MCALLEN—Texas Baptists and Buckner International delivered food and supplies to 300 Mexicans displaced Nov. 10 from their homes in a colonia south of Falcon Lake, an area controlled by drug cartels.

Officials asked the specific city not be named to help ensure the people in need will be able to get food without interruption. 

Earlier in the week, Buckner International staff members were contacted by a Mexican citizen and ministry partner living in a colonia that has been evacuated due to escalated violence.

Brian Hill (right), associate pastor of First Baptist Church in Levelland, fills a truck with supplies to go to a town in Mexico that is housing more than 300 people who fled their village due to violence committed by the drug cartels in the area. (PHOTO/Robert Rogers/Baylor University)

Another city near the evacuated town opened a shelter, providing a place of refuge for the group that includes 60 babies and 50 senior adults.

The group had to flee quickly from the area drug cartels. Many lacked adequate food, water and supplies. Buckner contacted the BGCT, asking for help in providing food, water, diapers and baby formula. 

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Calvary Baptist Church in McAllen, First Baptist Church in San Isidro, Conway Baptist Church in Mission and First Baptist Church in Levelland also committed to provide supplies after learning about the situation during the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting in McAllen.

Through their combined efforts, the groups will be able to provide more than $2,500 worth of supplies to the displaced violence victims.

“When we heard about wo-men and children being displaced, we felt like we needed to respond out of our Christian faith and love,” said Steve Vernon, BGCT associate executive director. “We just want to help those in need—the lost and the least of these.” 

The Baptist groups said they must help, knowing they are called to share hope to those who are hurting and helpless. 

“These people have essentially become refugees in their own country,” said a Buckner International staff member who asked not to be named for security reasons.

“These people have nothing. The last group was told to leave the town about 36 hours ago. We don’t know how long they will need help or if they will be able to ever move back to their city.”

With the money donated to the effort, Buckner and Texas Baptists were able to gather 500 pounds each of rice and beans; 36 boxes of lard; 34 cases of water; 2,250 diapers; 4,000 baby wipes; 12 large canisters of baby formula; 20 jugs of cooking oil; and 50 boxes of cereal. All of the gath-ered supplies were slated for delivery to the local international border bridge crossing near the relief shelter, an effort arranged by local Mexican officials and Buckner staff. 

In addition to providing supplies, Texas Baptist leaders urge Christ’s followers in Texas to pray for the situation taking place along the border.

After the initial food drop at the international bridge, Buckner Border Ministries and Texas Baptists will evaluate if more help is needed and will mobilize accordingly. 

There is no timeline for the refugee families to return to their city due to the violence. Texas Bap-tists and Buckner International are working on plans to give continued support and provide for the group’s immediate needs until the situation is resolved. 

MCALLEN—A group of Baptist women walked through a Rio Grande City neighborhood, praying for the families in each house they passed.

Students participate in a Valley Reach Youth regional rally in Donna.

As two of the women traveled the dusty streets praying, they stopped at a home to visit and discovered a family who hadn’t attended church in years. 

“The grandmother had gone to church and encouraged the kids to go, but they hadn’t gone, hadn’t done anything about it,” said Vanessa Quintanilla, mission group coordinator for River Ministry and local organizer of Valley Reach projects.

“When the ladies started sharing with them about God and how much he loves them, three young people accepted Christ.”

Similar stories of transformation through the love of Christ have been reported time after time since mid-August, when Texas Baptists and churches in the Rio Grande Valley launched Valley Reach—an effort to share the hope of Christ in the area leading up to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting.

Texas Baptist churches in the Rio Grande Valley sponsor a BMX bike high school outreach with Real Encounter in Santa Rosa. (PHOTO/Kaitlin Warrington)

By mid-November, more than 760 people made first-time commitments to Christ, and another 430 rededicated their lives to Christ. By the time Valley Reach ends in a couple of weeks, more than 48 projects and 82 churches will have been involved.

Jerry Johnson, interim director of missions for the Rio Grande Valley Baptist Association, said churches wanted to focus on older elementary students and youth, seeing that as a gateway to reaching non-Christian families. 

