Tag: Featured

I have to depend on God to do this

I became a pastor when I was 40 years old. So, it was a 20-year training process, not through seminary, but through different pastors and churches. I can tell you more than a dozen churches and more than a dozen pastors who discipled me and mentored me.

My spiritual journey began when I was 16. I lived in the Philippines and a college student from Campus Crusade came to my campus—he was the first person to share the gospel with me. A Southern Baptist pastor discipled me when I was in college. He was a campus minister, and he really spent time with me. That was a turning point in my Christian life.

God really spoke to me through this preacher. We would meet every day because his ministry center was close to my dorm. I would hang out at his house, and we would be talking until sometimes three in the morning. We talked about the Word, discipleship, prayer, confession—all basic responsibilities of Christians.

After college, I was on fire. I wanted to share what I learned with my own church back home. So, I went back and started a ministry among the youth, and that was fruitful—some of the youth that came out of that are leaders in our church now here in Austin.

I started working in Manila and met my wife, Rela, there. We later helped plant a church in Cavite. That was my first time to be involved in church planting, just assisting the pastor, a worship leader, musician—all kinds of other roles, except being a pastor. My landlady was our first member. That church continues today.

I did want to attend seminary after that time in college because I was interested in being a pastor, but God closed those doors repeatedly, so I ended up being mentored by all kinds of pastors from different churches.

I know many pastors would say, “God called me to plant a church,” but in the case of our church, it’s different because it was not a single person who was called. It was my entire family. I had moved to Idaho where I was working as a semiconductor engineer. My brother moved to Memphis and my sister moved to Nebraska. Because we wanted to live close to one another, I think it was in 2007, we agreed to find a city where we could all be together. We all moved to Austin and joined different churches. My wife and I started a Bible study with my sister’s family and my brother’s family, and we met in South Austin. That small Bible study was just us at first.

There were two other families that started attending our group as well, so we ended up having five Filipino families. Then neighbors started attending. I called Dr. Kim [Asian ministries consultant] at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and told him we needed a place to rent. He connected me with Gilbert Chavez. Pastor Gilbert was very encouraging and accommodating. He let us use his youth room for our Bible study. The first night we had 64 people. He said, “I don’t think this is a Bible study. Why don’t you plant a church?” I said “no” since none of us was in the ministry. My brother and I worked in the tech industry and my sister was a nurse. Pastor Gilbert still encouraged me, and that led me to begin training through the SBTC.

“It’s all part of God showing me that I have to depend on Him.”

—Al Manigsaca Tweet

But in our Bible study, we had three different pastors who were connected with us. Every time a pastor came in, we would all agree that we would defer to him: “OK, you might be the pastor of this church.” Three times we tried that and none of them worked out. It was just as if God was giving me this basketball, then every time a pastor came to our group, I would pass this ball to him. And each time, the ball was back in my court. The third time the ball came back to me, my brother said, “Al, I guess you’re the one.” I agreed. When I surrendered to that, things moved very, very fast. A year later, I was ordained as a pastor. Now, 12 years later, I’m the pastor of Riverlife Baptist Church.

On this long journey, I believe the biggest thing I’ve learned is full dependence upon Him. Just think about the struggle that I am going through every week. I don’t have any seminary training on which to base my sermons or my judgment whether I’m doing a good job or not. So basically, the thing is when we started, I really don’t know how to pastor. I was praying to the Lord, “Lord, I don’t know how to do this.” And I know that’s still my mindset even up to this point in time.

It’s all part of God showing me that I have to depend on Him.

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‘Advancing the mission together’: Churches top Reach Texas challenge goal, set another record

GRAPEVINE—Southern Baptists of Texas Convention churches are making a strong statement when it comes to the Reach Texas State Missions Offering: advancing the mission matters.

SBTC churches gave $1,752,383 to Reach Texas this past year—the most collected in a single year in its history. The offering period covers September 2023 to August 2024.

Last year, a record $1,673,560 was given by SBTC churches, topping the $1.6 million challenge goal that was set prior to the offering. Reach Texas has now received record giving in three of the past four years. The goal for the current campaign is $2 million.

SBTC Executive Director Nathan Lorick thanked churches for “advancing the mission together” and expressed gratitude for the record offering.

“We are excited about churches partnering together to see the gospel advance across Texas,” Lorick said. “We remain committed to church planting, missions, and evangelism as a top priority in practice and in principle.”

Reach Texas funds a variety of gospel-fueled efforts, including church planting, disaster relief, missions mobilization, and the SBTC’s annual Empower Conference. The need for evangelism is as urgent as ever, with 19 million of the state’s 30 million residents estimated to be lost.

For more information or to order promotional materials, visit sbtexas.com/reachtexas.

Reach Texas Prayer Guide:
Advancing the Mission Together

Forshee, Johnson, Hinote to be nominated at SBTC Annual Meeting

Byron McWilliams, senior pastor of First Odessa, has announced his intention to nominate Danny Forshee to serve a second term as president of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention at its annual meeting in November.

Forshee has served as lead pastor of Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin since June 13, 2010. He has been president of the Danny Forshee Evangelistic Association since it was formed in May 2004.

