I read a quote today that caught my attention from a December incident:

“It was a trivial problem that…occurs every year…No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God,” stated Palestinian Police Lt. Col. Khaled al-Tamimi about the December 28 Christmas fight that broke out among several dozen Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests cleaning the Church of the Nativity.

Sounds almost like a Baptist business meeting…just kidding.  But, I found it difficult to determine if laughing or crying would be the right response…until my eyes were drawn to the words “men of God.”  It hit me again; how sometimes as Believers we forget in our human disagreements that a world is watching, and our behavior not only reflects on us…it also reflects on God. I wonder if at times we may be a greater witness to an unbelieving world on how we respond to one another in our times of disagreement than when we easily agree.  Can we create barriers to fulfilling the Great Commission in how we react to one another in times of disagreement?

What would an unbeliever write about us as Kentucky Baptists if they observed us as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission together?  After all, sometimes I feel strongly about Kingdom directions that differ with some of my brothers and sisters of the faith. What a tragedy, if in those times of disagreement an unbeliever might write, “It was just another one of those Baptists’ meetings…really rather trivial…they do it all the time…but we don’t arrest them despite their fighting because they are people of God.”

Should Christians be able to disagree without being disagreeable?  Just something for us to think about…as a world watches.

It’s good to be reminded of what our work is really all about. Here’s the baptism testimony of a young man who came to Christ, in part through the ministry of Baptist Campus Ministry at Kentucky State University.

The Point Community Church is a Kentucky Baptist Conventon church that is part of Franklin Baptist Association.

The apostle Paul made an impact on an escaped criminal’s life by the name of Onesimus.  Paul then urged Philemon to accept Onesimus as a Brother in Christ and to come alongside him upon his return home.  The apostle wrote:

“I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains.  Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and me.”   (Philemon 1:10-11 )

Satan continues to shackle untold multitudes.  Consider these facts:

• In the United States, approximately 1600 people will leave state and federal prisons each day according to correctional data.
• Nearly two out of three will return to the greater Louisville area in Kentucky.
• More than four out of ten of these released will be back in the prison system within three years.
• Less than one out of five of these being released will have participated in any kind of pre-release program that prepares them to re-enter society.
• Almost all prisoners eventually get out.
• Children of prisoners are seven times more likely to end up in a state correctional institution.
• Children of prisoners are nine times more likely to drop out of school and ten times more likely to abuse chemical substances.

Tragically, this vicious cycle repeats itself day after day all across Kentucky. It touches the families and neighbors of Kentucky Baptist churches from Ashland to Paducah as the Enemy continues to destroy lives. 

But, there is good news; God is stirring a life-changing ministry inside the fences of correctional institutions in Kentucky and opening doors in other correctional facilities through the Malachi Dad and Rubies For Life Programs.  These relational Discipleship/Mentoring programs are transforming the lives of prisoners and their families by helping them to enter a relationship with Jesus Christ. The ultimate goal of the programs is  to enable men and women to live transformed lives.  Through the Kentucky Baptist R-6 Mentoring program this life transformation continues upon release from prison.

Listen to one testimony from a graduate of the Rubies For Life Program:

“I have struggled a lot with guilt – guilt over crime…guilt over not being a mother to my son…guilt for breaking my parent’s heart.  How could a perfect and judgemental God love me? I can’t forgive myself… All my life I knew about God…but I didn’t know God. Through Rubies I have come to know who God really is-He’s my loving father and I am important to Him.  He does forgive me and remembers my sin no more….I am a better Mom, a better daughter..I see things now.  I’m a Ruby!”

God is changing lives, but the workers are few.  There is a great need for volunteers or churches that would be willing to break the cycle by serving as a leader, team member, or mentor in the Malachi Dads, Rubies For Life, or R-6 Mentoring Program.  Is God calling you?  Would you make a difference for Christ’s sake for a forgotten Onesimus today?

Contact the R-6 Mentoring Program at the Baptist Men on Mission Department  at (502) 489-3527 or randy.foster@kybaptist.org, and allow God to use you to become a Paul to a forgotten Onesimus. 

The R-6 Mentoring Program is a work of the Kentucky Baptist Convention and supported by gifts to the Cooperative Program and the Eliza Broadus Offering for State Missions.

Here’s a great feature story about a Kentucky missionary. By the way, the story was written by another Kentucky missionary, Shirley Cox, a Mission Service Corps missionary.

Pastor’s Widow Starts Ministry to Internationals

GEORGETOWN –While some Kentuckians perhaps were viewing the influx of Hispanics with a wary eye in the 1990s, Garnett Jones placed a large sign beside the front door of her white frame house in Georgetown that read, “bienvenidos, amigos.”