Many Valley Reach projects focused on students and families through block parties, skateboard competitions, Baptist Student Ministry events at two universities and distribution of the compact discs containing the Gospel of John in both English and Spanish. 

Primera Iglesia Bautista in Mission hosted a skateboarding competition featuring performers with Untitled Skateboard Ministry in Los Angeles. The skaters judged the competition and told their stories about being followers of Christ. For those who don’t skate, the church held a 3-on-3 basketball tournament and a Christian hip-hop concert. Through the effort, 16 students came to faith in Christ.

Students at UT-Brownsville use a “Tacos to Go” outreach event to share their faith and build relationships. (BGCT PHOTOS)

“The following week, we also had an overflow of what God did in the skate competition,” said Juan Contreras, the Primera Iglesia Bautista staff member who runs the skate park at the church. “We had an additional five kids make decisions for Christ on Wednesday night. I had one kid who we have worked with all year who hadn’t responded to us, and he made a decision that night.” 

At another skateboard outreach event sponsored by First Baptist Church in La Feria, 15 students came to Christ, and 10 rededicated their lives.

Gabriel de la Garza, owner of Jitterz Coffee Bar in Mission, hosted a Christian rock concert at his shop, giving the Christians and non-Christians in Mission a way to interact with each other.

Since August, churches have sponsored block parties most weekends in neighborhoods around the Valley. Through the block parties and other outreach efforts, more than 30,000 gospel CDs have been distributed to individuals or homes in the Valley. 

Members of Shiloh Terrace Baptist Church in Dallas work on a house during Valley Reach.

“This is what Valley Reach is all about—reaching the lost,” said Steve Martinez, pastor of the Church of Acts in Elsa. “So many times, we get stuck inside the church, inside the four walls. But it is time to reach the Valley for Jesus.” 

In addition to connecting to the community, several churches volunteered during a three-day prison ministry outreach hosted by Texas Baptists and Bill Glass Champion’s for Life. Through the effort, more than 540 men made decisions for Christ. 

“The majority of people are here in prison because of drug trafficking,” Martinez said.

“When you ask these people why they do what they do, they said they needed to support their family. Right now, the only way they felt able to provide with the financial crisis is to sell drugs. (Ministering like this) is another way that we need to go out and do.”

In the near future, Texas Baptist Men’s Inmate Discipler Fellowship will follow up, encouraging inmates and helping new believers grow in their faith.

Nine Venezuelan Baptists also came to Texas to help with Valley Reach and participate in the BGCT annual meeting. During their time in Texas, they will participate in CD distribution and block parties, teach in colonia churches and encourage church leaders in the area.  

“It’s part of the reciprocal nature of our partnership that has been established since the beginning,” said Steve Seaberry, director of Texas Partnerships office of Texas Baptists. “We have gone to help with evangelism outreach in Venezuela, and they are now coming to help us. Their time here is a blend of a introduction to Texas life and ministry, seeing ways they can help and be better advocates for Texas ministry when they return home.” 

Six Baptist Student Ministry campus missionaries from across the state came to the Valley to help with collegiate outreach efforts at the University of Texas-Brownsville and UT-Pan American.

At a free lunch at UT-Brownsville, the BSM group engaged more than 600 students on campus, sharing about Christ and giving away the gospel CDs. 

In the week after the annual meeting, the Baptist Student Ministry at UT-Pan American planned to offer a free fajita lunch and sponsor an apologetics dinner to open conversation on with non-Christians on campus. 

Real Encounter, a Christian BMX bike and skateboard team, will be in more than 16 public schools in the area hosting school assemblies and two evangelistic rallies.

Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville also planned to host Christmas in November, an effort to share food, clothing and the gospel CDs with people in need in their community. 

MCALLEN –As a part of a BGCT annual meeting workshop designed to help churches proclaim the words of Jesus Christ found in Acts 1:8, Joel Gregory, professor of preaching at Truett Seminary in Waco, demonstrated two ways in which this verse can be preached – the deductive method and the narrative method.

