Month: April 2014

Texas missionary shares gospel in Poland through English classes

LUBAWA, Poland—At first, Bailey Hughes didn’t want to go to Poland. She crossed it off her list of possible missionary destinations. She’d “been there, done that” as a tourist and wanted a new and challenging adventure.

Six years later, the Keller native said that God could not have found a more “personal” place of ministry for her than northeastern Poland. It was such a fit that, after serving there in short-term missions as a journeyman and an International Service Corps member through the International Mission Board, Hughes was appointed as a career missionary in February and returned to Poland. 

“I understand their struggles in coming to faith,” Hughes, a member of Fellowship of the Parks in Keller, said regarding her Polish friends.

“I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. I remember the first time I heard the Word of God. I was in the fourth grade on the playground. I pretended to know but I had no idea who this ‘God’ person was. From that day on, I was intrigued.

“For me, coming into a personal relationship with my Savior was a process,” the 29-year-old missionary said. “It was a process of asking questions, seeking answers, reading the Bible and figuring out for myself who Christ really was.”

Hughes sees her Polish friends struggling as she did through a similar process in coming to know Christ. As she explained, it doesn’t just happen overnight. For most, it takes years of working through questions.

Hughes explained that Catholicism is ingrained in every part of the Polish culture. Operation World estimates that around 90 percent of the population in Poland claims to be Catholic, while less than 1 percent is evangelical. Of the Polish people Hughes works with, 98 percent are Roman Catholic.

According to Hughes, statues of the Virgin Mary and other Catholic saints are found in towns and villages. People come from all over to pray at a special statue of Mary that sits at the end of a well-kept sidewalk in Lubawa, the town where Hughes lives. The statue depicts Mary stepping on a serpent with an apple in its mouth.

“It’s a picture of how Mary is powerful and put on a pedestal,” Hughes said. “It’s the darkest oppression that I’ve come across in northeastern Poland. And it’s one reason we wanted to extend our efforts in sharing Christ here [in Lubawa].”

Hughes will spend the next few years in Lubawa helping to start new work. She’ll continue teaching English, the same strategy she used with her team in the previous city, Olsztyn, to reach out to neighbors. The young missionary explains that offering English conversational classes has been an open door for meeting people and sharing the gospel.

“In my last city, there was an older lady who wanted to learn English so she could visit her daughter in England. She’s not a believer but she came to my class,” Hughes said. “At one point, she wanted to know why I was there. I told her that I was working with Baptist churches, and that led into us talking about spiritual things.

“We do English conversation so we can share the gospel. For example, one day we were practicing past tense words. So I told her my testimony,” she recounted. “This lady now loves to hear people’s testimonies. She is not a believer yet but I pray one day it will happen.”

While Hughes lives in a country where she can openly talk about Jesus, it doesn’t mean hundreds come to salvation each year. In fact, it was years before she even saw one person commit his life to Christ. Veteran missionaries warned her that it could take years to see fruit—if she sees any.

Hughes said this doesn’t bother her, though. As she stated, she reminds herself that God calls some people to prepare the way for the harvest.

Her attitude doesn’t surprise Shannon McMahon, children’s director at Hughes’ home church in Keller.

“I remember Bailey as a seventh-grader asking our women’s group to pray for her mom to be baptized. She was influential in leading her entire family to Christ,” McMahon said, remembering how Hughes never gave up on her family coming to faith. “She has always had a heart for following God and sharing his Word with others.”

Hughes’ goal for sharing the gospel starts with being “intentional”—or keeping her eyes and heart open to meeting people God puts in her everyday life. She said she is asking Southern Baptists in Texas to join her by praying for people of peace to come along and progress in building relationships. Hughes explained that “people of peace” are those who are open to her team and can help them get established in the community. She also hopes fellow believers would pray for openness to the gospel and that people would respond to the Holy Spirit—a request her mother, Mary Hughes, said she hopes Southern Baptists in Texas would really take to heart.

Mary Hughes insists that a revival in Poland can take place and said she believes it will happen one person at a time—just as it did in the Hughes family.

“I’m so excited that our Bailey is sharing the gospel in Poland. They won’t know how to break free in the Lord until someone tells them,” Mary Hughes said. “Pray for the Holy Spirit to work. It’s time to make a new chapter in history for Poland—one that involves a personal relationship with their Savior.”