“I would be honored to serve a second term as president of the SBTC,” Forshee said. “God is working in powerful ways in and through our convention. I am excited about what the Lord will do in the future.”

McWilliams said he is honored to nominate Forshee for a second term, noting he has led Great Hills with “pastoral integrity and exceptional wisdom.”

“He has led the SBTC well this past year, and I’m confident he will lead us well in his next term as president,” McWilliams said. “I am also confident Danny will continue the theme of his life and ministry—to lift high the name of Jesus and make His name known wherever he goes.”

Great Hills gave $211,175.62 through the Cooperative Program in 2023 and $233,730.08 in 2022.

Forshee holds a doctoral degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, where he has served as a professor. He and his wife, Ashley, have three grown children, four granddaughters, two grandsons, and another grandchild on the way.

Ed Johnson III, lead pastor of Harvest Fellowship Baptist Church in Desoto, will be nominated to serve as SBTC vice president. Johnson, a bivocational pastor who also serves on the convention’s executive board, will be nominated by Caleb Turner, senior pastor of Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church. The convention vice president fulfills the duties of the president in the president’s absence or when requested by the president to do so.

Amy Hinote, a member of First Baptist Church Justin and the wife of its pastor, Beaux Hinote, will be nominated to serve as convention secretary. She will be nominated by Matt Kendrick, lead pastor of Redemption City Church in Fort Worth. Mrs. Hinote previously served on the SBTC resolutions committee. The convention secretary’s duties include receiving copies of motions offered for consideration at the SBTC Annual Meeting.

The secretary and vice president also serve on the credentials committee, as outlined in Article III of the convention’s constitution and bylaws.

In my sickness, I have found His strength

Things can change in an instant. When that happens, we tend to think we’re forgotten about. We’re not. God is so faithful, and no matter what happens—no matter what we’ve been dealt—He is there and we’re not alone.

I went for a wellness check [in 2018] and they found a mass on my thyroid. It was benign, but then it started growing and the doctor said, “Well, we’re going to take it out because when they start growing, there could be issues.” During the operation, they found a four-centimeter mass hidden on the other side of the thyroid. That one was malignant. They got out what they could, but it was kind of large.

I went in the hospital and swallowed radiation and stayed four days. And then when I came out, I had to stay six feet away from my family for two weeks and balance my thyroid with medicine.

In 2020, I was sick again right before the COVID shutdown. They thought I had pneumonia, but I wasn’t getting well. My doctors decided they would check my heart and lungs to make sure they weren’t missing anything. I was actually in heart failure and had three tumors in my lung.

During my lung biopsy, they ended up collapsing my lung and I was in the hospital for eight days. The cardiologist was able to stabilize my heart with meds. It was really kind of crazy because both cancers were found while treating something else. I felt like that was God’s way of letting them find what they needed to find so I could get the treatment I needed.

They saw the tumors in March and then in May [after the shutdown], they did the biopsy. That was hard because, after my collapsed lung, only one person could see me a day. But if Brian [Nancy’s husband, pastor of FBC Merkel] came and left, he couldn’t come back. We also have a 10-year-old that we adopted, so he was young and all he knew was Mom disappeared for a week.

When we got that first cancer diagnosis, I really had to just lean on the Lord. I didn’t know what that meant. I lost my mom to cancer, Brian lost his mom to leukemia—and I had all that in my head. But I didn’t ever panic. God just gave me this peace and He just kept drawing me closer to Himself.

People would say, “Well, aren’t you worried about this?” or, “Aren’t you worried about that?” I was like, “I can’t live waiting for the other shoe to drop. God has me on my feet, and He has me in a position where, yes, I’m sick, but I can still serve.” It has made my faith in Him stronger—relying totally on Him daily for my physical strength, for my spiritual strength. He’s just really drawn me in.

“In an earlier church, one of the sweet ladies had gone through colon cancer a year before and I would go and sit with her. We built a relationship and then she turned around and loved on me. I don’t know how people do it without their church family.”

—Nancy Simon Tweet

It’s weird, but when I was told about the thyroid cancer, I was more worried about the surgeon because he knew the mass he planned to take out was benign. So, when he came into the office with the lab results, he was panicking and he was like, “You’re OK. Well, you’re not OK, but you’re going to be OK.”

And I said, “Whoa, breathe. It’s OK. I’m the one who has it. You need to relax.” Brian and I, we went to the car, and we just looked at each other and we were like, “OK, let’s just hit this head on.” The lung cancer threw me a little bit, though.

When I was in the hospital during lockdown, I took some time and I just sat. Maybe it was a good thing that my lung collapsed and I had to be in the hospital primarily by myself, because I got to sit and pray and be by myself without having to tell my kids at that point or having to be strong in front of them, not knowing then what I was facing. God gave me a peace over it. I haven’t panicked. It’s been kind of a part of life. You just hit it and go.

When you see what others have gone through, you see those who handle it well and those who have a harder time, maybe this gave me a little more encouragement on how to deal with it without totally panicking. In an earlier church, one of the sweet ladies had gone through colon cancer a year before and I would go and sit with her. We built a relationship and then she turned around and loved on me. I don’t know how people do it without their church family.

I’ve also learned that God is faithful. You’re never alone. He is so faithful to walk through it with you.

