Month: April 2024

K-12 school infuses new life into Arcadia First Baptist Church in South Texas

Afather dropped his daughter off at Arcadia First Baptist Christian School in Santa Fe and walked back to his car.

“I saw him look back at the office,” Pastor Joshua McDonald said, recounting what he saw watching out the window that day. “He was getting back in his car, and he shook his head and he just walked straight to the office.”

The man had no history of church involvement, but his daughter, an elementary student, had placed her faith in Jesus at the school and had been baptized at Arcadia First Baptist Church about six months earlier. The father sat down with McDonald and poured out his heart.

“She’s been telling us about the gospel, and I believe in Jesus now, and I want to know how I can do this.”

—Joshua McDonald, speaking of a student's father Tweet

“He was like, ‘Man, I’ve seen a change in my daughter. She’s been reading the Word of God, she got saved, she got baptized. She’s been telling us about the gospel, and I believe in Jesus now, and I want to know how I can do this,’” McDonald said.

The man was baptized and the pastor gave him a Bible with his name on it—the first Bible he has ever owned.

“Now he’s in my small group and he’s growing by leaps and bounds, studying the Word every day,” McDonald said.

As many as 100 members of Arcadia First Baptist have died during the past five years since McDonald has been pastor, the inevitable reality of an aging congregation. Yet Sunday attendance has grown from about 200 when he arrived to more than 300 now.

“Probably 50 to 60 of those are kids,” McDonald said.

One of the ways God has pumped new life into the church is through its Christian school, training about 150 students in kindergarten through 12th grade in addition to a daycare with 200 children. What once was viewed as an opportunity mainly for educating children has grown into a ministry also aimed at reaching parents, McDonald said.

“People know that we’re in the community because of the school. We’re on the main highway that passes through town, and everybody knows we’re the last school zone before you can just take off on the highway and leave town,” he said, noting Santa Fe is between Houston and Galveston.

“I think visibility has mattered a lot for revitalization. Anytime there are parents mingling around outside, like for drop-off in the morning or pickup in the afternoon, I go out there and try to meet parents. Our staff is really good about that, too.”

One of the church’s best-attended events is a fall festival in partnership with the school and daycare.

“The first year we had maybe 1,000 people show up. The fire station came out, the police came out, we had food trucks, the Coast Guard parked a boat out here,” McDonald said. “The second year it doubled, and this last year, we probably had 2,500 to 3,000 people come through.”

Church members individually take an interest in the students, too, the pastor said.

“One of our church ladies wanted to beautify our garden area around the church where we have bushes and flowers. She said, ‘I’m going to teach the kids to do landscaping,’ so she made a butterfly garden with some of the younger kids.

“So our kindergartners and first graders go out there and plant flowers and then butterflies land on them. It’s like a little science project for them,” McDonald said.

The growth of Texas is helping Arcadia First Baptist grow. When McDonald arrived, it was a rural church, but Houston has expanded toward Santa Fe and developers are buying up land near the coast. Projections indicate 3,000 to 6,000 new homes will be built near the church in the next few years, the pastor said, and church members have been knocking on doors and having gospel conversations.

One church member, though, realized the church didn’t have to wait until new residents moved in to share the gospel. Many of the workers constructing the homes are Hispanic, so the church member took along the pastor of Arcadia First Baptist’s Spanish language ministry, and as many as 23 of those who heard a gospel presentation placed their faith in Christ, McDonald said.

“In the last year we’ve had probably over 100 salvations,” he said.

Other efforts Arcadia First Baptist has made toward revitalization include walking the campus to identify maintenance needs and transforming a seldom-used library of 3,000 books into a coffee shop where church members meet seven days a week for various reasons.

Said McDonald: “There have been more gospel conversations in the coffee shop than there have been in that room in all the church’s history.”

5 minutes with Tony Sheffield

Tony Sheffield has been leading First Baptist Church in Maypearl for more than a quarter century. After coaching high school basketball for 12 years in Wichita, Kan., he surrendered to the ministry and came to Fort Worth to attend Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1993. During seminary, Tony served as a youth pastor in Fort Worth before accepting the position at FBC Maypearl in 1996. He also serves on the executive board of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. Tony and his wife, Eileen, raised their two children in Maypearl and have four grandchildren.

What is something you’ve been able to celebrate at FBC Maypearl recently?

Well, most recently, we had six adults and one teenager surrender their lives to Jesus as Lord and Savior on Easter Sunday. We have also just added a new worship/media pastor to our staff, and we are very excited about that. This past January, I celebrated 28 years as pastor of this great church. God has blessed me and my family with an incredible group of people here at FBC.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your ministry lately?

This is a tough question. I feel so blessed. I would say discipleship. I have learned that I cannot make people study. I can’t make them attend. I can’t make them serve.
I am encouraged though. We are experiencing a great hunger for God’s Word among our people.

What is a lesson you’ve learned to this point in your ministry you know you’ll never forget?