“Welcome, friends.”

That welcoming spirit continues today.

In 2010, the Hispanic ministry that originally began in her home involved 18 different nationalities, including immigrants from Ethiopia, India, Jordan, Ghana and refugees from the Congo.

“Congolese refugees who come to the U.S. may have a university degree from South Africa, but they have never used an ATM or had a bank account,” Jones said. “I take them shopping, teach them to drive and loan my car for driver’s tests.”

Jones said she first heard God’s call to missions at age 16. She and her husband, Clarence, a pastor, worked in ministries ranging from inner city to Appalachia. “I loved being a pastor’s wife,” she said.

After 36 years of marriage, Clarence died suddenly, leaving Garnett alone.

“Lord, you know me better than I know myself,” she prayed. “Please help me find something to do.”

She was not prepared for the answer. “God moved me to study Spanish at age 67.”

The following summer, Jones went on a mission trip to Ecuador. After she came home, she began working with a Hispanic ministry. The next summer, she returned to Ecuador to study Spanish with a private tutor and at a language institute. Later, she worked as a teaching assistant to Hispanics in Dry Ridge, and taught English to Hondurans in Cincinnati.

The third summer Garnett went to Ecuador to work in a medical clinic, she was injured when she fell down a mountain.

“They used two tree trunks and horse blankets to make a stretcher to carry me up the mountain,” she said. Following surgery, however, she developed complications. “A doctor said my leg was so badly injured that amputation might be the only solution.”

When the Hispanic community back in Williamstown heard about her accident, they prayed aloud over and over, “Let Garnett’s antibiotics start working.”

And her leg began to heal.

After Jones was well enough to return to Kentucky, she became a Mission Service Corps missionary. Gradually, her home in Georgetown developed into a school and social center for Hispanics.

“The Hispanic women brought their children and we studied English in the kitchen” she said. In the evening, she taught classes for the men and women who worked outside the home.

Her home also became a place where her Hispanic friends could invite loved ones for birthday parties and other special occasions.

Eager to serve, Jones approached internationals in grocery stores or Walmart, asking whether they spoke English and inviting them to her classes.

“In 14 years, I never had an international that was not receptive,” she said.

She has found students in other unusual places. Once, while Jones was posting a notice for English classes for Hispanics, a motel owner asked her, “What agency do you work for? Who pays you?”

“I work for the Lord,” she answered. The man asked Jones to teach English to his 60-year-old wife, a Pakistani, who could not converse with anyone.

“It was so neat to see how the Hispanic women welcomed her,” Jones recalled.

She also enrolled several Chinese students the day she went to a local Chinese restaurant to post a bulletin for Hispanics.

A certified instructor for English as a Second Language, Jones teaches three evenings a week for the local school district and every Wednesday at Georgetown Baptist Church.

The Woman’s Missionary Union of Georgetown Baptist purchases materials and provides other support for the Wednesday classes.

Jones has become an advocate for internationals. She contacts lawyers, helps with legal papers, provides information about immigration laws, attends court hearings and helps obtain visas.

“I recorded 100 questions and answers on CDs to study for citizenship,” she said. “The internationals know enough to converse but these words are unfamiliar.” She also interprets at doctor and dentist offices and provides comfort and reassurance.

On Sunday evening, Jones teaches 14 children at Iglesia Bautista Ebenezer, a Hispanic church she helped plant that meets in the basement of Gano Baptist. “We began the church with two people and now we have 40 to 50,” she said.

With the help of a businessman, she founded the Georgetown/Scott County Hispanic Initiative, an organization of local citizens and community leaders that addresses issues related to the Hispanic community. Currently, she serves as president.

Jones doesn’t seem to be thinking of slowing down anytime soon.

“I don’t see anything in the Bible that we are supposed to retire,” she said. “Jesus was compassionate about people’s needs. There are people all around us who are hurting.”

Mission Service Corps is a North American network of self-funded servants who assist state/regional Baptist conventions, local Baptist associations, and individual congregations and ministries.

Learn more about Mission Service Corps at www.kybaptist.org/msc or contact Teresa Parrett, missions mobilization coordinator for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, by e-mail at teresa.parrett@kybaptist.org or by phone (606) 875-3079 or (866) 489-3530 (toll-free in Kentucky).

Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers Howard Edwards and Jeff Peters responding to survivors of 2011 Alabama tornadoes.

Believers often ask in Disaster Relief, “Why do I have to go through training to serve as a disaster relief volunteer?  Why can’t I just go help people?”