Criswell College affirms missions emphasis with Great Commission Week

DALLAS—Criswell College hosted 37 representatives of 17 missions organizations on campus during Great Commission Days, March 24-25, part of the school’s annual Great Commission Week.

Missions organizations set up booths and representatives spoke in classes, said Bobby Worthington, Criswell professor and director of applied ministry.

Great Commission chapel services enriched the weeklong event. On Tuesday, March 25, Daniel Punnose, vice president of Gospel for Asia, was the featured chapel speaker. Aaron Meraz, Criswell assistant professor of church planting and revitalization, addressed students and faculty at Thursday’s chapel service, March 27. A luncheon with students and faculty followed.

Criswell connections with Gospel for Asia are long standing. Punnose is the son of Gospel for Asia founder K.P. Yohannan, the first international student to attend and graduate from Criswell College. Invited to the school by W.A. Criswell himself, Yohannan was also ordained by Criswell at First Baptist Church of Dallas, Worthington said.

“Both Dr. Yohannan and I remember the profound effect Dr. Criswell had upon our lives and ministries during our student days at Criswell College,” Worthington said.

In addition to Gospel for Asia, missions organizations represented this year at Criswell’s Great Commission Days included: Camino Global, Child Evangelism Fellowship of Dallas, East-West Ministries International,  Global English Institute, Gospel for Muslims, NEXT Worldwide, Our Calling, SIM USA, SBTC church planting team, Time to Revive, InFaith, Young Life, Reconciliation Outreach, SBTC student evangelism, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement and the IMB/NAMB/SBTC for unreached people groups.

As with Punnose and Yohannan, Criswell relationships with mission groups abound and graduates were represented at the Great Commission Days. “Warren Samuels, founder of NEXT Worldwide is a Criswell graduate, as is Stan Britton of NEXT. Criswell graduate Joe Anderson serves as state director of InFaith and area director of Young Life,” Worthington said.

Missions emphasis is a Criswell hallmark.

“Criswell College has been at the forefront of providing students with training, education and experience in missions, both domestic and international,” said Scott Bridger, Criswell assistant professor of world Christianity.

The college has participated in the IMB’s initiative to embrace unengaged and unreached people groups by sending students and faculty to minister in two locations in the Middle East over the past 18 months, said Bridger.

“This summer, Criswell students will be engaging this people group firsthand by providing pastor training and counsel to believers from a Muslim background. They will also conduct VBS style camps for another Muslim people group in the Middle East,” Bridger added.

The college has also sponsored mission trips to Cuba and engages in ongoing outreach activities among unreached people groups in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Bridger said.

Of the latter, Meraz noted, “Dallas-Fort Worth has become a microcosm of the world; thus it is a great training ground for world evangelization.”

Meraz will serve as director of  the new Criswell Church Planting and Revitalization Center (CPRC), an institution made possible by gifts from the SBTC, North Texas Baptist Association, NAMB and local churches.

“The CPRC will connect students to local SBTC churches and church plants, providing scholarship funds for such students as well as stipends when the students intern in the churches,” Meraz explained.

“In addition to academic training of church planting and revitalization, our students will graduate with at least two years of practical training,” Meraz said.

Free @home app offers weekly family and marriage helps

Free marriage and family resources became even more accessible, April 1, when the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention launched its “@home” family ministry app. After a quick, no-cost download from the app store, users can find guides for weekly family devotionals, 5 to 8 minute videos on marriage and an assortment of other resources, all geared toward helping families grow together and grow in faith.

SBTC Discipleship Associate Lance Crowell says the convention developed of the app in answer to the increased focus of churches on family ministry.

“As the family ministry movement has begun to make strides in Texas, many churches are working to help families take spiritual leadership in their homes,” Crowell said.

The app provides guides for a family worship time that includes prayer, a focal Bible verse, discussion and a weekly memory verse. In the fly out tab for each week, parents can also find discussion guides geared specifically for the ages of their children designed to point them in a direction for discussion and application. Those weekly guides are all housed in the devotions section of the app’s family area. In the resources section, parents can find additional helps such as articles about Easter traditions and Passover.