Ministry is all about people. People want to be loved. There are many tasks involved in ministry, but none are more important than the people we minister to. When I came to FBC 28 years ago, I remember telling them I was a basketball coach and I did not know how to pastor, but I loved people and evangelism is my heart and that is where I was going to hang out. I challenged them to fill in around me and they have. I love people and want to see people come to know Jesus.

What is one thing you’d like to see God do specifically at FBC Maypearl this year?

We have never experienced 50 baptisms in a single year, and I want to see that happen. We are also very close to paying off our building and I’m praying that will
happen this year.

How can other churches of the SBTC be praying for you?

Please pray we can reach Maypearl with the gospel. Our community is growing rapidly, and we want to reach these people God is sending our way.

No greater love

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” — John 15:12-13

Words cannot adequately describe the gratefulness in my heart to Jesus for His sacrificial death on the cross for my sins. If you are a Christian, you know what I am saying. The Lord is worthy of all praise and worship, for He alone went to the cross and laid down His life so we can live in freedom from the power of sin. Because He died and arose from the dead, we too will rise to eternal life with Him—all because of what Jesus has done for us!

Biblical and secular history are replete with examples of heroic, sacrificial love where one individual pays the ultimate price and gives his or her life in order to save others. Every time I read of someone willingly laying down their lives, it inspires me and points me again to what Jesus did for us on the cross.

John R. Fox was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1915 during World War I. He was 26 years old when he joined the military with the rank of second lieutenant. When World War II started, he was commissioned and joined the 92nd Infantry Division. He was ordered to stay behind in a small village in Tuscany, Italy. His job in 1944 was to keep an eye on the advancing German soldiers attempting to take over the village.

“Praise Jesus for His sacrifice for you on the cross. He died for all so everyone who trusts in Him as Lord and Savior will live eternally in heaven.”

Danny Forshee Tweet

From his position on the second floor of a building, he saw how quickly the Germans were marching toward him. He sent the coordinates of his location to his fellow soldiers asking them to bomb the site. They asked if he was sure he wanted to do that because it meant certain death for him. He simply said, “Fire it.” Missiles pummeled the location and hundreds of Nazi soldiers and one American died in the attack. The one soldier was African American John R. Fox, a true American hero. Because of his sacrifice, the American soldiers were able to retreat and then return to overtake the village. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for paying the highest price, his very life.

As Jesus died to make us holy, so many soldiers in the military died to make us free. For the latter, I give my gratitude and honor, but for the former, regarding what Jesus did at Calvary, I give Him my worship and total allegiance. Will you take a moment and thank God again for the freedom you enjoy living here in America? That freedom came at a high price as hundreds of thousands of soldiers have sacrificed so you could enjoy all you have today.

Praise Jesus for His sacrifice for you on the cross. He died for all so everyone who trusts in Him as Lord and Savior will live eternally in heaven. Praise the Lord!

A personal word to all our Southern Baptists of Texas Convention family: I am praying for you and honored to serve as your president. The Lord is working mightily in and through our convention of churches. May He bless every church and continue to use us to make disciples until Jesus comes again.

Sometimes the Lord is all you have, and He is enough

Editor’s note: The Lancaster family—Dane and his parents, Diran and Kellie—recently shared the story of how Jesus has worked miraculously through a tragic event that impacted each of their lives. They are members of First Baptist Church in Bowie.

Dane Lancaster: My passion in life is calf roping. When I gave my heart to the Lord when I was 8 years old, I prayed He would give me ways to honor Him through what I loved. I really thought that someday I would be a world champion calf roper. I’d say as they interviewed me on TV, “First I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for blessing me with this world championship.” But God had a different purpose in mind.

When I was 11 years old [in May 2014] at a junior calf roping in Shawnee, Okla., I suffered a traumatic brain injury. A part of the barrier rope swung back and tripped my horse so that he flipped over and crushed me. I had multiple brain bleeds and a dissected carotid artery. I broke every bone in my face, fractured the base of my skull, and crushed the small bones of my right ear. Ninety percent of people who’ve had this injury don’t live.

I had to learn how to walk, talk, and eat all over again. My parents were told that speaking would be the hardest thing for me to overcome and that it was probable that I would never speak. The day they told my parents this news, my dad stayed awake praying over me all night long. The very next day in therapy, the therapist asked me, “Dane, what color is your horse?” I answered her saying, “Brown.” My speech came back like a flood after that.

Kellie Lancaster: The day Dane started speaking we were so overwhelmed because it was a miracle. We kept talking to him and talking to him. It was the evening and he was getting tired, and his dad said, “I know you’re tired, and I’m sorry I keep asking you all these questions. I’ve just missed your voice so much.” He said, “Is there anything I can do for you?” Dane said, just so matter of fact, “Yes sir, go saddle my horse.”

It was the hardest and most blessed time in our lives. It sounds like a paradox, but Natalie Grant sings a song called “Held.” That’s what we were, we were held. It’s a place where the road meets the rubber and you have an opportunity to either trust the Lord in what He says and who He is, or you don’t. For us, it was not an option to do anything else. Not that it was easy.