Preparation is important in any area of ministry as it enables us to be more effective as we seek to be used by God to reach or minister to others.  The wisdom writer in Ecclesiastes 10:10 declared, “If the ax is dull, and one does not sharpen the edge, then he must use more strength, but wisdom brings success.”  Preparing the edge by sharpening the blade will enable the tool to be more effective, just as training helps believers to serve more effectively in response to the survivors of disasters.  Through your gifts to the Cooperative Program, the Kentucky Baptist Convention is able to provide training in disaster relief that prepares Kentucky Baptists to be ready to serve in positive and effective ways during times of disaster.

Top Ten Reasons to Be Trained:

1. Training prepares us in our understanding of disasters and the needs that arise in times of disaster.
2. Training enables us  to respond in appropriate and effective ways in times of disaster.
3. Training prepares us to understand our role as part of a disaster team.
4. Training enables us to sharpen our abilities to be most effective as we serve, in order to be an asset not a hindrance in the response.
5. Training helps us to understand hazards and safety concerns in disaster areas.
6. Training prepares us to understand in a deeper way some of the trauma of disaster victims that we might be able to offer appropriate compassion.
7. Training prepares the heart for ministry by increasing awareness of the need and different opportunities to minister.
8. Training prepares the hands to be ready to serve effectively.
9. Training prepares the head by giving knowledge to increase effectiveness.
10. But the greatest reason to train is that God deserves our very best in all that we do and to achieve the best requires discipline, effort, and knowledge. Trainings are an opportunity to grow as Believers so that when God calls we are ready.

Several years ago, there was a popular commercial that showed a man preparing to do surgery when all begin to realize that perhaps he is not up to the task.  The man’s response to their concern was “I may not be a doctor, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”  I cannot answer for you, but I really do not want that man doing surgery on me.  And yet, sometimes we are that way when it comes to ministry.  Hey, I am not really prepared to minister to you, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

Disasters will come.  So let me encourage, be prepared to serve by being trained.  Victims deserve that.  Other disaster workers deserve that.  But most of all, our God deserves that!

Click here for upcoming Disaster Relief Training Events

Church planting is one of the most sacrificial things a church can do to fulfill the Great Commission. As congregations give up very tangible assets — budget, people, resources — in order to equip the establishment of a new church they send an important message about what is truly important. Here’s a great story about an inspired congregation!

Established Congregations Become Inspired Planters

Oakland Baptist Church

BOWLING GREEN – During a 2008 interview with a representative from the North American Mission Board, Pastor Tim Colovos said he felt very positive as he recounted the ministry of his Bowling Green-area church.

That is, until the man asked how many churches Oakland Baptist had planted.

“That question convicted me,” Colovos said. “I had to say ‘none’—and we were 100 years old. On the way back to church, God began to break my heart.”

In response, Oakland Baptist held extensive discussions and formed a committee to investigate starting a new church. That led to last fall’s launch of Community Church at Cedar Springs.

Community Church’s pastor, Graham Lewis, was a member of the church-planting committee. Among other support, Oakland Baptist provided the new congregation with a building and assistance in renovating it.

The $60,000 for the purchase came from a $500,000 building fund dedicated to a new Christian life center at Oakland.

“God convicted our heart,” Colovos said. “Since we gave that money, so far we’ve done $800,000 of construction and haven’t had to draw one penny from the bank. What seemed to be a deduction has turned out to be an addition.”

Such stirring stories show the value of church planting, said Larry Baker, leader of the Kentucky Baptist Convention Missions Growth Team.

However, he cautions that it requires planning and commitment.

“Church planting is messy,” Baker said. “It’s hard work.”

But, Baker added, established churches that perhaps are not ready to plant a congregation can seek out new works in their community and assist those budding congregations in a variety of ways.

“I would hope more of our churches and pastors would look at church planters in their area and look for ways to encourage them,” Baker said.

Spiritual and financial encouragement has been the key to a stellar church-planting record in Kentucky. In recent years, Kentucky Baptists have seen a 90 percent success rate with church plants, compared to a 68 percent ratio nationwide.

In 2009, Kentucky Baptists started 47 new churches. That number increased to 52 in 2010.

Baker said the 2011 total is 28, because of the ongoing sluggishness of the economy, and because Kentucky Baptists planted several Hispanic churches in a brief period of time.

The KBC does “a real good job vetting the church planters,” Baker said. “In most cases where there is a church planter, the local association is involved. I don’t know that every (state) has that kind of support.”

Now averaging 65 to 70 on a Sunday, the boost that Community Church received from the KBC and Oakland Baptist has been invaluable, Lewis said.

“It has been a tremendous relief (for) us, that we didn’t have to fight and struggle with finances,” said Lewis, who baptized 16 converts the first year. “It’s been a godsend to allow us to get on our own feet. In the next few months we expect to be a stand-alone church.”

