Gary Bearce, Associational Missionary / Church Planting Catalyst

 Shirley and I feel very, very blessed!  We are able to serve with the great group of pastors, church planters and servant leaders here in the Mat-Su Valley and beyond. At the same time we are able to serve with the Alaska Baptist Convention – encouraging Bible study leadership, church planting/church planters and cooperative missions. We are also delighted to be referred to as Home Missionaries and Church Planting Catalyst with our North American Mission Board. Likewise, I am very grateful for the churches that are willing to call on Shirley and me for assistance and teamwork.  It is still a very, very special privilege to fill the pulpit, provide consultation to pastors or pastor search committees and to provide training in Bible study leadership, church growth and missions. I personally enjoy and need to be a part of our learning cohort called Thrive and so I’m so very thankful for the men who participate in this learning, encouragement and fellowship cohort.

 

I’m so grateful for an association that has been willing to follow the leadership of their missionary in missions endeavors, including church planting, and for the Associational Leadership Team (ALT) that sacrificially gives of their time each month to provide counsel and to keep us focused on doing Kingdom work together.  This group has been extremely supportive and patient over the past two years as I have adjusted to my role as a Church Planting Catalyst.  Each year a new associational moderator becomes my right hand, sometimes without much fanfare, but I am indebted to these very special co-laborers. With all this said, we are certainly very appreciative of the dollars that our churches provide to Hatcher Pass Baptist Association and to the Cooperative Program that allows us to serve our Savior alongside each of you here in Alaska.

 

I also must say “thank you” to our mission partners. We are in the process of developing a partnership with two associations in the lower 48, one in Tennessee and one in Texas. I look forward to some exciting teamwork together.  I consider both of these Directors of Missions good friends and will admit that I look forward to their encouragement and listening ear. Both associations are involved in worldwide mission projects and have a missions mindset.  I also consider missionaries in Guatemala and with a Bedouin people group as mission partners and remain optimistic about adding a third oversees mission partner in 2014.  Shirley and I look forward to assisting some of our church members to experience world missions, with an emphasis on church planting, in a new location, up close and personal, in 2014.

 

Speaking of missions, I am deeply appreciative of our excellent staff of Summer Missions Volunteers.  I could not have gotten by without them!  I hope you got acquainted with block party leaders; Bob and Jan, Charlie and Phyllis, and our four excellent college workers, Stephen, Nathan, Kayce and Kasey.  Yes, it is much easier to survive the summer when I can depend on helpers like Barbara Rogers, who coordinated the work of our college missionaries.  Okay, I must also focus on all of the mission teams that came our way this past summer, although in some cases I did not get to meet each volunteer personally.  I am so thankful that teams continue to return with the determination to assist us in reaching our communities and coming alongside our church planters.  We learned again this past summer that we must depend on GraceWorks (mission’s mobilizers) to provide some of our logistics and organize volunteers to share in community outreach and church planting.  Thanks to Scott, Traci, their team members and First Baptist Church, Wasilla for hosting GraceWorks teams.  It is nice to live in a place where people enjoy coming and I am so thankful that some incoming mission teams fall in love with our great state and in particular the people who desperately need the love of Jesus Christ that mission teams are sharing.

 

Finally, let me say thanks again to our church planters.  I am not their formal supervisor, but hopefully an encourager and coach.  Actually Jay, Bill, Billy and Dawson are teaching me a great deal about church planting and church growth as I observe their development as pastors and successful church planters.  Together we will look forward to adding Mike and Larry to our ranks yet this fall and anticipate more church planting leaders in 2014.  Much of my focus for the fall has been on the relationship between church planting and discipleship. Our local churches, including our church plants, are each a unique part of the Kingdom of God.  We know that the planting of local expressions of the body of Christ, local churches, is no guarantee that the Kingdom of God will be expanded, but church plants are often reaching more new disciples from within the lost masses than our older, established churches.  We all realize that it is out of disciple making that legitimate church planting occurs. Our primary focus is not on planting churches or even beginning a church planting movement but rather on making disciples, together.  I deeply appreciate your support for and encouragement of every aspect of discipleship and our missions endeavors, including the success our church planters are having as co-laborers in building Christ’s Kingdom.  Please join me in encouraging these men and their families as you and I serve alongside them in our church planting/disciple-making efforts.

Serving with you,

Gary