“What’s great about this app is that it provides weekly family devotionals, and there are even age-graded applications, so if you have preschooler or you have a pre-teen, there are things that you can do for both of those,” said SBTC Women and Children’s Associate Emily Smith. 

Since the family’s spiritual health and growth hinges upon a good relationship between husband and wife, Crowell and Smith point out, the app has an entire section devoted to marriage building.

Steve and Debbie Wilson, founders of Marriage Matters Now, sit down with each other in short video devotionals geared for couples, walking through passages such as Ephesians 4 and Philippians 2. Under the resource tab, couples can find practical wisdom for living out marriage at home, such as “The Tech Battle at Home” and “The Power of Words.”

Crowell said this entry level tool will help establish spiritual disciplines in the home for the vast majority of church members who do not already have any such habits.

“One of the things that we focus on is that this is really an entry level tool,” Crowell said. “If your family does weekly devotions this might be a bit too basic for them. We believe that 80% or more (just an estimate not hard facts) of church families do nothing spiritually at home each week, so this has been designed to get them started. This is truly the first step. We did not want it too big, but we wanted it to be something that could develop spiritual patterns and disciplines for families.”

The SBTC offers these resources completely free to any downloader thanks to churches’ faithful support of the Cooperative Program.

To download the app, search “SBTC Family App @Home” in the app store. The @home app is available for iPhone, iPad, Android Phone, Android Tablet and Windows Phone.

Texas evangelist yields pulpit for Ukraine”s acting president to share faith on Easter

Keller-based evangelist Michael Gott saw a providential moment and seized it when he yielded his preaching time on Easter morning to Ukraine’s acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov.

Ukrainians attending the service at a large and crowded Baptist church in Kiev were unaware that Turchynov, a fellow Baptist and an occasional lay preacher, would be there when they gathered to celebrate Christ’s resurrection, Gott said in a statement provided to the Southern Baptist TEXAN. 

Turchynov, designated as acting president following protests and bloodshed in the former Soviet republic, spoke to the crowd for more than 20 minutes about his faith in Jesus Christ, noting his deep appreciation for their prayers and referring to them several times as “dear brothers and sisters,” Gott said.

Gott, in the Ukraine on an evangelistic tour with the Arkansas Baptist Master’Singers choir, said he urged the president to take the opportunity to encourage his fellow Ukrainians.

“Mr. President, I honor you for the courage you have to stand before this nation as a humble, born-again Christian,” Gott told Turchynov from his seat near the leader. “While the world is watching, let them hear you confess Jesus Christ as the risen Lord.” 

Gott said Turchynov was “gracious in his words of encouragement.”

When it was announced Turchynov was in attendance, the Baptist church broke out in applause—unusual for a Ukrainian church, Gott noted.

Gott said Turchynov’s address to the church was “a historic moment. Never before has an acting Ukrainian president attended a Baptist worship service. Never. And I would remind all of us that this is the same Ukraine that once harshly persecuted Baptists and called them ‘a despised cult.’ But also this is the Ukraine in which Nikita Khrushchev once said, ‘Ukraine does not need Jesus Christ—they have me!’”

Gott said he even joked with Turchynov that he would make a good evangelist, yielding a “Thank you” and a smile from the head of state.

Later in the day, Gott spoke to an estimated 20,000 people at Maidan, in the heart of Kiev, where he reminded the open-air crowd and a live national television audience that political leadership would not solve the unrest plaguing the nation.

“A new president is not the solution to Ukraine’s problems,” Gott said. “This nation needs a new bir­th — a spiritual awakening.” 

Gott commended the nation for uniting to oust a corrupt leader, but said the lasting hope for Ukraine would be found in kneeling before the risen Lord.

The pro-Western government took over after Viktor Yanukovich, the Moscow-backed president, fled the capital amid civil unrest after his refusal, under Russian pressure, to strengthen ties with the European Union.

Moscow refuses to acknowledge the acting Kiev government and reportedly has troops positioned along its border with Ukraine. In March Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in what the United States condemned as an illegal “land grab.”

Ukrainians need Christians worldwide to join them in prayer, Gott said.

“The situation in Ukraine reminds all of us how we need to become world Christians and to recognize that some of these major events taking place in the world directly affect our brothers and sisters in Christ, and so we all need a new sensitivity about the work of God going on in many places in the world.