Diran Lancaster: You learn the importance of your daily walk with the Lord. You learn the importance of your church home and your church fellowship. I don’t know how people walk through something like that without those people, without those prayers, without those meals … you come home and your yard’s mowed. The Lord will often require your words from you. We sit in the safety of our church pew, and we sing songs praising God. We call him “the God who heals.” That’s easy when you’re sitting in a church pew, but sometimes the Lord has you in an ICU with your child requiring that you have faith. It’s all you have. It’s all you have.

Kellie: [The doctors] didn’t want him back on a horse. But for Dane, his motivation to work so hard to overcome unbelievable odds—he was paralyzed on one side—was to get back on a horse and rope. So we convinced the doctors that he could do equine therapy. After two weeks, they said, “Why are you even here? He can do all this.” We went home to our own arena, put him in a helmet, and he started riding. He returned to rodeo about 13 months after his injury.

Diran: Last year he finished No. 3 in the Ultimate Calf Roping all-world standings.

Dane: It’s humbling to consider that we were told I would never speak, but God now uses my voice to tell others about a miracle-working God. The Lord has allowed me to return to calf roping. I rodeo competitively, train horses, and I teach other people how to rope and ride. I feel God’s calling to ministry, especially in evangelism. I’ll be starting at [Texas Baptist College] this fall. I know God has called me for a purpose, that He saved my life as an answer to my prayer that He would allow me to glorify His name as a calf roper.

Diran: You raise your children in the church knowing they’re going to face uncertain times. When Dane faced uncertain times, he clung to everything he had been taught in the church. He believed everything. Everything he said he believed in Vacation Bible School, when you think the worst thing that’s going to happen is that you have a bad day or something, he just clung to all of it. It was a real testament to him and his faith. Many times, as a dad, I’ve been in awe of Dane’s faith.

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What will it cost your church to invest in my generation?

bout four years ago, I was a student heavily involved in collegiate ministry, growing in my understanding of Scripture, and being discipled by a woman in our church. However, even as I grew and learned more about the church, I remember asking myself, “Where do I fit in to all this?”

This question is one my generation poses often—and one for which the local church can provide a clear answer.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul uses the illustration of the body and its many parts to describe a functioning church body. The body does not have only one type of part, but a variety of parts that help the entire unit function as one. This is where college students and young adults can be a tremendous asset to the local church–lending their youthfulness, gifts, Bible fluency, and more to its overall mission.

So what do young adults look for in a church? Most importantly, they desire a gospel-centered church that keeps Christ at the forefront of fulfilling the Great Commission. But what else is important to my generation as it looks to connect with a body of believers?

Your church doesn’t need to be a trendy, social-media-famous church to attract my generation. What we desire is depth, service, and connection with the diverse body of Christ.

Kayla Green Tweet

Quality over quantity

Many believe young people only want to be part of a church with a trendy building that offers lots of cool graphics in its presentations and attracts hundreds of other young people. However, the more people I interact with my age, the more I realize how many value quality over quantity when it comes to the local church. One place this is evident is in small group settings, where young adults who have a sincere need for quality relationships can grow deeper with others. If given a choice, I believe many young adults would choose a Bible study with a few people over a massive gathering with hundreds of people.

Service opportunities

When college students and young adults are given a wide range of opportunities to serve, it not only offers them a chance to experience the fulfillment of helping others, but provides them with a training ground to learn more about the gifts God has given them. This is one of the best ways a local church can serve young people—by providing them with a place to serve. Service challenges young people to be selfless, but it also creates an incredible path for assimilation into your local church as they serve their fellow members.

Multigenerational exposure

Part of deepening community for many college and young adults is developing friendships with those of older generations. They truly value the wisdom and experience older generations offer, and in my experience, those older generations love pouring into and sharing wisdom with younger people. At my church, we have three young adults who meet weekly with a multigenerational women’s Bible study. Those young adults have said often this study was one of the main reasons they decided to continue to come to our church and eventually join.

Your church doesn’t need to be a trendy, social-media-famous church to attract my generation. What we desire is depth, service, and connection with the diverse body of Christ. That kind of investment can be practiced by any church of any size and costs nothing more than intentional investment.

Looking to equip your church to reach the next generation for Christ? Learn more about roundup 2024.

Awakening National Prayer Conference seeks to convey information, spark transformation in churches across U.S.

FORT WORTH—The question was as sharp as it was simple.

“When you die,” Steve Gaines asked, “what do you hope to do in heaven?”

Gaines, senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., told the crowd gathered at the Awakening National Prayer Conference on the campus of Southwestern Seminary on April 18 that he looks forward to seeing a number of people in heaven. Jesus, of course. His father, mother, and brother. Historical saints from the Old and New Testaments, ranging from Joseph to Joshua to John.

Amidst that shuffle of faithful faces and well-known names, Gaines said he will be looking for someone whose name he doesn’t know, a “little Baptist lady” that made his voice crack upon mentioning her. Though nameless (for now), her impact on his life was tremendous.

