starting churches
By Connie Cavanaugh
Chantal Vallee, a university women's basketball coach in Montreal, Quebec, ran into a problem over and over in the Bible study group she initiated and led. The new believers wanted to go to church, but there was nowhere to send them.
So, they started their own church in 2000.
Canada has approximately 240 universities and colleges, but only about 40 have Southern Baptist churches in their communities, according to Salt Jones, national consultant for student ministries for the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists (CCSB).
"University churches developed out of necessity," says Mel Cruikshank, student ministry strategist for Alberta and Saskatchewan. "We were establishing collegiate ministries on campuses where students had no reasonable options for church. The first, in Montreal, met a great need. Before that a student could not be referred to a Baptist church in his or her community, because none existed."
Now seven churches reaching Canadian university campuses are meeting a spiritual need at a time when students are coming into adulthood. The Point (www.pointchurch.ca) is a church on the campus of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. Ten years ago, Kelly Manire encountered the idea of having churches, not just clubs, on college campuses. He and his wife were leading a campus ministry in Vancouver, Washington, when he was challenged in 1995 by a church planter strategist to start a church.
Because of students' studies or work, services at campus churches usually are held late on Sundays. Baptisms take place in hot tubs, swimming pools and bath tubs. PowerPoint, drama, the arts, lively music-these are the norm. And, like any church, campus churches are born out of need.
Church planter facilitator Ashley Thaba saw that need in Ottawa, Ontario. Thus was born Celebration! (www.celebrationchurch.ca) with a mission field of 70,000 students at Carlton University, Ottawa University and Algonquin College.
The church started after Ashley joined a gym at Carlton and began connecting with believers and nonbelievers. "When you're on a treadmill for 30 minutes," Ashley says, "you can have some pretty in-depth conversations." Many students came to Christ and became involved in Celebration! as a result of these conversations.
The Sanctuary West in Hamilton (www.thesanctuary.ca/hamilton) led by Bob Royce, also is in Ontario as well as a still un-named church start in the Greater Toronto area led by Jeremy Langley (babyducks@sympatico.ca).
The Bridge (groups.msn.com/thebridge) in Alberta meets in the Student Union building at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, but the church also reaches the students of nearby Grant MacEwan College.
In Montreal, Quebec, there are three college churches: L'eglise Impact (www.eglise-impact-church.com), a French-speaking congregation, and Impact, both led by Robert Pinkston and Agape (egliseagape@yahoo.com), facilitated by Chantal Vallee, which is reaching the Quebecois culture. Agape most closely fits the Quebecois culture of gathering for a fete or celebration. For generations Quebec people have met in each others' homes-often the kitchen-to share food, stories and music. These fetes can last well into the night. So when Agape meets, they eat, they sing, they tell their stories for up to six hours at a time. "It's a grassroots, indigenous style of church," says Chantal.
As this campus church planting movement spreads, a growing number of U.S. campuses are being reached by this strategy. For more information on church planting and outreach among students, visit www.namb.net and click on "starting churches."
sending missionaries
Funding missions shouldn't be the same old task year after year. Here are some ideas to mix it up:
• Debra Hurst of Indian Springs First Baptist Church, in Indian Springs Village, Alabama, created a spring bouquet to encourage fellow church members to give to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering (AAEO). She made a garden lattice out of poster board and drilled a hole into each diamond of the lattice. Each hole represented a $100 gift, and the number of holes was equal to the church's AAEO goal. With each donation a hole was filled with a cluster of artificial lilies (the signature flower of AAEO). As the lattice was filled, the church had a beautiful reminder of how important it is to plant gospel seeds in North America. • Stewartstown Baptist Church in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania, held a Progressive Dinner for Missions not only to encourage missions giving but also to inform the congregation about the stories and struggles of individual missionary families. At each home a missions development leader led a devotion and question and answer session featuring a week of prayer missionary family before the course was served. Mary Cahoon, WMU director for Stewartstown Baptist said, "There was an excellent turn out, and folks who usually don't come for missions activities were touched by what they saw and heard."
• Dr. Jack Hinton jump-started missions giving at Tabernacle Baptist Church in New Bern, North Carolina, by procuring a $4,000 loan from a local bank and distributing 400 $10 bills to church members in envelops marked "seed money." Members were encouraged to plant and multiply these funds for missions. Some of their creative ideas included sponsoring a "Senior Saints Appreciation Banquet" that raised $1,200. The youth group sold $4 tickets to a 1950's drive-in style hamburger lunch, and one woman was able to donate several hundred dollars by selling pecans.