Gregory began with the deductive method. At the heart of any good sermon, he explained, is its ability to point to the large idea of the passage.

Joel Gregory

“How many times have you listened to the sermon and asked, ‘What is this about?’” he asked. “What you are looking for is a sense of unity.”

According to Gregory, the deductive method is the simplest way to make sure that unity is maintained. It is also the easiest way to ensure that the intended meaning of the author comes through in the sermon.

“We need to be about leading meaning out of the text instead of leading meaning into the text,” Gregory stated.

Therefore, good exegesis of the text is always necessary regardless of the method one chooses to deliver the sermon.

“If I bring any meaning and impose it on the text, then it is just that, an imposition,” he said.

While the deductive method of preaching is the easiest way to preserve the meaning and unity of the text, it has its weaknesses. First, the text of Scripture does not always come in neat packages that fit well within a three-point outline. Second, extreme deductive preaching tends to “bleed the story dry of its narrative.” Instead of capturing the excitement of a story, it whittles it down to succinct and sometimes boring points.

Third, deductive preaching is not people’s normal method of communicating with each other. According to Gregory, “We live in stories. You have your story. I have my story. We do not talk to each other in propositions; we talk in stories.”

The narrative method, therefore, best captures typical conversation and is sometimes a preferred means of hearing by congregations. Gregory listed out the various ways in which this narrative form can take shape. Some prefer to simple run the story of the text and “just tell it like it happened.”

Another method is the initial narrative, beginning with the biblical narrative and then going into the contemporary story. The postponed narrative flips this and begins with the story from today and then goes on to the story in Scripture.

A fourth approach, the intermittent narrative, interchanges two narratives, biblical and contemporary throughout the sermon. While each approach lends its benefits, Gregory demonstrated that through an intermittent narrative approach to Scripture, often the preacher can blend the best of the deductive and the best of the narrative.

Perhaps the biggest weakness of the narrative approach, Gregory suggested, is its reliance on the congregation to discover the main points themselves without having it told to them. In the narrative method, “I don’t really want you to know whether I said it or you thought it,” Gregory stated.

In this case, the sermon becomes provocative, but the unity of the sermon may be lost. “Some people have understood the narrative as a story—a text and that’s that,” Gregory admitted.

For himself, Gregory claimed to rely more on a deductive approach than narrative, but he suggested that each should study their congregations and determine what works best for them. For some it will be a sermon through a series of propositions, for others a story.

Association affirms six-day creation. Messengers to the Sabine Valley Baptist Association annual meeting at First Baptist Church in Newton adopted a resolution affirming “belief in the biblical account of creation, emphasizing the biblically established fact that Jehovah Elohim created everything out of nothing in six 24-hour days; that he created the first man, Adam, out of dirt, and then created the first woman, Eve, out of man; and that death did not enter any part of creation until Adam and Eve sinned.” The resolution particularly took exception to a passage by “one of our supposedly conservative professors” at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in The End of Christianity saying nature presents “strong evidence against” young-earth creation. It quotes in part a passage that states: “… once God breathes the breath of life into (man and woman), we may assume that the first humans experienced an amnesia of their former animal life.” The author of the book, William Dembski, is a philosophy professor at Southwestern Seminary and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle, and he is a leading proponent of Intelligent Design.

Texas Bar Exam no hurdle for Baylor Law School students. For the 14th time since 2001, Baylor Law School students claimed the top pass rate on the Texas State Bar Exam with 94.64 percent success rate, the highest pass rate for students from the nine Texas law schools. Of the 112 Baylor students who took the three-day exam in July, 106 passed on their first try. The overall state pass rate was 86.37 percent, with 1,470 successful candidates out of 1,702 who took the exam for the first time.

