Feb 13, 2012, 7:00 PM
VBS Champions/Directors Meeting
Feb 14, 2012, Wayland
Sharpen - Pastor Prayer Time 10:30 AM
Associational Leadership Team Meeting, Noon
March 1-2
THRIVE Launch at FBC Palmer
Thanks to everyone who participated in SOAP (Strategic Organization and Planning) on January 21 !!!!
Some are saying that cooperative church planting will produce the greatest movement for evangelism, discipleship, Kingdom growth and missions cooperation that our denomination has experienced in many, many years, yet we are still asking God, "Does our own church health really depend on our resolve to help establish another church somewhere or our efforts to strengthen another existing church?” The New Year gives us some tremendous opportunities as we refocus on teamwork, again asking the hard questions concerning cooperative mission, as we reframe our partnership and set the stage to move forward in our Acts 1:8 work under the unity the Holy Spirit provides.
Serving as a co-laborer,
Gary
PS – Let me remind you for two other events that are ahead of us. The Churches Planting Churches Conference follows the State Evangelism Conference. It too is at FBC, Anchorage on February 1 and 2. This event will help you better understand the evangelism, discipleship and Acts 1:8 thrust of church planting. Our Associational Thrive Launch is March 1 and 2, at FBC, Palmer. Thrive is a learning and fellowship cohort for pastors and staff that meets six times a year for 7 hours (Thursday afternoon and Friday morning). The work that the cohort has done together has provided challenge, fun and camaraderie. Usually this cohort requires an attendance covenant but March 1 and 2 is open to everyone to explore joining a cohort.
‘Thumped’
2011 Annual Report to Hatcher Pass Baptist Association
By Gary Bearce, Associational Missionary
Well, I've been ‘thumped!’ As a kid my mom sometimes had to ‘thump’ me to get my attention or to immediately encourage me to make the right decision. Perhaps being ‘thumped’ is something less than hearing the audible voice of God but certainly somewhere above simply sensing the Holy Spirit’s leadership. Over the past year, and through major changes with, and much uncertainty about, direction at the North American Mission Board, Shirley and I have struggled a great deal about our future in Alaska. Now, God has clearly said, “You must make a difference, right where I have placed you!” As a Church Planting Catalyst I will still answer to our Hatcher Pass Baptist Association Executive Board and our Association Leadership Team even though North American Mission Board (NAMB) will have input into how I do my job! When I visit in your church I hope you will still recognize me as the Associational Missionary. I will continue to do my best to serve your church, to stay involved with all types of church health issues and the things that associational missionaries are supposed to do.
As most of you know, before NAMB rolled out Send North America, a ‘national evangelism through church planting’ strategy, they announced that they were changing the title and job description of all NAMB funded associational missionaries. NAMB does pay most of my salary and expecting our association to fully fund us does not seem to be a realistic option. Shirley and I want to stay in Alaska because God clearly brought us here five years ago, but we were ready to “throw-in-the-towel” because we resist change just like others do. I assumed that under the new NAMB guidelines eventually I would have to put 80% or more of my time into church planting and church planting was not my “first love.” Most of my ministry has been focused on church health, Bible study leadership and outreach. Why should I retool now? We were ready to go somewhere else so we could do what we have always done and what we have enjoyed doing. Well, I again begin to read the greatest church planting book ever written, the Book of Acts and I got ‘thumped!’
While in college I participated in summer missions in the west and I got ‘thumped!’ I realized then that my life had to make a difference, it was not optional. At that point I knew that eventually I would have to move outside my comfort zone and serve outside the Bible Belt. We praise God that we were able to serve in Indiana for 17 years but we got very comfortable there and God said again, “You have to make a difference!” God ‘thumped’ Shirley and me in 2004 and we committed to help a young pastor with six kids to plant a new church. I certainly received some criticism because my job was to help existing churches remain healthy, but Shirley and I left the church where we were leaders, in a church that had experiencing rapid numerical growth, where most of our friends attended, and discovered we could make the difference God expected of us. God said, “Gary, you’re not a great soul winner but your life must make a difference for eternity! You must reach and disciple people through building relationships with unchurched people and through helping them establish a new church where they can grow spiritually and thrive!”