“But for Ukraine in particular, we need to imagine the anguish and the struggle in the hearts of these people,” Gott said. “An invasion from Russia in Ukraine would be disastrous and it would almost force the world to go back to the Cold War mentality. Ukraine could not withstand a Russian military invasion. We need to pray for peace, and we need to ask for God to intervene, and we need to recognize that all of this indirectly affects the work of the Great Commission. Let us ask God to bless the people of Ukraine.”

During his time there, Gott has also visited with the Ukrainian Baptist Union president, Viacheslev Nesteruk, thanking him for his support and adding, “We have come to lift up Jesus Christ and to see people drawn to him.”

The choir tour is covering seven cities in western Ukraine and is done with an official invitation from the Ukrainian minister of culture that gives the Michael Gott International ministry permission to hold events in public buildings, Gott said.

The GamePlan aims to turn personal evangelism “moments” into a movement

Nathan Lorick’s prayer is that “God would take a moment and turn it into a movement”—the movement being a cycle of Great Commission events, namely praying for, evangelizing and discipling converts in a New Testament model.

“Imagine church members going from not actually sharing their faith at all to now discipling someone they led to Christ by walking them through the process of knowing Christ and then making him known,” Lorick, evangelism director at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, explained.

It’s called “The GamePlan”—not a program, Lorick emphasized—but an initiative to get churches and families on mission together in reaching lost friends and family members with the gospel and following up in discipleship.

Tasked in his role with helping SBTC churches evangelize their state, Lorick said the appeal of The GamePlan is its simplicity and intentionality. The materials needed are minimal—a card or refrigerator magnet with five blank spaces for names is all a participant needs. The plan consists of:

  • identifying five lost people,
  • committing to pray daily for them,
  • planning for a moment of sharing the gospel message with them,
  • presenting the gospel,
  • plugging in the new believer to a local church for baptism and discipleship.

Lorick rolled out The GamePlan during the Empower Evangelism Conference with the help of Chan Gailey, former college and NFL head coach with numerous teams, including the Dallas Cowboys.

Sometimes churches, and even pastors, lose their urgency for sharing the gospel outside the church walls and need a renewed focus to help them, Lorick said.

“This gives a pastor a simple way to get his people excited again about sharing their faith with others in a way that creates a buzz in the congregation and within families as moms and dads and their kids pray daily together over a list of people God has placed on their hearts. This initiative, especially with its sports theme, has a wide appeal,” Lorick said.

The GamePlan materials include brochures with football, basketball and baseball themes in English and a soccer theme in Spanish. There are also refrigerator magnets and pocket cards with five blanks for the names of the people each participant is praying for.

Lorick said he is praying that those “moments” that lead to conversions will add up to a movement across Texas as people begin identifying and fervently praying for the lost and discipling them as reproducing believers.

He knows of churches that are planning tailgate parties to kick off the initiative. Being intentional is a significant part of effective evangelism, he noted.

“Imagine a pastor asking his church members, ‘Who are your five? Who are you praying for?’ And, ‘How can I pray for them?’”

The SBTC evangelism team is available to help churches implement the initiative. To order The GamePlan materials, visit sbtcwebstore.com.
For more information on the initiative, visit sbtexas.com/evangelism. The SBTC evangelism team may be reached toll free at 877-953-7282 (SBTC).

Is the SBC relevant to a 21st-century world?

DALLAS—A good question and one worth asking: Does our SBC have anything significant to say to this 21st century? I ask the question here in response to the contemporary idea that the age of denominationalism is past.

It does us no good—and actually does us harm—to dwell on our size, numerical goals and our heritage. We can’t live in the past. Our heritage is only as meaningful as its most recent application, meaning that all we have done in reaching the nations for Christ does not guarantee us relevance in the future. Being “Great Commission People” and “People of the Book” means daily seeking opportunities to engage the world with the power of the Gospel but in humility and with a heart of service.

“What relevancy does the SBC have today?” It’s a good question and here’s my answer.

1. The SBC foundationally has a vision for missions and evangelism. Taking the gospel to the nations is in our DNA. Never could our denominational forefathers have predicted the geopolitical complexities of the 21st century, but the SBC is structured to literally reach the “uttermost” parts of earth.