Church planter Sellers Johnson has enjoyed a similar experience in the south central Kentucky town of Glasgow after starting Community For Christ with help from Coral Hill Baptist and the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

Formerly a pastor in Cleveland, Ohio, Johnson got to know Glasgow during a two-year ministry partnership that Victory Baptist Church of Cleveland had with Coral Hill.

First appointed as a church planter to Cleveland by the North American Mission Board, Johnson moved to Glasgow to help start a congregation for the African-American community.

After doing prayerwalking and survey work two years ago, Community For Christ began weekly Bible studies in a community center.

Now a multi-cultural church, it meets in an old storefront about a mile from downtown. In mid-October it moved its Tuesday youth Bible study to 11:30 a.m. on Sunday so young people can join adults at the 1 p.m. worship service.

Although averaging 20 to 30 for Sunday services, Johnson said 70 people accepted Christ as Savior last year because of the new church’s outreach. He credits Coral Hill with making that possible.

“Without their help we probably wouldn’t be in the building we’re in and we probably wouldn’t be as far along as we are,” the pastor said. “It’s truly important to the work being done.”

This is the second plant for Coral Hill Baptist. About three years ago it formed an 18-month-long partnership with River Pointe in Munfordville, a KBC High Impact church that received financial assistance and other support from the convention.
Coral Hill’s pastor, Ray Woodie, traces the congregation’s participation in planting to a mission trip several years ago to North Carolina. As people returned from that and other trips, he said it stimulated additional interest in missions, with two families later becoming international missionaries.

“It helped us see that missions was more than a name in a prayer book,” the pastor said. “Several people saw that they could go across the street or across the county. They realized that God had a greater purpose for them.”

In addition, local church planting helped Coral Hill Baptist redefine success.
They realized that a church’s purpose is not defined by how many people are coming to services, but how many are going out to serve, Woodie said.

“And if that’s the measure of success, then any church can be successful,” he added.
Colovos agrees that the benefits of church planting go far beyond the numbers.

Not only did helping start Community Church excite the members, Oakland Baptist is seeing doors open that could lead to planting a second church in another area of Edmonson County.

“It has awakened each of us,” said Colovos, who recommends every KBC congregation consider sponsoring a church plant. “It couldn’t be going any better.”

For information about church planting, contact KBC by e-mail at newwork@kybaptist.org or by phone at (502) 489-3528 or (866) 489-3528 (toll-free in Kentucky).

By the way, the Kentucky Baptist Convention is hosting the Basic Training Journey for Church Planting, Feb. 9-11 at the Kentucky Baptist Building in Louisville. Registration is still open at www.kybaptist.org/basictraining.

A Haitian brother and sister ministered to by a Kentucky Baptist medical missions team after the quake.

Thursday, January 12 marks the second anniversary of the earthquake that rocked the tiny island home of Haiti. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake left over a million people homeless and 230,000 dead as the violent vibrations crumbled a nation. Southern Baptist volunteers rushed to Haiti to provide medical care, clean water, food, and spiritual hope. Homes were assessed and Chaplains shared the love of Christ. Demolition teams cleared away rubble and construction volunteers began building homes that continues even today.

Kentucky Baptists were a significant part of this response to the people of Haiti. Kentucky Baptists gave over $641,000 for relief aid, almost 10,000 Buckets of Hope filled with much needed food, and sent over 28 disaster relief, medical, and rebuild teams as we rushed to the aid of a hurting people. The lasting legacy of this effort is that 2800 new homes were built by Baptists and Haitians through the “Rebuild Haiti” project, an orphanage is being constructed, over 150, 000 professions of faith were recorded by Haitian pastors and disaster relief volunteers, over 71 new churches were planted in areas where Kentucky Baptists served, and the light of Christ was ignited in a land that had long been covered in darkness.

This effort would not have been possible without Kentucky Baptists commitment to the Great Commission that is demonstrated through their gifts to the Cooperative Program and our special mission offerings. This commitment that supports ministries like Disaster Relief through our Kentucky Baptist Convention was the springboard for this Kingdom effort and enables us to be ready to respond when disasters strike.

There is approaching a day when we will stand before our Lord and we as Kentucky Baptists will give an account of what we did in Haiti. On that great day, I believe we will hear:

“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or without clothes and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and visit You?’

“And the King will answer them, ‘I assure you: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.” (Matthew 25:37-40)

Kentucky Baptists answering the call to “Go” for His sake.