Texas Baptist Missions Foundation presents awards. At an awards luncheon held in conjunction with the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting, the Texas Baptist Missions Foundation honored three Christian leaders for their work in spreading the gospel in the Rio Grande Valley. Othal Brand Jr. of McAllen received the Adventurer Award for leadership in missions. Brand, a member of the executive council of Rio Grande Valley Baptist Association and supporter of the University of Texas-Pan American Baptist Student Ministries, serves as chairman of the board at the Valley Baptist Missions and Education Center. Jerry Johnson, who served more than 40 years as director of missions for Rio Grande Valley Baptist Association, received the Innovator Award for creativity in missions. Through his 10-week “Boot Camp,” he trained hundreds of student summer missionaries, many of whom would go on to full-time Christian service. Isaac Torres received the Pioneer Award for service in missions. For more than 40 years, he has taught countless evangelism seminars in English and Spanish, as well as working with River Ministry, Texas Baptist Men, Partnership Missions and Mission Service Corps.

• Ben Morris to Living Proof Church in Grandview as minister of music.

• Brandon Watson to Greenbrier Church in Alvarado as minister of youth.

• Contemporary Christian artist duo Shane & Shane will perform at Howard Payne University Nov. 30 as a part of their “Glory in the Highest” Christmas tour. The concert is open to the public and will begin at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10. For more information, call (325) 649-8009.

• High school seniors and college transfer students are invited to attend Shadow Day at East Texas Baptist University Dec. 2-3. The campus visit allows prospective students to spend the night in the dorm, socialize with students and visit with professors at breakfast and by attending classes. A $15 nonrefundable fee reserves registration for the event. For more information, call (800) 804-3828.

• Registration is under way for the “May by the Bay” adult retreat May 9-12 at Texas Baptist Encampment in Palacios. Russell Dilday will be the camp preacher. In addition to the Bible study, prayer, singing and fellowship, a Western-themed banquet will be held. To request registration information, call (361) 972-2717. In order to request the limited motel accomodations, registration must be postmarked by Jan. 7. Other housing includes RV slots and dormitory-style rooms.

• The Baylor University Graduate School, in cooperation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has launched the Texas Baptist Universities (TBU) Scholars program, an initiative designed to recruit top graduate student applicants from Texas Baptist universities for Baylor’s Ph.D. programs. Kim Bodenhamer, Hardin-Simmons University; Jessi Hampton, East Texas Baptist University; and Chelsea Ruiz, University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, are the inaugural participants. The TBU Scholars program was created to increase the number of Baptist-educated doctoral students staying in Texas Baptist universities; connect Texas Baptist universities by partnering in graduate education; retain bright doctoral students in Texas Baptist universities as students and, subsequently, as faculty; increase loyalty and involvement of Ph.D. graduates with the BGCT and Texas Baptist universities; and stem the "dying of the light" by providing a continued education for bright students in a Baptist university committed to its religious identity.

• Hardin-Simmons University will offer two new undergraduate degree programs next fall—public administration and nonprofit management.

Anniversaries

• West End Church in Beaumont, 50th, Dec. 12. Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, will be the featured speaker. A meal will follow the morning service. Jim Salles is pastor.

Death

• Bootsie Griffin, 84, Sept. 23 in Kilgore. She and her husband, James, were appointed as missionaries in 1975 by the Home Mission Board. She worked as a preschool specialist in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas and Texas. In 1987, they moved to Kilgore, where they were active members of First Church. They continued their mission work as Mission Service Corps volunteers and assisting bivocational ministers. She was preceded in death by her husband; son, James; granddaughter, Rhonda Griffin; sister, Dean Faircloth; and brother, Warren Faircloth. She is survived by daughter, Judy Perkins; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Events

• Dorcas Wills Memorial Church in Trinity will hold a mission banquet and auction Nov. 20. Twenty-one missionaries who have served or are serving around the globe will be in attendance. Tickets for the banquet and auction are $15. A table for eight people can be secured for a tax deductable donation of $250 or more. Auction items include antique furniture, a football signed by Roger Staubach and many other items. The church is seeking to earn $44,000 from this event—the cost of keeping a missionary in foreign service for a year. Missionaries also will speak in Sunday school classes the next morning. For reservations and tickets, call (936) 594-3822. Jason Burden is pastor.

