to Easter services to each home in their surrounding neighborhoods.
• Churches conducting a five-week follow-up process after Easter.

“It’s been the best buy in from our associations and churches of any evangelistic effort we’ve undertaken,” said Sammy Gilbreath, director of evangelism for the Alabama State Board of Missions. “From small and large rural churches to inner-city churches, it’s the best received of anything like this we’ve ever done.”

Adam Miller is a writer for the North American Mission Board. James Dotson also contributed to this report. To find out more about Across North America, visit www.gps2020.net.

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