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Reach Texas Prayer Guide: Advancing the Mission Together

Editor’s note: The following content was included in this year’s Reach Texas Prayer Guide and republished in the October 2024 issue of the Texan.

‘They know who we are and why we were there’

Gilbert Chavez • Fairview Baptist Church

ilbert Chavez, pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Austin, was delighted when a church member expressed a strong desire to reach women for Jesus in her apartment community. That led to ladies from Fairview knocking on doors one Sunday afternoon last fall, striking up conversations in the complex. As a result, several women accepted an invitation to attend a Sunday afternoon Bible study in the church member’s apartment.

“Even though she had already begun the work, we wanted to get some training for her and the rest of our church in evangelism,” Chavez said. The pastor turned to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s People Groups department, which provided cross-cultural evangelism training and taught church members to use the 3 Circles method to win others to Christ.

“We were encouraged to go out as a church and teams. The training helped us understand the different pockets of people we would meet,” Chavez said. “We learned to be aware and not be afraid.”

The Fairview women continued to invite ladies to the Bible study and the group grew. Several women attended Bible study and two made professions of faith. One now attends Fairview regularly. A men’s Bible study also began at the apartment complex. Two of the men came to Fairview and one rededicated his life to Jesus, Chavez said. Eventually, that apartment Bible study transitioned to the church, although Fairview still conducts some activities at the apartments.

The church’s focus shifted in late fall 2023 to a nearby mobile home park, where Fairview members began knocking on doors and sharing the gospel. Several people came to faith in Christ, including a mother and her teenage son.

“Last Christmas, we followed up with Christmas caroling and treat bags for the kids,” Chavez said. “Large groups of families from the mobile home park joined us and sang with us. … We served hot chocolate and cookies. They know who we are and why we were there. This is the beginning of our reaching out to our community.”

Faithful giving, far-reaching impact

Scottie Stice • SBTC Disaster Relief

It’s a progression with which Southeast Texans are all too familiar. But because of Reach Texas giving, they are familiar with another accompanying sight: volunteers in yellow Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Disaster Relief shirts showing up in droves and ministering to the hurting.

Heavy storms led to another deluge in early April, leading officials across the region—including in Jasper, Newton, and Hardin counties—to enact disaster declarations. The city of Kirbyville was among those hard hit. Three churches there were flooded, including Central Baptist Church.

The call for help went out and SBTC Disaster Relief responded. A shower unit was sent to support Texas Task Force 1 in Kirbyville, then a second shower unit was sent there while a Quick Response Unit (QRU) was deployed to Port Arthur. QRUs are mobile kitchens that can quickly mobilize to feed hundreds of meals in a short time. A second QRU was later stationed at First Baptist Church in Kirbyville.

Such call-outs can also include requests for SBTC DR volunteers to assist in the exhausting task of mudding out flooded homes and buildings. Chaplains are mobilized to pray and share the gospel with people who are hurting, vulnerable, and in many cases, more receptive to the saving message of Christ than they have ever been.

When it comes to disaster relief, the practical impact of giving through the Reach Texas offering can’t be underestimated.

“The faithful giving of SBTC churches to Reach Texas is what funds our disaster relief ministry,” Stice said. “It is what pays for food that is prepared and served on the quick response feeding units. It covers the expenses of transporting and setting up shower units that support shelters, first responders, and disaster relief volunteers. Reach Texas helps with tools, safety equipment, and fuel for the cleanup teams that mud out flooded homes.”

Quiet—but powerful—moments at M3 Camp

David Baysinger • First Baptist Corinth

Student pastor David Baysinger has been bringing students from First Baptist Corinth to M3 Camp in Glorieta, N.M., every summer since 2015. At M3, lives can be changed in all kinds of circumstances.

Many students feel the pull to a relationship with Christ during the camp’s main worship times through songs and the preaching of God’s Word. But Baysinger has also seen students trust Christ in what seemed—at least in the moment—to be the quiet, ordinary times.

Take Jayden, who, with his family, had long been involved at First Baptist Corinth. He gave his life to Jesus in the quietness of his dorm at camp one summer and was baptized at the church last fall.

And there’s Braylon, a sophomore whose parents have also served at M3 Camp. Two summers ago, as the Corinth youth group prepared to load the bus at camp’s end, Baysinger noticed Braylon and an older student praying together in the parking lot as Braylon asked Jesus to be his Savior.

One summer, Baysinger urged students, including Izzy, during church group time not to wait for the next invitation in a worship service to place their trust in Jesus if they felt “that tug from the Lord.”

A short time later, just as he sat down at lunch, Baysinger felt a tap on his shoulder. Izzy wanted to trust Jesus. Baysinger, Izzy, and a female leader found a quiet place in the kitchen, and Izzy prayed to receive Christ.

Baysinger praised the “clear gospel invitations” given by M3 speakers but also commended the camp structure, where church group time is a priority.

“A number of our students have come to know Christ,” Baysinger said. “M3 has been part of that thread.”

Working together to reach a growing Asian population

Michael Wang • New Life Gospel

New Life Gospel Church sees the possibilities, but the struggles are real.