2. There is strength in our cooperative efforts. We can do more together than we can by ourselves. Get beyond the cliché that many people have made this statement to be and contemplate its weight.
We currently have more missionaries under appointment and more volunteers serving around the world than any other evangelical denomination. No one church, especially the smaller churches that comprise the majority in the SBC, can so completely cover the globe with resources, but together they can.

The irony is that these totals are the tip of an iceberg. There is no reason why Southern Baptists couldn’t involve thousands more missionaries and give billions of dollars to support them through the Cooperative Program and our missions offerings. We have the resources; we just have to give them.

3. Southern Baptists have a heart for soul-winning. We take seriously God’s mandate to share the good news of salvation. All ministries are important and have their place, but the greatest service we can provide to a lost world is personally introducing people to the Lamb who sits on the throne. We have a long way to go to implement this vital soul-winning strategy, but it is in our hearts to do so. We just need to do it.

4. We love the local church. We understand that simply leading others to salvation is only part of the process. Jesus created the church—his bride—to be an integral element in his relationship with us. It is through the church that we grow spiritually. From the church we are sent out, and to the church we bring the lost for refuge.

5. We have a clearly defined doctrinal base. The Baptist Faith and Message outlines the area in which we move theologically and is a statement of “our faithfulness to the doctrines revealed in Holy Scripture.”

6. Southern Baptists celebrate the autonomy of the local church. There is no hierarchical structure to force conformity on issues. Autonomy creates enormous freedom, and also tension (our structure actually invites controversy!). No action by the SBC or its entities is binding on any church. We volunteer to cooperate and when we do it creates a bond of steel.

7. We have developed the most effective theological training anywhere in the world through our seminaries with more than 16,000 students enrolled. In fact, all six of our seminaries rank in the top 15 largest seminaries in America. Men and women are formally being developed to impact the world with the gospel and that impact will be felt for generations to come.

8. Resources provided by Southern Baptist entities have had a significant global impact in cultures worldwide and beyond our denomination.

Am I boasting? Absolutely not! I trumpet God’s blessings on us as a people and recognize that He has worked through us in spite of ourselves. Can we do more? Absolutely! Think how God would use us if we totally and humbly submitted ourselves individually and corporately to His leadership.

Is the SBC a lost cause? Absolutely not! Remember, the story we are sharing with the world is one of grace, redemption, restoration and usefulness. Let’s extend grace to each other and stay on point to be used of God. If we will, I believe that not only will good come from the SBC, but that the best is yet to come.

James T. Draper Jr. is interim president of Criswell College in Dallas, president emeritus of LifeWay Christian Resources and a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Celebrating directors of missions

Serving the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention is one of the most enjoyable experiences God has ever given me. Thank you, SBTC, for the privilege of being a servant to the churches. There is no better place than being in the center of God’s will.

I must confess to you that I did have another ministry assignment that I enjoyed just as much. For a brief three and one half years, I served the Northwest Baptist Association in Bentonville, Ark., as director of missions. When my predecessor welcomed me into my new place of service, he said, “You have just taken the best job in the Southern Baptist Convention.” There was a lot of truth in his remarks.

During the time in Bentonville I was able to build on the firm foundation of those who had served before me. Because of the exploding population growth, the association was ready to focus on starting new churches. We created a church planter endowment that funded church planting. We saw new congregations spring up as the towns and cities grew.

Being in worship with the pastors was one of my highlights every week. After pastoring for more than 20 years in Louisiana I wanted to be a DOM that blessed the pastors. Every Monday between Labor Day and Memorial Day—except for a Christmas break—we met for prayer, preaching and praise. It was incredible. Just a couple of years ago I was invited back to speak on a Monday at the Pastors’ Fellowship. The room was packed. The fellowship was sweet. I was energized by simply being there.

Equipping the churches through resources was important. My time at the association was at the very beginning of the computer age, so it is very different now. But there are still unique needs of churches specific to the locale. While virtually any kind of assistance can be found on the Internet, hands-on training remains valuable.

Assisting pastorless churches was a challenge but well worth it. When requested, I provided guidance to churches during a leaderless time. No one should try to place a pastor in a church—that is God’s business. But we can be instruments God uses to get a person considered.