• Dove Award nominee Miss Pattycake will be at The Heights Church in Richardson Dec. 2 for a “Happy Birthday Jesus” party featuring the The Heights Joyland and Child Development Center preschool children’s choirs. The one-hour concert will begin at 6:30 p.m. Admis-sion is one unwrapped toy ($20 value) or a $20 donation per family, benefitting the Three Trees Christmas benevolence ministry.

How much is a Bible website worth? A disgruntled investor has sued Bible.com, saying the website’s name alone should make it a “goldmine.” James Solakian filed suit against Bible.com, according to the Reuters news agency. He says the website should be worth as least as much as Dictionary.com, Reference.com and Thesaurus.com, which together sold for $100 million in 2007. R.S. “Bud” Miller, an Arizona pastor, registered the domain name in 1996 for $50, and Solakian acquired 28 percent of the company’s equity in 2001. According to the website, it draws more than 2 million visitors each month and is part of a nonprofit ministry that offers daily devotionals, Bible verses and biblical answers for hot topics.

Study notes fitness benefits of faith for black women. Adding faith to the exercise regimen of African-American women may prompt them to be more fit, a UCLA study shows. Researchers studying black women from three Los Angeles churches who participated in faith-based physical activity found the women increased their walking by about three miles per week. The study results, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, involved 62 women. All participated in exercises but some also listened to Scripture reading and participated in group prayer. Others, in a control group, listened instead to lectures on topics such as memory loss and identity theft. The women involved in the faith-based program increased their weekly steps by 78 percent, while those in the control group saw a 19 percent increase.

Most think sex offenders should be in pews. Nearly eight in 10 respondents who participated in a Christianity Today International survey said convicted sex offenders should be welcomed in church pews. The vast majority of survey participants agreed—so long as offenders who were released from prison were subject to appropriate limitations and kept under supervision. A significant majority—83 percent—said a demonstration of repentance is a key factor in shaping views about whether or not convicted offenders should be welcomed by a congregation. Two in three respondents said their views would depend on whether one or more of the victims of the offender attend the church. The survey was based on the responses of 2,864 people.

Americans want more forgiveness—theoretically. Most Americans want more forgiveness, but they are picky about choosing who to forgive, a new survey showed. Sixty-two percent of American adults said they need more forgiveness in their personal lives, and 94 percent wanted to see more forgiveness in the country, according to a study by the Michigan-based Fetzer Institute. More than half of Americans said there are situations where people never should be forgiven, including abuse, sexual crimes, murder and other intentionally committed crimes. The survey found a majority of Americans also believe forgiveness is conditional. Findings were based on an online survey taken Aug. 4-15 by 1,000 U.S. adults. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

—Compiled from Religion News Service

MCALLEN—According to reports from around the world, people are coming to faith in Christ at an amazing rate. For Jim Denison, this is proof that the Fifth Great Awakening is underway, but America could miss it.

Denison, theologian-in-residence at the Baptist General Convention of Texas and president of the Center for Informed Faith, believes the world is becoming more and more Christian on a daily basis.

Jim Denison

Estimates peg the growth at 82,000 believers per day, which Denison said is the largest number in 20 centuries.  He noted movements in Australia and in Central and South America, where Pentecostal/charismatic movements are springing up regularly, as more proof. Cuba has seen 1 million new Christians over the past 10 years, and God is working among Muslims in great ways, particularly through dreams and visions of Jesus, he said.

While the movements are different in some aspects, one thing is constant in the swell of enthusiasm for the gospel, Denison noted—It’s not happening in the United States.

“God is on the march. The Holy Spirit is on the move. We’re in what I believe is the Fifth Great Awakening in the world, but we’re not seeing it here,” said Denison, addressing a workshop session held during the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting in McAllen. The workshop addressed key elements of the great awakening occurring around the world and Denison’s view on how it came to be.

Denison believes the Fifth Great Awakening can be traced to South Korea in 1958, when the great devastation to the nation moved a pastor named Cho to start a church in a home. From that first gathering of seven, the church now has 1.2 million members, the largest evangelical church in history. South Korea now boasts five of the 10 largest churches in the world and sends more missionaries out than the United States. Denison noted a tailor in his Dallas neighborhood moved to the States to open her business and minister to customers through prayer, Bible verse cards and evangelism.