Gaines explained that when his mother was 24, she was diagnosed with cancer in both breasts. Doctors told her a double mastectomy would be required to save her life. Because of the severity of the procedure in those days, surgeons started with one side of her chest and sent her to a post-op shared recovery room, where she spent the next day in and out of consciousness, waiting to recover enough to undergo the second part of the procedure.

In that same room was the little Baptist lady, who had also just undergone a double mastectomy. Gaines said once the women learned of his mother’s condition, she crawled into his mother’s hospital bed, laid her head in her lap, and prayed for her over the next 12 hours, asking God to heal her.

The next morning, the doctors and nurses came in to prepare Gaines’ mother for the final portion of the procedure when, to their shock, they couldn’t find the cancerous lump they had previously located. An X-ray confirmed the miracle—the cancer on the other side of her body was gone.

“What happened?” Gaines’ mother asked through tears.

“God healed you,” the little Baptist lady told her. “I prayed for you last night, and I asked God to heal you, and He did.”

Speaking to the prayer conference, Gaines asked, “Does anybody believe that God can still heal?” Late last year, he announced his own cancer battle—one he has said is improving. “ … That lady then led my mom to Christ. She got healed and got saved on that same bed.”

The anecdote underscored Gaines’ message to kick off the conference, rooted in Daniel 9: Prayer can move the hand of God. Prayer can also reveal the will of God, he said, and it blesses the heart of God. Prayer mattered for Daniel, who Gaines estimates prayed tens of thousands of times over the decades of his life, leading God to grant him favor even in captivity. And prayer mattered for his mother, who came to know Christ because a little Baptist lady gave up a night of her life making her requests known to God for a woman she didn’t know.

“There are things God does for praying people that He doesn’t do for people who don’t pray,” Gaines said. “ … Some of you are discouraged, and all discouragement is just the devil taking courage out of you. Some of you are discouraged because you don’t pray. God wants to encourage you. He wants to put courage back into you, and if you will pray, you won’t lose heart. You won’t be discouraged.”

Impressing God through desperation

The prayer conference featured some of the country’s leading voices on prayer and revival. Sermons were delivered by Southern Baptists of Texas Executive Director Nathan Lorick; Bill Elliff of The Summit Church in Little Rock, Ark.; Ronnie Floyd, author and pastor emeritus of Cross Church in Springdale, Ark.; and Robby Gallaty, senior pastor of Long Hollow Church in Hendersonville, Tenn. A pair of breakouts on the topic of prayer and revival were also offered, featuring Gaines’ wife, Donna, and SBTC pastors Todd Kaunitz (New Beginnings Baptist Church, Longview) and Nathan Lino (First Baptist Church Forney). Worship was led by Julio Arriola, director of the church planting Send Network SBTC.

The event drew participants from not only Texas, but states as far away as Oklahoma, Ohio, and Indiana, according to Kie Bowman, the national director of prayer for the Southern Baptist Convention who organized the conference. Bowman said his heart was not only to inform conference participants about prayer, but to equip them to “move the dial” regarding prayer in their local contexts.

An increase in prayer has been credited for a number of notable movements of God around the country. Included in that has been thousands of people surrendering their lives to Christ on college campuses nationwide and churches crying out to God in desperation to see Him revitalize their congregations and communities.

“Every morning when we wake up, all of hell should shudder—not because of our capabilities or who we know or what we can fund, but simply because the believer’s greatest weapon against the demons of hell is prayer,” Lorick said.

Lorick, who has championed the vital importance of prayer since being called to lead the SBTC in 2021, said crying out in desperation—and not our abilities or accomplishments—is what will impress the heart of God most and lead Him to do things only He can do.

“The truth of the matter is, prayer is not missing in our churches,” Lorick said. “Almost every church has some form of transactional prayer. We pray before the service, we pray before the offering, we pray at the end of the service.

“But what we must seek after is not transactional prayer, but transformational prayer,” he continued. “I just wonder what it would look like if believers and pastors and staff and churches took on a new posture of desperation [in prayer].”

Couple’s connection to Montgomery church is emblematic of plant’s mission to reach, minister

For Everett and Debra Luten, Mother’s Day evokes bittersweet memories and profound gratitude. Only last October, they lost their adult daughter in a kayaking accident. That grief is still fresh as the couple stays busy raising their nine-year-old granddaughter, Penelope.

The Lutens say they are not alone because of their Savior and because of Cornerstone Community Church in Montgomery, a town of around 2,000 people located 50 miles northwest of Houston.

As involved grandparents, the Lutens first heard about Cornerstone from their granddaughter’s pre-K teacher, who invited them to visit about four years ago.

The Lutens, who had been attending another church, soon found unexpected connection in the newly planted smaller church. They got involved in community groups gathering in people’s homes.

“We have food together and we talk and everybody shares their stories. We talk about the sermon. … We have a lot of praying,” Everett said of the group he and Debra now attend, which is held at Pastor Ralph Clements’ home. “Everybody [at church] is involved with everybody else.”