I was called upon to be a listening ear to a hurting pastor or staff member. Having a personal relationship made it possible to be involved in the lives of God’s servants. It is an honor to love on those who love the Lord.

Associational life has changed considerably in the last 20 years, even the last 10. The monolithic SBC is no more. Brand loyalty went by the wayside. Now ministries have to prove themselves to be trustworthy, viable, and to some like me, doctrinally sound.

Once, associations were the gatekeepers of Baptist life. Confessionalism started in the association. Unfortunately, some associations have come to the lowest common doctrinal denominator. The three-fold cord is the same for the association as it is for the SBTC—“Biblically Based, Kingdom Focused and Missionally Driven.” Having a doctrinal standard that all churches can agree upon is essential for true unity.

Secondly, do something for Jesus. Being kingdom focused means having a strategy to make a difference with the gospel in your geographic area. Missionally driven associations are staffed by people who want to exhibit the Philippians 2 mindset of Jesus. Be servants to the churches.    

No doubt in my time in Bentonville, I didn’t do everything right. I wish I could have done more. At that time and in that place it was the “best job in the Southern Baptist Convention.”

Associational Missions Week is May 18-24.

Our ministries are not competitors

The Southern Baptist Cooperative Program has taken a beating over the past few decades. It is well known that the total received for worldwide missions has declined in real, post-inflation dollars. We have more churches and wealthier churches, but those churches have reduced their giving significantly in many cases. On the local level, church members give a drastically smaller percentage of their incomes than did their parents and grandparents. I maintain that the decline of the Cooperative Program is not a failure of marketing or branding but one of discipleship in the lives of Christians and nearsightedness on the part of churches. And no one has a better idea for addressing the Great Commission.

That last point matters. Even as some outside the SBC, those who’ve lived with societal missions for 100 years, express admiration for the CP, some more familiar with our cooperative giving plan have started to admire societal giving. As you’d expect, this “new” idea is only better for those ministries the innovators like best. I do respect the missionary heart of those who rob Judea to reach the uttermost parts of the world, but I also think it is shortsighted.

The dalliance with societal missions within the SBC has often aimed at blessing the International Mission Board. IMB President Tom Elliff has been careful to uplift CP, but he passionately lays out the problem—too little money means too few missionaries around the world. This reality has drawn many of us into a version of societal missions. It can only work for a short time and it will not address the causes for long.
Here’s what I mean: It may start when pastors decide to send more money around the world by reallocating mission funds in favor of some causes and to the detriment of others. By some, theological education is deemed less important, so world missions gets some of the money that would go to the six SBC seminaries through the adopted SBC allocation budget. It’s important to note that many of these supporters of world missions continue to uphold the importance of the ministries being cut. This is a bit of a mixed message.

When prominent pastors in the SBC make this case, saying, “This may not be for everyone. It’s just what we think we should do,” they are downplaying their real influence among the churches. We know their names because they lead high profile ministries, host pastor conferences and speak at denominational meetings. What they do, some others will do, and partly because they’ve done it. There is a stewardship of influence that should be given more consideration.

That stewardship of influence is why I say it’s a mixed message to claim that ministries to which a church lowers or cuts funding are important but not important enough to receive adequate support. If the ministry, seminary or state convention still has an important role and if a prominent leader leads his church to lower funding, and if that leader has influence across his region, is he actually OK with other churches, maybe most churches, doing as he has done partly because he did it? He should be OK with it and say so. In fact, he’d better be comfortable with those ministries declining or shutting down if he’s going to lead a parade away from supporting them. 

Yes, I affirm the right of churches to discern for themselves God’s will regarding what they fund and support. It’s only on my worst days that I wish some mortal man could tell Baptist churches what to do. I also affirm the leadership of pastors in helping their churches discern and pursue God’s will. In fact, I don’t reject the notion that some ministries, even some aspects of denominationalism, can pass out of importance or relevance. What I do have trouble affirming is the idea that something is still significant, it has even benefited our own ministry at times we can remember, and we actually believe it should continue to benefit ministries more needy than our own, but somebody else needs to carry that ball because we’ve moved on to another level of understanding what missions means. Others inevitably will want to join us on that higher plane and the ministries we’ve affirmed with our mouths will starve to death.