Two years later we got ‘thumped’ again and as a result we moved to Alaska. I think God pushed us toward Alaska in order for us to be more involved in church planting in a place that was far more unchurched than in Indiana. There was no doubt in our minds that we would consistently be a member of a new work church during our ministry here, but I was not ready to give church planting priority attention because I enjoy the other things I do. For five years I have been visiting in most of our Hatcher Pass Baptist Association’s churches on Sundays and spending as much time as possible with pastors and people during the week with the daily prayer and determination that God will help me to make a difference in those churches through encouragement, through assisting with church health issues and through leadership training. My attitude was that we were giving all the time we could squeeze into church starts and that that was good enough. I needed a ‘thump’!
I am very privileged to serve alongside great pastors who are working very hard to grow their churches. Let’s all be honest together; we cannot reach the thousands of unchurched in the Mat-Su Valley and beyond with the churches we have now, regardless of how healthy and rapidly growing they become and therefore neither church growth nor church planting are optional. It is going to take a great deal of education for some of us, and many of the folks in the pew, to understand the essential need to start churches, especially since we do have some struggling churches in our midst but, working together, we can do both. I hope some of our pastors will seek to assist others you are not experiencing numerical growth at this time. Again, we can, we must reach, disciple and plant.
Let me remind you that Hatcher Pass Baptist Association has accepted three successful church plants into our association in the past seven years (Pioneer, Settlers Bay and CrossCountry). We have a four church planter just beginning the task. We have a good history in church planting to launch from! Shirley and I are members of one of those new works and very involved in a small group. Most of those in our current small group would not be in church right now if it was not for a new church start. Yes, along the way Shirley and I have worked with several church plants that have struggled but not survived. Perhaps we could use the excuse that church planting is way too much work to be ‘the priority’ of an associational missionary, but when we are focused on the work of evangelism we must have a “getter done” mentality.
Sure, all of us knew that some changes were needed at NAMB for lots of reasons. (1) Our denomination is experiencing significant declines in baptisms. (2) We have put more focus on numbers rather than on the command to making disciples. (3) We have been losing churches faster that we can plant them. (4) NAMB was involved in far too many ministries to be a driving influence for evangelism and discipleship. Sure, we knew that the Southern Baptist Convention’s GCR Task Force was mega-church driven with no sacrifice on the part of big churches and little regard for the needs of struggling churches. Sure, NAMB could have helped us tremendously by first rolling out Send North America as a church planting mobilization effort thus allowing associations like ours to understand the tasks and the sacrifices that would need to be made. ‘Thump’ - let’s put all of that behind us! The book of Acts is correct – discipleship and starting new churches goes hand-in-hand and we must make a difference when it affects lostness in Alaska!
Shirley and I know that God is calling us to be significantly involved in multiplying churches in Alaska! We would like to do that alongside you, within the framework of Hatcher Pass Baptist Association! Therefore, I simply ask you to join with us in one of the most challenging steps we have ever taken! I cannot do it alone! I must have this association of churches, and especially a small group of pastors, solidly walking and working together on this effort. Let’s learn how to do church planting while maintaining happy, healthy mother churches and let’s do it together!
The SBC statistics say that currently only about 4% of all Southern Baptist churches will ever get involved in church planting and yet, honestly, church plants are reaching more people per capita for Christ and discipling more new believers than any other evangelism process or program our North American Mission Board has ever promoted. NAMB is on the right track! Perhaps discipleship of new believers is the most important reason to plant more churches. Nation-wide, existing churches are not discipling a very high percentage of those they are baptizing. We can, we must do better. NAMB is providing Southern Baptist a God inspired direction and hopefully you and your church will either join us or bear with us in this shift. I would really like to see 50% of our churches involved in some type of church planting support or effort in 2012! Let’s talk!