At Cornerstone, the Lutens were discipled: Debra by Amy Clements, the pastor’s wife, and Everett—a sergeant retired from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department—by an elder, Gerald Coleman. The men have gone through books together over breakfast at a nearby restaurant for the past few years. Everett said he now prays every morning and spends time in the Bible.

Last February, both Debra and Everett were baptized by Clements, surrounded by many from the congregation. For Everett, the baptism marked his growth in faith.

“I realized you don’t have to be perfect to accept Christ. After you do that, you’re not perfect,” he said. “And He will still hold you in his arms and forgive you if you are contrite. The Holy Spirit will guide you.”

“I realized you don’t have to be perfect to accept Christ.”

—Everett Luten Tweet

On the same page

The family’s hearts broke when their daughter died. “We didn’t know it was going to happen, but God did,” Everett said.

They found comfort and strength in their church. “The Lord leading us to Cornerstone [gave] us spiritual strength to get through this,” Everett said.

“Cornerstone has been exactly what the name is to us: a cornerstone,” Debra said. “They have helped us so much with our salvation … getting into God’s Word. They’ve stood beside us through these things with my daughter. They are there and will be for us raising Penelope.”

There are challenges, Debra added. The couple and Penelope have lost so much: “It’s really been a struggle for her and for us also. We are struggling for ourselves, the loss of our daughter. But she doesn’t have a father, either. … Cornerstone has been there for us,” she said.

Realizing the importance of God’s Word has changed Debra’s life, she said. Now her heart is to “be led to be God’s tool” for conveying that to Penelope.

“Pastor Ralph tells the congregation that when you bring your kids in here, you really need to know we are not babysitting them. We are making disciples,” she said, adding, “Cornerstone has brought us together close to God as a family. It’s so joyful to me. We are on the same page.”

“Cornerstone has been exactly what the name is to us: a cornerstone. They have helped us so much with our salvation ... getting into God’s Word.”

—debra Luten Tweet

The Cornerstone story

As a relatively young church plant, Cornerstone’s story is unique. Clements calls himself “co-vocational,” or intentionally bivocational. He planted a church in 2007 while studying at the Houston extension of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. When that plant folded after five years, he and Amy were “worn down” and spent the next several years attending another church.

In 2018, God moved again. They saw a need in Montgomery, started talking with various folks in their neighborhood, and began hosting a Bible study in their home. By February 2019, that Bible study group had grown to a “pretty good crowd” and by the summer, the conversation turned toward an official church launch.

In September 2019, Cornerstone began Sunday services in Montgomery High School. The congregation was six months old when COVID-19 hit. What could have derailed them instead promoted growth as the then 35-person congregation was allowed to continue meeting in the school’s 750-seat auditorium where social distancing was not a problem.

“When several churches were shutting down, we were able to stay open,” Clements said. “We couldn’t do all the outreach we wanted, but the Lord used it. We continued to grow.”

Much of this growth, Clements said, has occurred organically: “People loving on neighbors,” people inviting people.

In 2021, they moved into a building purchased from another denomination whose congregation had dissolved. The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention began supporting Cornerstone with church planting funds in October of that year. While the assistance was promised for three years, Clements and the church contacted the SBTC in early 2023 to say the funding was no longer needed as of that May.

Church leadership decided to forego additional support, believing it the church’s responsibility to care for the shepherd, Clements said. “The church was doing well. Giving was over budget. The year had ended. It was an opportunity for us to take over [financially].”

Growth has continued, slow and steady. About 60-70 regularly attend now. “It’s what we prayed for. We didn’t want to grow big and not be able to handle it,” he said.

‘They are what we are’

The Lutens’ story is “the story of our church,” the pastor said. “We are walking through some difficult times with them right now. …They are what we are trying to do: seek the lost or those who are uncertain—help them understand and grow in discipleship.”

“I believed for the longest time that everything in my life depended on what I did as a person,” Debra said. “I think in being at Cornerstone, I have realized that everything that happens has already been determined. I just need to reach out to Jesus … to pray about it … to rely on God to place in my heart what I should be doing … knowing I will get that answer.”

“Like babies still drinking milk, we are learning every day,” Everett added. “My wife and I are on the same page about something besides when I should take out the trash.”

Massive NAMB day of service makes big impact ‘for generations to come’

Nine-year-old Destiny, wide-eyed and smiling broadly, surveyed the freshly repainted sanctuary of Lake June Baptist Church as she and her mother, Yvonne, arrived at the church to see what the Lord had done.

Newly installed blue carpet covered the floors, while comfortable, upholstered chairs replaced 50-year-old rickety wooden pews. Bright can lights, rather than aging fluorescent fixtures, illuminated the space. Ceiling stains from seasonal roof leaks had disappeared under coats of pleasing white tinted with gray. Even the foyer, kitchen, bathrooms, and hallways had been refloored, repainted, and relit. Outside, volunteers put the finishing touches on flower beds, adding mulch and spring blooms.