Southern Baptists have a significant presence in and strategic vision for the nations for exactly the same reasons that we have cutting-edge Baptist scholars teaching our pastors and missionaries-in-waiting. It is for exactly that same reason we have a strategy for reaching American towns and people groups few have heard of. It is for the same reason that rock star “yellow shirts” show up almost as soon as the tornado sirens stop wailing. It is the same reason that Southern Baptists are doing serious work in revitalizing dying churches. We can do these things because the Cooperative Program funds ministries your church doesn’t need at this moment. We can do these things because some people are empowered to study unreached corners of Texas or to prepare disaster relief volunteers with the same intensity a local pastor gives to his own church.

Yes, we need more missionaries. That will take money currently going to other things. But those competitors for funding are rarely other ministries. The money needed to reach the nations is in the same place as the money you need to reach your own community—largely tied up in credit card interest, cars, clothes and entertainment. As I said, it’s a discipleship issue. And that is what your church and mine should be about: making disciples, joyful givers, out of lost people and the spiritually immature. 

Killeen church bends knees in prayer for Fort Hood

KILLEEN—The congregation of Skyline Baptist Church in Killeen, near the sprawling Fort Hood Army post, has seen tragedy before.

On Wednesday night, after a lone gunman at Fort Hood killed three people and injured 16 others before turning the gun on himself, the church gathered like they always do midweek—albeit with a few members missing from a base-wide security lockdown—and bent their knees on the church auditorium carpet in prayer.

Army Maj. Kevin Thompson, a signal officer at Fort Hood, serves as co-interim pastor of the church along with an Army chaplain, also from the base, and left the post about 20 minutes before the shooting—reportedly at the hands of a soldier being evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Once at the church, a 25-minute prayer service, heavily focused on the shootings, preceded the Wednesday night Bible study. 

“It was kind of conversational and people were telling details of conversations they had with those they knew on the base or the latest of what they had heard on the news,” Thompson told the TEXAN. “Generally we were praying for the victims and their families and that somehow God would find a way to prompt people to call out to him through this incident, no matter how horrific.” 

Thompson said the prayer time, as usual, involved groups of two or three gathered together, pleading in prayer.

Church members said they knew of no one from the church who was shot, but the unit of one of the church members was directly affected by the tragedy. 

“There’s going to be a lot of anguish, particularly this time,” Thompson said, alluding to past incidents at the base, including the 2009 massacre by Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is awaiting the death penalty for killing 13 people and injuring 32. 

“From a spiritual standpoint, pray that people realize that you never know when your time is,” Thompson added, “and that they would trust Christ before it is too late.” 

Elaine Clark, a longtime Killeen resident and former Killeen school counselor, was at her usual post—teaching AWANA to a meager children’s crowd at Skyline. 

About half of the children and adult volunteers were absent because they live on Fort Hood—home to more than 45,000 soldiers, families and personnel—and weren’t able to leave, she said. 

“Children have questions and they need to be answered,” said Clark, who noted that last night, appropriately, they were studying and memorizing 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 

Explaining to a young girl the importance of knowing God is always in control, even in danger, the girl responded to Clark: “You know God sent Jesus to die for that man,” the girl said of the shooter. 

“That just spoke to my heart how God speaks even to these little ones in these terrible times,” Clark said. 

A Facebook user, Clark said she has a community of friends she’s in frequent contact with who have ties to Killeen and Fort Hood, and that prayers are being sent up for the survivors, the families of the victims, and for the family of the shooter. 

“That family has a lot to go through and I’m sure they will have questions that will never be answered.” 

She related the fear she said pervades the base in times like these to her own experience of surviving a nighttime intruder who was chased out of the family home years ago by her husband. 

“It was a long time before we felt safe again,” she said. “Considering Fort Hood is a home for so many people, it makes you question that you’ll ever be safe again.” 

Clark said prayers are needed for children in the Killeen-Fort Hood area, that “they would cross paths with people who will share Jesus with them and that God loves them and he is with us even when we are afraid. … They don’t have to be afraid with Jesus as their friend.” 

Thompson said he had not returned to the base yet, but that prior to the shooting morale had been high in his unit because they had rated well in a recent field exercise.  

The day following the shooting, “Understandably, the people I have talked to, there is a somber tone in their voice,” he said.

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