The church, founded 17 years ago by its senior pastor, Thomas Wang, focuses on preaching the gospel to Asian people flowing into Texas in massive numbers, including those from China and Taiwan. When they arrive, Wang says they know little about the gospel because they were indoctrinated with atheism by the Chinese government.

One of the church’s tried and true methods of sharing the gospel with Asian people when they come to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is connecting with them as friends through personal relationships. In this sense, the biblical words of Jesus have been a daunting reality—the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

One area the church has found to enlist workers is Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Through its Chinese student fellowship, New Life learned about the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s FIRE Initiative. The initiative—which stands for Forging Integrated Relationships in Evangelism—connects the SBTC’s academic partners such as SWBTS with its affiliated churches to increase gospel collaboration.

Through the initiative, a SWBTS student began serving as a FIRE intern in September 2023. The student serves the church in a number of ways, helping with evangelistic efforts and giving New Life another voice to effectively communicate with a younger generation that can feel difficult to reach.

“As a Christian of her age, she can help us approach more people who are similar to her age—especially young adults,” said Michael Wang, who serves New Life as an associate pastor. “Hopefully she can help them know who Jesus Christ is.”

He noted that God is, indeed, using the collaboration for kingdom purposes, as the church baptized three people who made professions of faith earlier this year.

“We believe God’s promise,” he added. “God is using this partnership to help us learn more about the SBTC. We work together and leave the results in God’s hands.”

Empowered to share the gospel with the next generation

Chawn Cummings • North Garland Baptist Fellowship

As Chawn Cummings pours his life into the next generation as youth director at North Garland Baptist Fellowship and at the school where he teaches and coaches, he loves to tell the stories of what God is doing through his students.

He loves to talk about a student in his youth group who has answered the call to serve with a missions organization and recently returned from an outreach in South Africa. Now she’s praying about going back to serve a two-year commitment there.

Another student was recognized for his boldness on Bring Your Bible to School Day—so much so that someone from the school emailed the student’s mother to tell her how encouraged he was watching the young man read his Bible during lunch.

There’s a culture Cummings wants to create among everyone with whom God has given him influence, and he credits the Empower Conference with fueling that fire.

Cummings attended Empower—an evangelistic conference hosted annually by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and funded through state missions giving—and came away equipped and inspired. He heard Shane Pruitt, next gen director for the North American Mission Board, talk about calling out the called—which, in turn, inspired Cummings to work hard to develop young Christian leaders. Cummings said he was particularly challenged by Nik Ripken, a longtime missionary and author of The Insanity of God who frequently speaks about the persecuted church.

“I was personally challenged to be more intentional about my own personal evangelism and about inspiring the youth of my church to evangelize and become more missions minded,” Cummings said.

Other sessions motivated the youth director to be more intentional about encouraging his colleagues at school to be more evangelistic—“to be a light within the law.”

“We have encouraged these youth and others as we have been equipped by the Empower Conference,” Cummings said, “and we are so grateful for the experience.”

Church planting and church partnership at its best

Willer Montesinos • La Carpa del Valle of McAllen

La Carpa del Valle of McAllen celebrated its first birthday in March 2024. The Rio Grande Valley church plant now has 60-70 in attendance each Sunday and is seeing multiple baptisms.

“We are seeing God’s blessings,” planter/pastor Willer Montesinos said. “God is moving us to train and equip our people to share the gospel with their families and friends. More and more people are coming to Jesus through our members.”

While the church often met in hotel rooms in its earliest days, La Carpa del Valle now gathers in a building belonging to First McAllen, which also supports the church plant. First McAllen Lead Pastor Steven Gaither said his church had been praying for vacant space on its campus to be used.

“We were thrilled to see people in that building again,” Gaither said, adding that La Carpa quickly expanded from using 3,500 to 7,000 square feet of space.

As La Carpa grew numerically and completed Send Network SBTC’s assessment process, First McAllen became La Carpa’s official sending church. Church planting is one of the many ministry efforts funded through Reach Texas giving.

“Our church joyfully embraced this opportunity,” Gaither said. “A relationship that started because a church plant needed some space to meet has become a friendship, a ministry partnership, and a wonderful kingdom-heart connection.”

The vision of La Carpa del Valle extends across the border, as well. In early 2024, the church started a home church in Reynosa, Mexico, on Wednesday evenings “to reach our neighbors there,” Montesinos said.

La Carpa del Valle, translated in English, means “the tent in the valley.” The church name is derived from Exodus 33, the account of Moses pitching the “tent of meeting” outside the Israelite camp. Here, “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11).

“We want to be a place where people in the Valley can receive encouragement from God face to face,” Montesinos said.

Inspired, equipped & ready to reach

Nick Apperson • First Baptist Church of Malakoff

First Baptist Church of Malakoff student minister Nick Apperson knew he wanted to reach out to student-athletes at the community college in a neighboring East Texas town. He just wasn’t sure how to start. Until he attended Roundup.

Roundup, an annual event hosted by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and funded through Reach Texas giving, aims to encourage, equip, and network collegiate leaders across the state. Apperson attended Roundup for the first time in 2023.

Through information provided during several breakout sessions and with the encouragement of other collegiate leaders, Apperson said he gained the confidence to jump headfirst into making the campus ministry God had planted in his heart a reality.