Destiny, Yvonne, and other church members gathered that day with Lake June’s bivocational pastor, Bobby Worthington, to give thanks to God and the volunteers participating in the North American Mission Board’s Send Relief Serve Tour Dallas 2024.

Serve Tour Dallas volunteers participated in 38 projects to further God’s kingdom in the DFW Metroplex March 15-16. For the more than 600 volunteers—representing 48 congregations from eight states including Texas—it was a spring break to remember, making an eternal impact. Projects varied widely, from assisting with block party outreaches to school facility updates to mobile dental clinics to playground rebuilds and church remodels.

Three Southern Baptists of Texas Convention churches—First Baptist Dallas, Mesquite Friendship Baptist, and Northway Church—functioned as Serve Tour hubs, with mission activities radiating from these strategic spots. A Serve Tour rally was held at First Baptist Dallas, as well.

The remodel of the historic Lake June Baptist Church in the Pleasant Grove neighborhood of Dallas grew considerably beyond the two-day Serve Tour initiative, thanks to the church’s long partnership with First Baptist Dallas.

“We were once a mission church of First Dallas. We have a sister partnership, a relationship, with First Baptist,” Worthington said. “First Baptist helps us with bookkeeping and things like that. They do a lot of things behind the scenes.”

For example, a roofing contractor who was a member of First Baptist Dallas recently arranged for the Lake June roof to be replaced at cost.

Serve Tour Dallas By the Numbers

Churches Involved

Total Projects Served: 4 schools, 16 churches, 18 community projects

Construction Hours

Salvations

Volunteers

people served

Making connections, making it better

When Send Tour representatives approached Brent McFadden, First Dallas recreation pastor, he recommended the refurbishment of Lake June Baptist as a project.

Send Relief’s Marcus Rawls, First Baptist Rowlett Pastor Cole Hedgecock, and Worthington met weeks before Serve Tour to develop a plan. Worthington figured they might redo some floors and repaint the bathrooms and kitchen. When Rawls and Hedgecock saw the sanctuary, ideas began flowing.

“What if we do the auditorium, too?” Rawls asked, indicating that replacing the seating would be possible.

Worthington, amazed and grateful, started weeping. Rawls had described renovations that Worthington had envisioned over the long term.

“God knew what I wanted to do in three phases. … Marcus and Cole had no way of knowing that,” Worthington said. “What I had planned to do in three phases, they got done in three weeks.”

Work started weeks before the mid-March Serve Tour, as McFadden asked a First Dallas deacon, Scott Finney, to get involved. Finney, who works for a large developer and owns an excavating company, agreed to volunteer.

What started as a job to take out the old pews and refloor and spruce up the sanctuary expanded to include new lighting in the sanctuary—then new flooring, lighting, and painting the entire church interior, including bathrooms and kitchens.

“It grew,” Finney said.

Finney, his wife, Joan, and Worthington got to work with other helpers.

“God knew what I wanted to do in three phases. … What I had planned to do in three phases, they got done in three weeks.”

—Bobby Worthington Tweet

“I’ve spent the last 23 days up at the church helping,” Worthington said at the time. “I told Scott, ‘I can’t do what you do, but I can pray for you and hand you what you need.’” Church members helped significantly, also.

“We’ve been working over the last three weekends,” Joan Finney added.

Send Relief/NAMB, First Baptist Dallas, and a local doctor who has been involved with the annual Kenya mission trip led by Worthington all contributed to the project, supplementing the money Lake June had budgeted for the redo.

Finney called on friends and fellow contractors, too.

“I was able to enlist a lot of relationships I had. We’ve all known each other a long time and they were glad to do it,” he said. “The flooring was donated. The electrical was costed out, and the chairs were donated at cost. It started blossoming.”

Finney said the dozens of volunteers and vendors who contributed to the project will likely come to a Lake June celebratory service this spring.

Serve Tour volunteers were enthusiastic about their chance to participate in the change at the church. Cheri Bedford of Paris, Texas, who attends First Dallas’ Servant Singles class when she is in town, said she was happy to work alongside “people with a heart for missions.”

“We are just here to serve the community and share the gospel of Jesus,” said First Dallas member Jonathan Parrish of Grand Prairie.

“It’s all to the glory of God. We are here to volunteer to just try to make a difference in the community,” said James Hurse, from Mesquite Friendship Baptist, pausing from raking a flower bed.

Raising the roof

The Kenya Mission Trip led by Worthington for a decade has focused on medical missions, evangelism, and planting churches. For the last five years, First Baptist Dallas has partnered with Lake June and the National Baptist Convention of Kenya in the effort.

“We do a clinic. We do evangelism. We plant a church,” Worthington said, adding that during the following year, the church raises money in an effort called Raise the Roof. Lake June members give generously and other partners contribute.

“We hire a contractor recommended by the National Baptist Convention of Kenya and he erects a pole and roof structure so the church can meet [under a shelter],” Worthington said, estimating that the outreach has planted more than two dozen churches in Kenya over the past decade.