Another idea not only raised money for missions but served the community as well. During the Christmas shopping season, the church offered babysitting services to all New Bern residents for $10 per child. In the end the church was able to repay the loan and give a healthy sum to missions.
• Calvary Baptist Church in Erwin, Tennessee, takes missions personally, because they spend time praying for and writing to missionaries as well as participating in short-term mission projects in North America and throughout the world. Missions giving is maximized by what they call "The $4 Plan," through which members have the opportunity to give two weeks of their salary to missions by setting aside $4 out of every hundred they earn during the year. For example, if you earn $500 per week you would set aside $20 for missions each week. At the end of 50 weeks you'd have saved $1,000 to give to missions.
For more information on how you can give and get involved in missions, visit www.namb.net.
Sharing Christ
My Turnspa professional, former educator in Waimea, Hawaii
by Lucinda Lyons
When I first became a Christian four years ago I dreamed of going on a mission trip to Cambodia or Mexico. At the time, I thought of mission trips only as organized group excursions to international locations for the purpose of sharing Christ. I thought of church as the place I spent Sunday mornings. God has radically changed my view, revealing the Christian life as a continual mission within a mobile church. It's interesting that the mission field I found myself in didn't look as I imagined, but standing on God's promises I could see it for what it was-a real opportunity.
I love what I do. I give facials in a world-class spa and at a small day spa. God uses me in a one-on-one setting to pray silently for my clients, encourage them and, when He leads, even share my faith in God with them. However, the last four years have been lean, and I've prayed often asking God if I should leave my profession and go back into teaching or go to the international mission field. He responded by showing me the unsaved people in my work place. Many co-workers place their faith in New Age philosophies and false religions, and clients are often vulnerable to this as they are in need of healing and nurturing.
Unexpectedly, God directed me to accept a temporary, three-month position in the café at our spa. I accepted the position, excited to see how God was going to use this time. In the beginning I felt overwhelmed learning the jobs of cashier, cook, dishwasher and wait staff all at once. The two-person café went from being slow to slammed, and when we were slammed we were understaffed. A few difficult weeks into the job, I was offered a part-time teaching position at a local school. Anger and frustration began to build as I struggled with what to do. At times, I winced as I looked honestly at my heart and attitude. In my quiet moments with God, He showed me that I must honor my commitment to the café. I had to trust Him.
Fortunately, a wise mentor suggested I look at this café as my sanctuary, my chapel, my mission field. She explained that since I am a believer in Jesus Christ the presence of God is with me. Where I am, so is the Lord. And those who enter the cafe are walking into the presence of the Lord! After a moment, I embraced that idea and with new eyes I embraced my mission field. I prayed that those who came there would find a quiet place where God could talk to their hearts, that wounds and brokenness could surface and be healed, that their hearts would be open and receptive to God, and that those who knew Him would be restored and strengthened.
I was able to share the gospel with one woman in particular who had been on my prayer list for quite a while. When "The Passion of the Christ" came to theaters, I placed a ticket in her mailbox at work. One day, as we were leaving work, we walked together in the parking lot and she brought up the movie.
"I had never heard any of those stories before," she said. I asked her if she had a Bible, which she didn't. I happened to have one in my car that I had prayed about giving to someone. I gave her the Bible, and we talked for an hour about my Savior.
impacting the culture
Happy Trails Baptist Church Taylorsville, North Carolina
Location: H and H Outdoor Arena
attendance: Avg. 75-In good weather, 120. In cold weather, 60 people in coveralls.
Senior Pastor: Don Martin
Pastor's path: Don Martin is a bi-vocational pastor of both Covenant Baptist and Happy Trails. In his "day job" he owns a computer technology company.
a Brief History: Happy Trails is the result of Covenant Baptist Church's vision for reaching the cowboy crowd in North Carolina. Now Happy Trails actually draws more attendance than Covenant, its traditional sponsoring church that began as a mission of the Rankin Theron Association.
contact:www.cowboycn.org or 828-635-1260
I've never started a church from scratch like that before, so it was a challenge. I didn't do summer missions because I thought it would be cushy; I did it because I was called to do it." Michelle Glenn from Clinton, Mississippi, assigned to Crossover Canada
"I feared I would not be able to relate to the culture. I was scared that I may say something to offend someone and not be sensitive enough to their culture and background. I knew, however, that God was the One going up there to make a difference, not me. Lance Sudduth from Jackson, Mississippi, assigned to Nome Community Baptist Church, Nome, Alaska
www.4truth.netGo there now and you'll find resources for understanding and reaching people of other faiths along with articles from well-known theologians and apologists who will provide believers with tools for defending their faith and strengthening their understanding of their beliefs.