However, that awakening is not taking place in Western Europe and the United States. In Great Britain, for instance, four times as many Muslims go to mosque on Friday as Christians go to church on Sunday, Denison reported.

Only 23 percent of Americans are in church on Sundays, and the fastest growing religious demographic is the one that claims “no religion,” he said. The shift, he said, comes from the way Americans live.

“We live compartmentalized lives, with our spiritual life separate from our secular life. It’s like transactional religion; you do your part and God does his part,” he said. “Biblical Christianity is all in, 24/7.”

With the demographic shift in Texas, Denison said, churches have a unique opportunity to respond to a culture that embraces family, faith and connectedness if they will just do it. And while the spiritual state of America may look bleak, Denison said there is a solution.

“We most need to make God our king, not our hobby,” he said. “He is our king to the degree that your obeying his will. Wherever he is king, the awakening is happening.”

Kingship occurs when people first make Jesus their Lord and Savior, then admit that they need his power to accomplish anything, Denison said. When people submit to the Holy Spirit’s leading on a daily basis and keep in conversation with God, he truly is king of their lives, and they are able to live out the words of Acts 1:8, the theme verse for the convention.

“You will only make God your king when you realize you need a king,” Denison said. “We will never experience the Fifth Great Awakening in America until we pray, turn from our wicked ways and seek His face. When we do these things, we will … see the same things happening in South Korea, China, Africa and the rest of the world.”

McALLEN—At least three things set apart as distinctive the theology of hope Christians in the 21st century can offer the world—a crucified Christ, a cross-bearing church and a radical love-ethic, said Ellis Orozco, pastor of First Baptist Church in Richardson.

Orozco led a Bible study at the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting exploring the theological foundation for the Acts 1:8 call to bear witness of Christ locally, regionally and to farthest reaches of the globe.

Ellis Orozco

Orozco noted the context for the Acts 1:8 mandate, pointing to Jesus’ original audience as “a society that knew nothing but domination by a foreign power,” the Roman Empire. In the rigidly stratified social structure of his day, Jesus worked primarily among the peasantry and the outcast handicapped and unclean whom the ruling elite considered expendable, he noted.

“Jesus’ whole life was given over to ministry to the poorest of the poor,” Orozco said.

While Judaism in the first century was far from unified in many respects, its varied strains held two things in common, he noted—a strong spirit of nationalism and messianic expectation, understood in terms of liberation from Roman oppression.

Rapid expansion of the gospel in the first century was made possible by the Roman Empire’s unified language, common philosophy and culture,  the Pax Romana that guaranteed law and order, and a system of highways created to expedite Roman commerce.

“God prepared the way centuries before Jesus for the proliferation of the gospel of hope,” Orozco said.

Similarly, 21st century globalization has created an environment for spreading the Christian message of hope, he added. English—particularly as translated through computer translation systems—provides a common language, and the Enlightenment philosophy that helped shape American democracy and free-market capitalism have spread around the world.

Unfortunately, Orozco noted, some aspects of the worst aspects of the American dream—selfish consumption and rampant materialism—also have been exported globally. “We’re exporting gluttony instead of Christ,” he said.

Instead of spreading a “health and wealth heresy” or a “sanitized Christianity,” Orozco said, Christians in America have the opportunity to offer a real gospel centered on a crucified Savior and lived out by a cross-bearing church.

That will occur when Christians take seriously Christ’s radical love-ethic, as expressed in the command to love enemies, he said.

“That radical love-ethic is not optional. It’s a required course,” Orozco said.

When Christians demonstrate genuine love, it draws people to Christ he said.

“Jesus gave us the greatest evangelistic strategy imaginable—love each other.”

MCALLEN—A day after being elected president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Victor Rodriguez relinquished his role as president of the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas.

Rodriguez, the first person to be elected president of both conventions the same year, said he wanted to make the move quickly so the Hispanic Baptist Convention will know they have a president who is fully committed to leading the body.

Rodriguez will continue supporting the convention and working with it, he said, but Jesse Rincones, pastor of Alliance Church in Lubbock and first vice president of the Hispanic convention, will become president.