“Being able to connect with other people doing college ministry, being able to ask questions and to hear from guys in the trenches, was incredibly eye-opening for me,” Apperson said. “Roundup allowed me to connect with people who are in my corner and willing to help me reach college students with the gospel and help them grow as disciples of Jesus Christ.”

Motivated by his Roundup experience, Apperson and his wife began to regularly set up a table at the community college and offer giveaways to connect with students. They also had a pickleball night and, before long, invited some of the student-athletes they met into their home for a Bible study.

Each week, students from a variety of backgrounds from around the country are having conversations about the Bible and who Jesus is—some for the first time in their lives. Not only that, but the gospel is proclaimed weekly, followed by an invitation for the student-athletes to trust Jesus.

“I can see the Lord working and stirring in the lives of these young men, and I am simply trusting Him with the outcome,” Apperson said. “I rejoice that these guys can come into our home, connect with me and my family, and hopefully leave with a better understanding of who Jesus really is and who they are called to be.”

For SBTC DR, crisis opens doors to gospel opportunities

Scottie Stice • SBTC Disaster Relief

Sometimes people need a hand after disaster strikes, as occurred when winter storms wrought havoc in Austin, prompting Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Disaster Relief volunteers to deploy in early February.

Multiple SBTC DR chainsaw teams rotated in and out, completing nearly 70 jobs in Pflugerville, Hutto, Round Rock, and Northwest Austin, according to Scottie Stice, SBTC DR director.

But that wasn’t the whole story.

Among the survivors assisted by SBTC DR was Larry, an elderly military veteran whose refrigerator broke during the storm.

“We removed tree damage from his home,” SBTC DR volunteer Mike Jansen said. Food shared by DR volunteers was the man’s first meal in two days.

Finding Larry was a divine appointment, said Debby Nichols, SBTC DR chaplain from DeKalb. Nichols and fellow chaplain/assessor Linda Mitter of Rockwall had completed their daily assignments and were driving around Round Rock neighborhoods to see if they had missed anything.

An enormous tree, split in half, caught their attention and they drove down the adjacent cul de sac.

“That tree was God’s sign to us,” Nichols said. “We found Larry’s house, with branches above his front door.”

The ladies knocked, explained who they were, and asked if Larry needed help.

“I am not worthy,” he replied. Nichols and Mitter visited with him and learned he had quit a college teaching job to care for his wife, who later died of cancer.

“He had been stuck,” Nichols said of Larry’s despair. The Vietnam veteran was entitled to some assistance, they realized. SBTC DR volunteer Ted Boswell, a retired pastor who teaches adult Sunday school at First Baptist Pflugerville, connected Larry with a VA advocate in his class.

But best of all, Larry accepted Christ as his Savior after the chaplain told him about Jesus.

Clarion call goes out as Dallas prepares to host 2025 SBC Annual Meeting

FORT WORTH—The woman was in her late 80s, living on a fixed income in a modest house in rural East Texas. She wasn’t able to get on a plane and go on mission overseas, and at that stage of her life, even making the three-hour car ride to Houston to help plant a church would have been difficult.

And yet, when Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Executive Director Nathan Lorick thinks of the power of the Cooperative Program, this woman—whom he pastored more than a decade ago—comes to mind.

“She faithfully gave [through the Cooperative Program] because she desperately wanted her life to be an extension of the gospel beyond our city,” Lorick said. “Every month she scraped by and continued to give to the Cooperative Program so that … God would take [her gift] and, through a collective effort, multiply it among 47,000 churches so her life could be multiplied to advance the gospel and the mission of Christ.”

Lorick made his remarks at this year’s Southern Baptist Convention 2025 Annual Meeting kickoff luncheon, hosted by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary on Aug. 22. The luncheon was held in an effort to begin rallying support for next year’s meeting, which will be held in Dallas.

The theme of next June’s meeting will be “Hold Fast,” based on Hebrews 10:23-24: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works ….”

Among the highlights of the annual meeting will be a celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the Cooperative Program—the primary giving model used by Southern Baptists to advance mission in Texas and around the world. The meeting will be preceded by Crossover, an annual outreach aimed at mobilizing churches to join hands, minister, and share the gospel in cities across the area.

Lorick noted Texas has a population of 30 million people, with 19 million of those estimated to be lost and separated from Jesus Christ.

“We need a coalition of people on the streets of Dallas sharing the gospel,” Lorick said.

Bruno Molina, SBTC’s language and interfaith evangelism associate who also serves as executive director of the National Hispanic Baptist Network, said Southern Baptists have a great opportunity to put Jesus’ passion for the lost on display by participating in Crossover.

“This is where our heart is,” Molina said. “By going to the convention, people will see Cooperative Program dollars at work and be inspired to collaborate more … and to be more engaged in gospel coalition.”

All told, organizers said they anticipate needing a volunteer force of more than 700 people to serve at the annual meeting, working as ushers, registration clerks, and more. Many of those volunteers will come from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

“Texas leaders have the greatest potential of impacting the attendance of both the annual meeting and the [pastor’s] conference,” said D.J. Horton, a South Carolina pastor who is president of the 2025 SBC Pastors’ Conference held in conjunction with the annual meeting. “ … There are pastors here in Texas who will make a decision to come because they are invited by you, and I hope you will do that because we have a gospel and a Savior who is worth following.”