Essentially, Lake June members have been helping roof churches in Kenya even as their own church’s roof needed replacing.

“Our people are very giving. The church loves each other,” Worthington said of his 40-person congregation.

“The church exists for those who are already here but also for those who are not yet here,” Worthington said when asked what the remodel will mean to his people. Nodding to young Destiny, he said he had baptized four generations of the girl’s family over the decades.

“When I baptized Destiny, it was a sign of generations to come [to Lake June] long after I’ve gone to heaven. We’re setting it up. The church is known in the community. Destiny and other of our kids and youth, our teenagers, they see this [remodel] and they know the church is going to be here.”

People, not places, are the church, Worthington. “This is a place of worship for people.”

Now, thanks to a coalition of partners and the involvement of Serve Tour Dallas, it’s a much more inviting place to worship.

Just keep casting your line

I’m not what you would consider a man of the outdoors, but I did my fair share of fishing during my teen years. A friend of mine growing up owned a bass boat, and we would stay out on the water for countless hours tossing plastic worms under lighted docks and running crank baits through a forest of submerged tree limbs trying to catch a lake record.

Though it may seem like a straightforward endeavor, fishing requires skill. Unlike me, my friend spent his entire childhood fishing, and he had developed a talent for understanding how factors including water levels, temperature, and spawning season timetables affected his ability to catch fish. I knew none of those things, but what I did know was this: the more times I threw my line in the water, the better chance I had of catching a fish.

As followers of Christ, we are all called to tell others about Jesus. That can be intimidating for many, and it’s often a source of guilt for others who struggle to do so. But can I just encourage you to remember a couple things?

Don’t be discouraged. Instead, be ever-mindful of ways you can sneak Jesus’ name, or your testimony, or the full-blown gospel, into your conversations.

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1The Holy Spirit has promised to give us the right words at the right time when He is at work. There’s nothing wrong at all with evangelism trainings that aim to better equip us to share our faith, but we also see biblical examples of the Holy Spirit boldly using “uneducated and untrained” people (Acts 4) to speak boldly for Jesus. This ought to be a freeing truth.

2Our best days, regardless of their circumstances, will be the ones spent with a constant awareness of the presence of Jesus. That’s a tall order as we navigate this world of distraction, but if we can just keep our Lord at the forefront of our minds, we’ll likely be more intentional about speaking His name when the moment calls for it. To say it another way, the more we keep Jesus on our minds, the more likely we are to keep throwing our lines into the water knowing that it will increase our chances to tell someone the good news about Jesus.

In this issue, you’ll see examples of churches throwing their lines into the water and hoping for opportunities to tell others about Jesus. Churches in the eastern and southern parts of the state are seeing God bless their efforts through traditional outreaches such as Vacation Bible School and fall festivals. A church plant in Corpus Christi hosts community forums on mental health topics to open doors to a wider conversation about how Jesus can heal our minds. Other churches are using the fast-growing sport of pickleball—pickleball, I said!—to introduce people to the gospel. And on our new Leading Off page, you’ll read about how our Southern Baptists of Texas Disaster Relief teams are thrusting themselves into the heart of the worst wildfire in Texas history to minister to people with a hope only Jesus can give.

Don’t be discouraged. Instead, be ever-mindful of ways you can sneak Jesus’ name, or your testimony, or the full-blown gospel, into your conversations. Be creative. Be consistent. Be intentional. Whatever you do, just keep throwing your line into the water and trust God with the results.

Chosen Conference’s message to the church: ‘We must be engaged’ in fostering, adoption

PLANO—The message was clear and unapologetic: every child is precious in God’s sight.

But the heart of the Chosen Conference, held Saturday, April 13, at Prestonwood Baptist Church, aimed to not only proclaim that truth, but mobilize followers of Christ to make a difference in the lives of vulnerable and forgotten children. Figures cited throughout the conference paint an urgent picture: more than 400,000 children are in the foster care system in America and 100,000 are awaiting adoption. Each year, 20,000 children age out of the foster system without having been matched with a family.

The church, Prestonwood Senior Pastor Jack Graham said, must take action.

“This is a critical and key issue not only in the community and the country, but in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ,” Graham said. “Our goal is to elevate this work of fostering and adopting. … We believe every child is a wanted child, every child is chosen by God. They’re not here by accident or chance, but through the divine plan, providences, and purposes of God.

“This means the church—we the people of God—must be engaged in this.”

The conference was shaped around “three pillars of hope” intended to empower local churches to establish an adoption and foster care ministry within their communities; engage all believers to understand their role in supporting adoption and foster care; and equip families that have been called to adopt and foster.

‘Everyone can do something’

For Shane and Kasi Pruitt, fostering and adoption are deeply personal issues: they have six children, four of whom are adopted (two from Texas and two from Africa–including their son Titus, who passed away last summer at age 10).