www.HollywoodJesus.comChrist is all and is in all…even in the box office. Learn how God's redemptive story continues to be told even in the unlikeliest of feature films and television shows. This is also a good site to recommend to people who may not listen to the gospel in a traditional way.
www.idthefuture.com Engage in an on-going discussion about the science of Intelligent Design. Pushing past any social, political or religious fodder, idthefuture.com features thoughts and comments by leading scientists from all over the world. A good site to recommend to an evolutionist friend.
dictionary.gospelcom.net From Alpha to Huldreich Zwingli you can research religion in this free web-based dictionary including 10,000 religious terms from history to customs to biography.
www.OliveTree.com Thy Word have I placed in my Palm. Download commentaries, Bibles and other e-books for your Palm OS handheld or Pocket PC so you'll always have God's Word at your fingertips.
www.Gostudents.net/leader Download Bible studies, videos, and other resources for your youth group. Launched only a few months ago, gostudents.net and gostudents.net/leader provide an ever-growing resource to help you and your youth meet the demands of ministry among new generations of teens.
Sugarloaf Community Church, Suwanee, Georgia
Christmas is the perfect time of year to share the gospel with your community. The last two seasons, Sugarloaf Community Church in Duluth, Georgia, has held what it calls "Christmas in the Park," an event for their community where people can sip hot chocolate, ice skate, listen to good music and spend quality time with their friends and family while hearing about the Reason for the season.
"We wanted to create a non-threatening and fun event where members could bring their non-believing friends and family and give them the opportunity to share their faith in Christ" says Warren Jacobs, creative arts pastor.
Here's how:
Cost:
The cost will depend on where you hold the event, what you provide and how you fill your supply list. Sugarloaf spent about $5,000, but a lot was donated by local businesses and church members, including publicity media, which would have significantly increased costs. If you mention you're a church offering a free community event, you may find discounts.
Send us your church's outreach ideas! If we print yours in "The Pulse," you'll receive $100 and a gift subscription to On Mission for a friend or family member. Send ideas to onmission@namb.net or mail to:
On Mission magazine Attn: Adam Miller 4200 North Point Pkwy Alpharetta, GA 30022
By Mike Licona
Often as Christians we say "I know the answer...now what's the question?" We aren't as eager to listen as we are to begin on what may or may not be a gentle and respectful response to genuine concern. A few years ago I was in a car accident with my wife and two children. A woman had rear-ended us, crumpling the back of our vehicle. The front of hers looked like a poorly-wrought accordion. Traffic was backing up. As we waited for the police a man strolled out of a church on the corner and handed each of us a gospel tract.
"That'll give you something to think about while you wait," he said before strolling off into the sunset. Besides making me uncomfortable, it made me wonder how Christians respond to a world in crisis as suggested in 1 Peter 3:15.
• Listen. Listen to your co-workers, your acquaintances and even people in line at the grocery store if you get a chance to strike up a conversation. What do they say about books like The Da Vinci Code, about Christians and social issues? Find out where they're coming from without correcting or telling them they're wrong.
• Know their media. Never once did the apostle Paul reference the Jewish scriptures when he was speaking with the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill. Instead he quoted their own poets. If we listen well, we'll know how they feel about "Star Wars," "The Lord of the Rings," or The Da Vinci Code. We need to read and watch so we can have fruitful dialogue.
• Show genuine love. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Live out your faith by showing up on moving day, providing a listening ear in crisis and doing whatever else you can to show that Christ's love is relevant. Your love can prime a non-believer's heart for accepting the gospel.
• Don't make everything intellectual. We can serve God and have pure theology, but when it comes to sharing Christ, people want a Person, not a theory. When you share Christ with this culture, philosophical argument may dismantle a counter-Christian worldview, but it's what Christ has done in your life that'll tear down barriers.
Mike Licona is director of apologetics, NAMB, and author of The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, recently selected as a Christianity Today notable book, and Paul and Mohammed (Baker Books, Winter 2006).
Within a 40-mile radius of downtown Nashville, Crossover events, including block parties, street evangelism, sports clinics, neighborhood prayerwalking and door-to-door visitation were conducted by nearly 10,000 volunteers from hundreds of Southern Baptist churches across the country. More than 2,500 professions of faith in Christ have been recorded as a result of the Crossover efforts. Among those involved in the outreach events were FAITH Riders, Christian bikers from several states, who rode up Broadway in downtown Nashville in conjunction with the evangelistic outreach preceding the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting June 21-22, 2005.
by Mary Manz Simon
I hurried up the sidewalk. I couldn't wait to reach the next house. Every Halloween, my sister and I each got a whole candy bar from the doctor's widow who lived here. I could feel the added weight in my bag as Mrs. Jergens plunked down that gooey treat.