East Texas church uses any means necessary to reach its community for Christ

A squirrel was loose in the building at First Baptist Church in Timpson, so the pastor sent out a notice that he needed a trap to catch it. By the end of the day, a squirrel trap was set and a man he had been praying for was a new brother in Christ.

W. Dee Daniel, the pastor, had led a woman to Jesus last year, and when he asked if she would like to be baptized and join the church, she said she wanted to wait for her husband. Daniel told her he would be praying for her husband’s salvation.

It turns out her husband is a squirrel hunter—the man who showed up to set a trap in response to the pastor’s plea. Before he left, the pastor asked if he’d thought about his spiritual condition. When the man said he had, Daniel asked about his salvation experience.

“I’ve never been saved,” the man replied.

The two sat down to talk, and the pastor asked the man what was keeping him from accepting Christ as Savior.

“I guess I just didn’t know how,” he said.

Daniel led the man to the Lord, and the next week the couple’s teenage son went forward during the invitation and was saved, too. Their daughter followed two weeks later. Earlier this summer, the family of four was baptized in a church member’s swimming pool along with 13 other people.

“From what I can tell by looking back, it’s probably double any other baptismal service they’ve had at the church in the 100-plus years the church has existed,” Daniel said. After the hourlong service, the church family had a picnic and played games to celebrate the baptisms.

Finding momentum

First Baptist Timpson had dwindled to around 65 people on Sunday mornings when Daniel arrived as pastor eight years ago. Most of the congregation was over the age of 65, he said, and the church was in need of revitalization.

“COVID kind of knocked the legs out from under the progress we’d made,” Daniel said.

Timpson is a rural East Texas town of about 1,000 people, and the church is well-known in the area, the pastor said. During his tenure, they’ve tried to focus on reaching younger families, knowing that’s necessary for survival.

Debra Smith, Timpson’s mayor, is a longtime member of First Baptist, having married there in 1977.

“It’s like everything else [in] a community. You have ups and downs and growth spells and spells where it seems like things are slowing down, but we have definitely been in a very upbeat, positive swing at the church,” Smith said.

On Wednesday nights, First Baptist offers a meal followed by Bible studies for children, students, and adults. For a low-to-moderate income community, “it’s a helpful thing to get their kids fed and churched,” Smith said.

About 50 children and students attend on Wednesday nights, the pastor said, compared to a sprinkling of children in years past. On Sundays, total attendance has doubled, averaging 120 to 130. “A lot of our growth has come in younger families,” Daniel said.

“They [younger families] need to feel a personal connection, and by discipling them relationally, it allows them to feel a part of something bigger than them.”

—W. Dee Daniel Tweet

It’s about relationships

One of the greatest breakdowns churches experience in passing faith from one generation to the next comes from a lack of relational discipleship, the pastor said.

“What I mean by that is more than programs, more than meeting times, but true discipleship of following Christ, which leads to more than Sunday morning or Wednesday [engagement],” Daniel said. “I think that’s one of the things we see in reaching these younger families. They haven’t been used to that. They haven’t seen it.”

Relational discipleship helps people connect with specific church members, not just to the church as a whole, the pastor said. Younger generations value such belonging, he added.

“They want to feel like what they’re doing is making a difference. The older generation financially was strong. They would put a lot of money into programs. But for the younger generation, it’s more than money,” Daniel said.

“They need to feel a personal connection, and by discipling them relationally, it allows them to feel a part of something bigger than them.”

Such relational discipleship needs to extend to involving children in ways that could keep them involved during the post-high school years when they typically stray from church, Daniel said.

“If we connect them, they have the stronger connection while they’re in church and while they’re younger so when they graduate or go to college, they still have a strong connection that draws them back,” he said. “They’re not gone for 10 to 12 years.”

One way First Baptist involves younger people is through a food bank ministry that began at the church and has since grown to its own community nonprofit housed across the parking lot from the main building.

“We generally give boxes to about 120 families on the third Friday each month, and I don’t know what I’d do without the volunteers from the church coming and helping get the boxes out,” Smith said. “Our church is very involved in the community.”

First Baptist also sends mission teams to Belize, giving church members an opportunity to be personally invested in taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.

“If you don’t have young families with kids coming to your church, your church is going to be on a decline,” Smith said. “ … If we’re getting older and not having that kind of fruit, having children, eventually the pews will get emptier and emptier.”

Unique skill set helps Fort Worth church serve community, lead other churches to do the same

David Escalona, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Fe, has a core conviction that has the potential to impact his congregation as much as it does the members of his community:

“When we serve, our hearts are softened.”

Sometimes that looks like painting, repairing, and remodeling homes. On other occasions, it may be an opportunity to work alongside sister churches to meet needs. Regardless, IBF members look for any ways they can to reach families for Christ and bring Him glory.

Call it a ministry of transformation—of homes, but also of hearts.

“We are a church where everyone is accepted and welcomed to be transformed by God,” Escalona said, “because God does not leave us as He finds us.”

IBF’s ministry philosophy was born out of practicality—Escalona simply recognized there were many members of his church who were skilled in construction. Why not put those talents and experience to use for the kingdom? So, the pastor began leading his people to work together to help widows, single mothers, the elderly, and the sick in their community who do not have the resources to have construction and repairs done.