Victor Rodriguez

“I think Jesse Rincones, for him to take the leadership will be a blessing for the convention,” Rodriguez said.

Rincones praised Rodriguez’s leadership through the Hispanic convention’s recent 100th anniversary and looks forward to continue building the organization’s ministry.

“I’d like to thank Brother Victor for his service and his leadership through the centennial celebration of Convencion,” Rincones said. “He set a higher bar for the next 100 years.”

Rodriguez, pastor of South San Filadelfia Baptist Church in San Antonio, believes contemporary Texas Baptists are living through historic time as they come together across ethnic lines. The future is bright for the Hispanic Baptist Convention and the BGCT, he insisted.

“This is the uniting and coming together as a whole family,” he said.

Rodriguez is the second Hispanic elected BGCT president. Albert Reyes, president of Buckner International, was the first Hispanic BGCT president.

McALLEN—In the face of poverty and hunger, as well as changing state demographics, Texas Baptists might be inclined to shrink in fear from the task at hand. But Baptist General Convention of Texas President David Lowrie urged messengers to Texas Baptists’ annual meeting to remain strong and courageous as they follow Jesus’ strategy to reach a hurting state.

Using the passage in Luke 10 in which Jesus sends out workers into the fields, Lowrie encouraged Baptists not to miss the key elements of the work in the harvest, specifically that while Jesus asked the workers to pray for additional help, he also urged them to go.

David Lowrie, BGCT president

“Jesus gives us a practical expression of the strategy he might use to change our state and the world. The Lord appointed 72 others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go,” said Lowrie, pastor of First Baptist Church in El Paso.

“People question the whole concept of cooperation, but from the very earliest days of the movement of Jesus, he taught cooperation. If anyone could have done it by himself, it would have been Jesus. But he intentionally appointed them and gave them a task.”

The key element was being sent, Lowrie said, a concept many churches have lost as they follow the “If you build it, they will come” concept from the baseball film Field of Dreams.

“I would dare you to find in the strategy of Jesus one that says ‘sit and wait.’ We have to take the hope to them, so Jesus sent them out,” he noted. “Are we sitting there waiting for the world to come to us, or are we going to take Jesus at his word and be sent?”

Those Jesus sent were not the saviors but the advance team, those sent to share the message that the kingdom of God was at hand, Lowrie said.

Christians serve the same purpose. But when Jesus shows up in a community, lives are changed. Jesus also shared a clear vision in the Luke 10 passage, Lowrie said.

“When the harvest comes in, it’s a time of action. There’s an urgency about it,” he said. “Some would see Texas through dark eyes, saying this is difficult time and place to be. But it could be that Texas is as ripe as it’s ever been for spiritual awakening.”

Those difficult times include a high childhood hunger rate—Texas is the top state in the U.S. in that category—and a No. 1 ranking in adults working at minimum wage. Contrasted with the No. 1 state in which to run a business and the No. 1 state in wind power, Texas also has the lowest rate of high school graduation.

But Moses’ admonition to Joshua to “be strong and courageous for the Lord God is with you wherever you go” can be good advice for Texans as they face the daunting task of reaching one of the nation’s most populous states, Lowrie said. The key, he said, is for churches to cooperate, trust God fully and overcome obvious threats to both issues.

“We cannot let kingdom cooperation die on our watch. I don’t care what we call it; we have to keep doing it. We have to keep working together and stretching ourselves,” Lowrie said, noting that relational and financial issues threaten that cooperation often. “We have to lead with trust in the Lord and with each other. We have to lay aside preconceived notions about people and realize we have the same passions. It’s the enemy who draws these lines.

“The economy has been bad, and it’s often hard (for churches) to make ends meet. When money gets tight, (we are tempted to ask) do we keep the money at home to keep the lights on or continue to give to the convention to ministries. But what we do as a church teaches our people what we believe about God.”

Churches are tempted to forego support for convention entities and mission-sending agencies to fund their own hands-on ministry work, but he encouraged them to consider those two as not mutually exclusive.  Instead, churches should be involved in both efforts and trust God to provide and bless as they obey his commands to go.