Though their connection to fostering and adoption is direct, Shane—national next gen director for the North American Mission Board—noted how Galatians 4:4-5 teaches that all followers of Jesus are benefactors of adoption ministry and orphan care: “When the time came to completion, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

“It would have been enough for Him to set us free, but He went a step further and said … ‘my Father is going to be your Father, my family is going to be your family, and my inheritance is going to be your inheritance,’” Shane said. “God did the work [through Jesus] to make us a part of His family. Now everything we do is in response to that truth.”

Kasi spoke about what she calls the “both/and” part of fostering and adoption. In other words, there is a side of it that is a beautiful picture of the gospel, wholeness, and rescue that is counterbalanced by the fact that all fostering and adoption needs grow out of the fall and begin with trauma and loss. “Foster care and adoption is heartbreaking and joy, trauma and beautiful, grief and peace, loss and love, tragic and redemption,” she said. “We can be grateful we get to parent our kids and be heartbroken when we have to be.”

The loss of Titus, Shane shared, was one of those heartbreaking instances. Titus suffered from daily seizures, was confined to a wheelchair, could not speak, and was fed through a tube. His death brought a simultaneous wave of grief and celebration for the family as it missed Titus’ daily presence but rejoiced knowing he was in heaven in the presence of the Lord and fully restored.

“I think a lot of times we paint this picture like, if we are obeying God, everything is going to be easy,” Shane said. “We’ve got to remind ourselves that Jesus doesn’t promise us an easy life. He promises us eternal life. Sometimes obedience is not easy at all.”

Kasi shared several ways churches and believers can get more involved in foster and adoption ministry. One way is for families to foster and adopt when called by God to do so. Others can build relationships with local Child Protective Services offices and minister to caseworkers by providing meals and encouragement. Kasi noted that one CPS office shared with her church that, in cases where a child was able to be reunited with his or her original family, a church had been involved in some way 100% of the time.

“Everyone can do something—absolutely everyone,” she said.

Later, Gregg Matte—senior pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church—shared a testimony about how God used tragedy in his family’s life to lead them to found a ministry called Legacy 685, which provides financial resources, education, and other practical help for families on the frontlines of adoption, fostering, and orphan ministries. Likewise, Scott Turner, an associate pastor at Prestonwood, announced the Plano church has started a fund to support families in the adoption and fostering process.

Shaping the future of Texas

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott knows firsthand the impact a family can have through the adoption process. He and his wife, Cecilia, adopted their daughter, Audrey, in the 1990s. Abbott shared a series of personal family photos during a question-and-answer session with Graham chronicling Audrey’s life from infancy to college graduation to her engagement day.

“What you do really does change not only the life of a child, but changes the future of our state,” Abbott said. “ … The fact of the matter is, we would have to pass fewer laws if we had more families, better parenting, taking care of our children. It’s good parents educating good children, loving them, supporting them, that leads to those children being very productive and making our society better.”

Abbott said the need for qualified parents to adopt and foster remains high, as the most recent statistics show 4,000 children are available for adoption in Texas. Two thousand children have already been adopted this year, he said. There are other avenues the state has created to provide churches with opportunities to contribute. He noted the existence of “rainbow rooms” stocked with items such as diapers, car seats, and school supplies that can be given by CPS workers to children in crisis. Rainbow rooms are located in every region of Texas and can be stocked by churches with the means to help.

Another avenue of involvement is the Clergy in the Court for Kids program operated through the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. The program invites faith leaders to attend court proceedings, meet families in need, and serve as a calming influence in courtroom environments that can be intimidating for most children.

“We need church involvement in our communities more today than we have maybe ever,” Abbott said. “A way to do that is for churches across our state to immerse themselves in this family unit bonding process that can be done through the adoption and foster care process. Through that process you will be involved in ensuring that you will grow and strengthen family units in the state of Texas while at the same time doing what we are told biblically that we have the responsibility to do, and that is to care for our youngest—especially the orphans among us.”

Robertsons share adoption story

Sadie Robertson Huff and her mother, Korie Robertson—who appeared on the popular reality TV show Duck Dynasty—were interviewed by Tasha Calvert, Prestonwood women’s minister. The church later aired a preview of the pro-adoption film Possum Trot, based on the true story of a small East Texas church whose members adopted 77 children from the Texas system. The film is due in theaters July 4.

“Adoption has made our family what it is. … We love a big family,” Korie said of the six children she shares with her husband, Willie. Three of the Robertson children are adopted.

“It’s not exactly what we had planned … it’s not necessarily easier, but it’s better because God calls us to this abundant life,” Korie said. She also noted that younger generations seem increasingly open to adopting children.

Sadie, the mother of two young children, added that she and her husband were considering adoption in the future.

“As the church we do have a responsibility for adoption,” Sadie added. “The church is expected to take in the children that need help … the place that takes in the orphans and cares for those” like a hospital caring for its community.

“I’ve gotten to see my family do that and I’ve been so grateful,” Sadie said, later reminding the audience that Christians have all “been adopted into God’s family through the blood of Christ and we get to share in the same family [eternally].”

Korie praised the help of her church and family in her journey as an adoptive parent. “Find that. That is what the church is meant to be,” she said. “And if it’s not there, start it.”