Little did they know their ministry would expand to include helping other congregations that also didn’t have the resources or manpower.

“There are other churches that are smaller than us that are in need, and we have stepped up to serve them,” Escalona said.

Serving beyond the church walls

The ministry has impacted the church in ways Escalona and his members never imagined. Not only has it helped IBF meet needs in Fort Worth and beyond, but it has inspired other churches to start doing the same to point others to Christ. One instance happened last year when a Hispanic church in West Texas called asking for help.

At the West Texas church’s request, the IBF men’s group helped repair the homes of two families. During their visit, Escalona took time to encourage the church that it, too, could use even the most simple gifts, talents, and resources God had given its members to impact their community.

A month later, the West Texas church invited IBF to work alongside its members on a service project. IBF was unable to attend because of a previously scheduled mission trip, but once that trip was over, Escalona reached back out to the West Texas church to see if it still needed help.

No, the pastor of the church replied, they had already stepped out in faith and done the work themselves—recruiting both men from the church and a few others who did not attend church to help restore the home of a non-believing family. A few months later, the West Texas church reported that some of those they made contact with on the project, both the workers and the family that was served, had come to faith in Christ or started attending church.

Escalona said IBF has a women’s group that is also active in reaching others through service. Members of the women’s group learned to make winter hats to take to cancer centers where patients are being treated. While there, they share spiritual literature, hope, and offer prayer for those they visit.

“It is my prayer that God will continue to give the wisdom to lead the church and continue to open doors to impact the world.”

—David Escalona Tweet

IBF also uses block parties to do community outreach, hosting events every three months at locations around the city. The parties include games and activities for children and adults, but the main purpose of the events is to share the gospel with those who attend. Block parties have been very helpful in helping IBF meet people, invite them to church, and lead them to Christ.

Getting outside the walls of the church became part of IBF’s core identity early on. The church started in March 2019 with about 10 to 12 people, but not long after, it found itself unable to meet in its building due to COVID-19. That’s when Escalona prayerfully led IBF to meet in parks around the city.

Before long, the number of those attending doubled. Now, about 60 to 80 people come each week, and the church is already praying God will provide a larger place to meet as it outgrows its current space.

“It is my prayer that God will continue to give the wisdom to lead the church and continue to open doors to impact the world,” Escalona said, “remembering that if we are the body of Christ, [we must move out beyond our church’s] four walls.”

SBTC She Stands conference lands in Africa to encourage, equip women for ministry

When Laura Taylor met Chao Tsuma at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, neither expected that their fast friendship would lead to significant ministry opportunities on another continent.

This summer, Taylor—women’s associate at the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention—joined Tsuma in Kenya to lead a women’s leadership conference in Naivasha and a She Stands conference in Malindi, a community that is 90% Muslim.

Tsuma first experienced She Stands when she volunteered at a conference held at First Baptist Mansfield in 2021. She Stands conferences, held regionally throughout the year, aim to encourage and train women in their lives and ministries.

Tsuma felt an immediate connection with Taylor.

“Laura’s vibrant personality and genuine ability to make everyone feel seen and valued left a lasting impression on me,” Tsuma said. “She invited me into the ministry work, emphasizing that it was the Lord’s work and required collective effort.”

Upon the recommendation of Terri Stovall, Southwestern’s dean of women and Tsuma’s mentor, Chao applied for and was accepted to serve as an SBTC women’s ministry intern under Taylor’s direction in 2023. Her role would be threefold: to help amplify the vision for women in the region, to encourage leadership development among women, and to support Taylor and the SBTC women’s ministry through prayer.

Those duties would include helping Taylor expand the scope of SBTC women’s ministry materials into larger conference formats. On one occasion, Tsuma helped Taylor expand written materials used for a pastor-wife conference into a leadership conference.

In August 2023, the SBTC offered a leadership conference in Arlington for some 40 women’s ministry leaders from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. This past March, 50 women attended a similar leadership summit in Beaumont.

Guests at the Beaumont conference included four women from Nairobi, Kenya—part of Chao’s network of friends—who flew in to attend.

“One is a doctor; two are in economic development,” Taylor said of the Kenyans. “They are successful, professional women who came to the states to experience this conference.”

As plans were being made for two more leadership summits the next year, one in the Metroplex and one in the Houston area, an intriguing question arose: Why not also in Kenya?

“Chao and her Christian friends and network in Kenya have been praying for years for this kind of opportunity. The fact that the SBTC gets to be involved is phenomenal.”

—Laura Taylor Tweet

Why not Kenya?

Encouraged by the attendance of the four Kenyan women, and with the assurance that there were many Christian women in Kenya hungry for similar instruction, Taylor and Tsuma ramped up their efforts. Tsuma returned to Kenya early this summer to lay the groundwork.

“We worked on both ends,” Taylor said. She and her husband, Wade, pastor of First Baptist Alvarado, left for Kenya at the end of July with a small team from Texas.

Two women’s conferences were held in early August: a leadership summit in Naivasha, and She Stands Kenya in Malindi. Topics included developing a personal walk with the Lord, loving others, and leading other women—all scripturally based.