Jesus “asks them to ask for more workers, but then go. Don’t wait for the reinforcements to come, just go and trust me,” he said. “Are we going to try and strategize or come to the place where we say, ‘We’re gonna go’ and say, ‘We believe you’re going to meet our needs.’ Let’s put our faith in Jesus and trust him. Could it be that Jesus is saying to all of us to be strong and courageous, because the Lord your God goes before you into the land?”

McALLEN—Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Director Randel Everett put a face on the convention’s new Hope 1:8 initiative in his address during the annual meeting in McAllen, encouraging churches to change their thinking in order to reach a changing state.

Everett introduced Keron Jackson, who described how he had been without family and homeless, eventually ending up in East Texas, living in his car. A friend told him about Panola Junior College, but he had little interest in school. Once he learned the school had a cafeteria, his interest grew.

Randel Everett

Then he found a couple of friends—one who let him move into his home until the dorms opened and the other who gave him a job mowing lawns and invited him to attend Central Baptist Church in Carthage.

“I had blamed God for everything in my life, for losing my parents, for being abused. I did not want to have anything to do with God,” he said.
“I was adopted by Sunday school class 23 as a ‘project,’ and I went from having no family to having these 20 sets of people caring about me. These people began to make up the face of Jesus for me.”

Once Jackson began attending the church and reading the Bible, he said, he realized salvation in Christ was key, and his life was changed.

“The problems we face are not bigger than the God we serve. Even when I hated God, he still had a plan for my life,” he said.

Jackson’s situation was not as rare as it may seem, Everett said.

“Not all of us have been like Keron and have been homeless, not all of us have lost their family; not all of us have had a friend murdered,” he said. “But all of us had to be rescued by the power of the Holy Spirit. All of us live hopeless, destructive lives unless God rescues us through the hope of Christ. It’s through God’s church that this word of hope is going to be announced.”

Through the most recent BGCT emphasis, Texas Hope 2010, Texas Baptists succeeded in spreading the gospel to many in the state, but much work remains, he said. Everett introduced the Hope 1:8 emphasis, based on the passage in Acts 1:8: “And you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”

Every believer and congregation has to determine what his or her “Judea” and “Samaria” is, whether a geographic area or affinity groups, Everett said. Texas Baptist churches should consider the makeup of Texas now compared to what it is projected to look like in 2018.

Looking at the Acts 1:8 imperative and the prospects of a more secular Texas in 2018  will shape what the state’s Baptist churches and institutions look like to a large degree as they attempt to respond, Everett said.

Massive population growth and demographic shifts lead to the logical conclusion that more churches are needed, but Everett said the cost involved in building facilities and other resources is simply out of reach. Instead, he suggested, looking at new mission models.

“Our state is increasingly becoming more secular and isolated and ignorant of the hope that is within all of us,” Everett said, noting that the church plants would have to multiply four-fold just to keep up with population growth from 10 years ago.

“Are there other models where one building might house multiple congregations, worshipping in multiple languages and multiple styles? Could our institutions be housing churches? Who are we training that can be leaders and pastors? If we’re going to reach Texans for Christ, we’re going to need a new paradigm.”

Part of that paradigm shift needs to include a close examination of where churches are spending their dollars, Everett said, given the struggle currently felt to support the Baptist missionaries around the world. Partnering with Baptists around the world, mission-sending agencies and international seminaries that are training local believers is another area Everett encouraged churches to consider. But individuals also must accept responsibility.

“It will take us all to realize that we’re all called to missions,” he said. “What if you trained your workforce to be missionaries for Christ so that as they are scattered around the world doing your work, they also go to share the hope of Christ? What if when you shipped our materials, you included a place for medical supplies to the world in need?

“It wasn’t preachers that were scattered around the world in Acts 1:8. It was everyday people who went out wherever they were sharing about Christ. Churches are talking about how hard it is in an evil world and tragic economic times and how difficult it is to live for Jesus in a pagan world. But we need to stand strong. … It will take all of us.”