I realize that it is going to be a big, big shift in our strategy for reaching our communities. We have assumed that our greatest sacrifice in mission work was to ask our people to give significant dollars. I believe that most of our church plants, perhaps 80%, are going to be lay-led and launched, thus we must send our own home grown Alaskan lay people into our own communities to start new work. We have consistently urged our best to start a new class or small group, to multiple and to build that small group into a ministry. Now, I understand that one of the greatest sacrifices that a church will every make is to send out church planting families; to move a new small group toward a satellite campus as an extension of their work, or toward a totally separate church start.
Our new work churches are going to be very diverse! Some of them will be started by new pastors coming from the laity of our churches and will meet in homes. Some of them will be sponsored and total funded by churches from the lower 48 who may send an experienced full time pastor(s) and lots of funds for rent and advertising that says, “Everyone come!” Some of these satellites and plants will be in rented facilities used by several congregations. They might have only one target group in mind; for example ethnics or military families or slope workers. Some of them are going to look like a Southern Baptist Church and perhaps even meet on Sunday mornings. Some will never have a building of their own, some will never meet on Sunday but all will be involved in doing Great Commission evangelism / discipleship alongside your church and mine, hopefully with the support, coaching and commitment of a mother church. I continue to believe that churches that plant churches will grow faster and reach more people internally as well as understand what it means to be “on mission” in a far greater way than churches that simply continue to grow their own congregation, as important as that is. We can, we must, do this together!
Believing that I can and must make a difference, I must accept the role that our denomination has set before me and place church planting as my top priority for 2012. Although I have been involved with church planting in one way or another for years, this will be a new and exciting learning experience for me!. Because of teamwork, we have a strong association. I hope that it goes without saying, “I enjoy serving with you.” Again, I will continue to do my best to serve your church as an associational missionary, to stay involved with all types of church health issues and the things that associational missionaries are supposed to do. I will seek out Mission Service Corps volunteers to help with some tasks, although I hope I can stay involved in some leadership training and the ministry of encouragement to Sunday School leaders. I hope to continue working with Jimmy Stewart as a State Sunday School Specialist because of the essential need for small group multiplication both in existing churches and new work settings. My Bible Study Leadership will have a strong focus on Bible Storying, which I believe is essential for church plants in Alaska. It is very important to me that I have the opportunity to continue ministries that focus on missions involvement, such as mission trips. Shirley will continue to do most of the associational administrative work. I think she does a fantastic job with it! Others, perhaps by expanding the Associational Leadership Team, will step up to help with more of the church health tasks. It will be even more important that all of us continue to urge volunteers to come to Alaska and that we do a great work through summer evangelistic efforts.
I realize you may still be very skeptical but could we at least set one goal at this point. I have been ‘thumped’ and I am ready to suggest that Hatcher Pass Baptist Association churches accept the North American Mission Board’s challenge and work together to plant four (4) new churches in 2012 in and through a team effort. Yes, this may sound impossible at first but my recommendation comes with an initial plan, laid out below. I have urged churches to develop an annual plan every year as a way of presenting or reinforcing their vision sometimes referred to as their “impossible dream but God’s design.” These Holy Spirit inspired plans, first shared by the pastor and staff and then worked out through Spirit led teamwork have helping everyone at the church to get on board and to understand the practical steps of fleshing out a vision. So, I can do no less!
The initial plans, which I have shared at our Executive Board Meeting, are simply my best Holy Spirit guided thoughts at this time. Here is a very tentative ‘work-in-progress’ document. A lot of prayer and Spirit inspired input is still needed from our Associational Leadership Team and the collective inspired thoughts of our pastors. These first thoughts do name a few individuals but it also has a number of blanks that must be filled it as God guides pastors and churches to determine their own level of involvement and readiness for accepting a brand new challenge that may still take months of educating and Bible study for people to understand or buy into and strongly support. Here is my first sketch of what I believe we can do together, with your teamwork and support, in 2012 as I make the transition to serve with you as a North American Mission Board Church Planting Catalyst.