“In my culture, titles are highly regarded. A woman who leads … is highly regarded. She is a woman of influence. … She has a big platform to influence other women. This is the woman we target,” Tsuma said. “If [that woman] stands in Christ, others will follow. … As she grows, she helps other women. Our vision is to equip this woman with biblical principles for daily living.

“We focus on four pillars for her growth: her relationship and growth in Christ, her relationship with others in her home, her economic growth, and her impact on her community.”

Early response in Kenya has been overwhelmingly positive, Tsuma said.

In addition to the conferences, Taylor, Tsuma, and a crew of Texas and Kenyan helpers attended local worship services, engaged in outreaches including providing potable water to villages, and met with the president of the Kenya Baptist Convention.

Besides the two women’s events, Wade Taylor and Tsuma’s husband, James, taught a pastors’ conference, and Wade—an SBTC Disaster Relief chaplain—also offered basic chaplaincy training.
A planned outreach to school girls on the trip was disrupted due to massive flooding in Kenya.

“People are displaced and distressed because of the flooding,” Laura Taylor said of the need for indigenous chaplains to minister in disasters.

Now that the vision has expanded to Kenya, Tsuma and Taylor hope this is just the beginning of women’s ministry training for that country.

“Chao and her Christian friends and network in Kenya have been praying for years for this kind of opportunity,” Taylor said. “The fact that the SBTC gets to be involved is phenomenal.”

For more information on She Stands conferences in Texas and beyond, click the image or email ltaylor@sbtexas.com.

God has given me a new focus and a new mission

Igave my life to Christ 24 years ago. That Sunday I gave my heart to Christ, I was in Dorm 4 at the Bossier Parish Penal Farm in a little town called Plain Dealing, La., serving a three-year sentence. I was literally broken. I was at the point where I was like, “Look, I can’t do this no more.” I told my mom, “I can’t do three years.” She said, “Baby, you have no choice.” But when she said that … I was done. I wasn’t raised to do crime. I took my last step with the world and I took my first step with God, and I’ve never looked back. I got saved and from that moment on I started doing Bible study in prison and stayed close to the Lord, got out, and got right into the church and got baptized. I was 29 years old then.

After getting out of prison, my whole life changed—my wardrobe, everything. I worked as an electrician in Bossier City/Shreveport for about 33 years and got to a point where the Lord started blessing me in the trade. I also started a ministry called A Way of Escape Ministries, from 1 Corinthians 10:13. God gives a person a way of escape through Jesus Christ. Christ was my way of escape from the world and from repeating the negativity and the toxicity in my life. I was preaching on two radio stations in that area, sometimes preaching for local churches, and my wife, Patricia, and I spoke on building a strong marriage. All this while raising eight kids.

I was tired—we were tired—every day trying to work and take care of the ministry. My wife was working night and day, taking two or three shifts in local nursing homes. I was just working night and day, sometimes doing videos online, because we’re on Facebook. I’d work on the videos and fall asleep while I was doing that. I’m sitting at work eight, 10 hours a day doing electrical work.

“My heart’s desire is that those who don’t know God will know the God I know and serve.”

—André Blaze Tweet

Well, God sometimes just speaks out of nowhere—this is the highlight of my testimony. He spoke to my wife one day back in Louisiana and she said to me, “We got to go.” And I was like, “Go where?” She said, “We need to go to Texas. God said go to Texas—God is saying we need to move.” And I said, “Well, I need to go in prayer.” So after 90 days in prayer, we picked up everything. We started for Greenville but ended up finding a house for us in Sherman instead.

I’m building my business here, but it’s not been crazy busy yet. I have some good contacts, and many of the people of my church [First Baptist Sherman] have given me work. I couldn’t have dreamed of this. I can’t tell you [all that] God has done in the year we’ve been here. It’s been a blessing. It’s been a journey. Sherman is great for us. Our family and children are happy. God has allowed me to make enough on the jobs I get so that our needs are met. My wife works, but she just works regular hours. She’s not tired. I’m not tired, and He has blessed us. He’s just so good.

I’ve been changed, refreshed in my relationship with God—the same God who told Abraham to get up and leave the Ur of the Chaldeans, leave what you are familiar with and go to a land that I will show you. That’s the challenge, to really see where your faith is. It’s one thing to teach truth and to teach faith, but it’s another thing to live it. The Word of God is more than just ink on paper. This move has strengthened my faith. I’m refocused. I’m better than I was.

It’s changed my children’s lives. We tell them, “We’re not here to make money, but we make money. You’re not here just to go to school, but you do go to school. We are here on assignment. We are here because of God’s kingdom.”

Now I own a radio station, a gospel station, and it’s called Blaze. God blessed me with that. We’re on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I’ve got some contemporary Christian music on there, and then my messages. And then we’ve got messages with our children, Bible studies for the entire family. In other words, God has really blessed. I’m also continuing my prison ministry, preaching a few times a month in different facilities.

My heart’s desire is that those who don’t know God will know the God I know and serve. To those who know Him, I’d say be refreshed and know that God is good. Don’t become complacent with God, but know that He is going to take you higher and ask bigger things of you. Give Him what He wants and enjoy the ride.

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