Kentucky Baptists are reaching out in all kinds of ways to share God’s love. Check out this great story about how crisis pregnancy centers are reaching out to women and families to help them find hope and healing:

Pregnancy Care Centers Save Lives, Change Lives

PIKEVILLE – When Lisa Welch* began volunteering at the Appalachian Pregnancy Care Center, she had no idea that one day she would find herself relying on the center’s support during a crisis of her own.

At the time, Welch was teaching abstinence throughout the community. Her husband served as a supply preacher for local churches, and their family was actively involved at their home church. Yet in 2008, Welch learned that her 15-year-old daughter, Katie, was pregnant.

Though she tried to remain strong for her daughter, Welch said she was struggling and turned to the center for help. Over the coming months, counselors guided Welch and her family through the difficult journey of an unplanned pregnancy.

On Jan. 15, Kentucky Baptists will observe Sanctity of Human Life Sunday by focusing on life issues, as well as the critical role played by pregnancy centers such as Appalachian Pregnancy Care Center in helping women choose life.

“It was like God sent the pregnancy center just for me,” Welch said. “We were in the ministry, I taught abstinence, and then my own daughter was pregnant. I was in shock. I knew I needed good, strong, Biblical advice.”

According to Welch, the center encouraged Katie to stay in school and helped her complete her high school diploma. The center also counseled Katie’s boyfriend, who “didn’t grow up with a father figure and needed guidance on how to be a dad,” Welch said.

Three months after the birth of their baby girl, Katie married her boyfriend. Welch continues to serve as a volunteer at the center and will be hired on full-time there in May.

According to Kay Hammond, director of Appalachian Pregnancy Care Center, more than 1,000 clients have been served through the ministry since it opened in 2007.

Appalachian Pregnancy Care Center is just one of 52 centers across Kentucky that relate to the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

According to Eric Allen, KBC director of mission service and ministries, the KBC supports these centers by raising awareness of their ministries, encouraging church partnerships, providing grants to the centers, enlisting volunteer teams to help with maintenance and repair, and praying for their work.

“Many organizations promote abortion. The church has a responsibility to promote and take a stand for life that God has created,” Allen said.

In 2011 alone, an estimated 3,367 abortions were performed through November at the EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville, according to statistics provided by Right to Life of Louisville.

Allen encourages churches to actively support pregnancy care centers as a way to demonstrate their commitment to life. Sanctity of Human Life Sunday also provides an opportunity for churches to teach what the Bible says about life issues, he said.

“It’s easy to condemn abortion, but my prayer is that Kentucky Baptists will put forth an even greater effort by partnering with local pregnancy care centers that are showing the love of Christ through their ministry to women in need.”

Pregnancy care centers play an especially critical role in the lives of clients who are “abortion-minded” when they first enter the clinic. Marie Thomas* is just one of the many women who have been helped by the intervention of counselors prior to an abortion.

Not long after finding out she was pregnant with her boyfriend’s child, fear and shame motivated Thomas to seek an abortion. She already had two children from a previous marriage, and her boyfriend felt unprepared to father a child.

Thomas soon learned about A Loving Choice Pregnancy Center in Shelbyville, walked inside, and immediately asked the volunteers to help her find a place that would perform an abortion.

After several conversations with a counselor, Thomas decided to keep her child and gave birth in 2009 to a baby boy. Just before the birth, Thomas married her boyfriend.

“I don’t even believe in abortion, but sometimes you get desperate,” said Thomas, who was active in church at the time and was afraid of what people would think. “I felt like I had to do that at the time. The counselors helped me think and calm down, and they prayed with me.”

Thomas is grateful for the ministry of A Loving Choice and believes “it’s really important work because women need that kind of support. They let you know it’s going to be okay.”

Director Jan Antos said more than 900 clients have been served by the center since its inception in 2006, and the lives of at least 10 babies saved since that time.

For more information about partnering with a pregnancy care center, visit www.kybaptist.org/pregnancycare, or contact the KBC’s Mission Service and Ministry Department at (502) 489-3530 or (866) 489-3530 or by email at ministries@kybaptist.org.

*Note: Lisa Welch, Katie Welch and Marie Thomas are pseudonyms used to protect the privacy of the individuals referenced in this story.

Make a resolution this year to pray regularly for Kentucky missionaries! Please download this interSEED calendar as a helpful tool to help you remember to pray for them on their birthdays.

You can also watch this page or the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s Facebook page and Twitter feed to find out when each month’s page is available.

We hope interSEED will help cultivate a renewed environment of prayer in Kentucky Baptist life.

Questions? Contact the KBC Mission Service and Ministries Department by e-mail at ministries@kybaptist.org or by phone at (502) 489-3530 or (502) 489-3530.