But Halloween has changed since those carefree years when I dressed as a majorette and strutted up and down the familiar streets of my Chicago neighborhood. Today, hospital X-ray machines scan for dangerous objects hidden in candy. Youths who dabble in the occult make front-page headlines. My children have been lured by books from spookmaster R.L. Stine. The age of innocent holiday fun has ended.
Now, on some Halloweens, I turn off the porch light to hide from trick-or-treaters. But that may not be the right response.
Halloween can be an open door to witnessing. And even though the holiday might begin with children, associated seasonal events can provide multi-generational opportunities to reach people for Christ. Consider these possibilities:
sharing Christ
military chaplains are a welcome sight in the throes of war, at the bedsides of the sick, in the wake of chaos and disaster. They've been commissioned by God and by the Armed Forces to have access to some of the most intimate moments and settings in human life. "The best phrase to describe chaplaincy is 'the church going outside the walls of the church,'" says Pete Sharber, director of chaplaincy, NAMB. "We need to go to the people, build a bridge and meet the spiritual and physical needs of people where they are." Chaplains are not only embedded with fighting troops and praying at the bedsides of war casualties.
Chaplaincy sponsored by the local church can become a major strategy for evangelism. Envision for a moment a congregation with seven volunteer chaplains on the staff who serve under the umbrella of the pastor. These chaplains serve their church in the local businesses, the local high schools, the local prisons/jails, the hospital, the law enforcement and safety agencies-use your imagination.
"If we had chaplains in each SBC congregation across North America going outside the walls of the church, we could reach our communities for Christ," says Sharber. "The problem with religion in North America is that it's so often confined to buildings. We need to model Christ and go into our communities."
To learn how you can reach people and meet needs in your community through chaplaincy ministry email Pete Sharber at psharber@namb.net or call 770-410-6366.
Top Picks
Village Café is an interactive, 3D, CD-ROM resource for students and adults exploring God's call to missions. Hear first-hand from North American missionaries and explore options of missionary service available with the North American Mission Board. For more information, visit www.answerthecall.net, or call 800-462-8657 ext. 6499.
Strike Zone (Broadman & Holman, 2005) by Andy Pettite and Bob Reccord, is a handbook for teens navigating questions of purity and preparing for a life of commitment to Christ. The co-authors are Pettite, who pitched for the Yankees in the 2003 World Series, and Dr. Reccord, president, North American Mission Board.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Crossway, 2005) by Bruce A. Ware, explores the nature of God and His redemptive plan by exploring the Trinity and how each person of God pursues a relationship with His creation. This book does a good job of explaining a hard-to-grasp subject.
The Home Team (Revell, 2004) by Nate Adams is a valuable aid for parents. With practical and "home-tested" ideas for strengthening your family spiritually, you learn how to have more fun together, communicate more deeply and serve others more willingly.
How Should We Then Live and A Christian Manifesto (Crossway, 2005) by Francis A. Schaeffer are reprints of two Schaeffer classics that lay the groundwork for the Church to be relevant to contemporary culture even as culture drifts deeper into the postmodern paradigm.
How to Lead Your Child to Christ (Tyndale, 2005) by Robert and Bobbie Wolgemuth provides creative ways to communicate the gospel to today's child. Includes a music CD featuring songs teaching the truths of the gospel in catchy tunes.
So, You Want to be Like Christ? (W, 2005) by Charles R. Swindoll is a guidebook to the Christ-like spiritual life God intends for His children. Out of religion and into holiness is the path Swindoll helps readers rediscover amid the weeds of human understanding.
The Pumpkin Gospel (Standard, 2005) by Mary Manz Simon is a children's book relating the gospel message using an annual holiday activity-pumpkin carving. A perfect resource for a simple gospel presentation for young elementary school students.
The Passion of Christ and the Purpose of Life (Crossway, 2005) by Adrian Rogers is a good book for people wanting to deepen their understanding of the gospel. Rogers asks some important questions about Christ's suffering, and helps readers see how this part of Christ's mission relates to history and people today. Good for believers or as a gift book for non-believers.
Truth Finders Game helps you learn scripture on your PC through an interactive CD featuring a multi-level game that teaches and tests your biblical knowledge. TruthFinders offers truth seekers of any age or level challenging questions that the Bible answers about life and faith.
To the Ends of the Earth (International Mission Board, 2005) by Jerry Rankin is a guide for understanding and following God's plan in praying for, going to and planting churches among peoples all over the earth.