THE FUTURE COURSE OF THE SBC

The Southern Baptist Convention recently held in San Antonio, TX had one significant motion that may affect SBC practice and policy for years to come. The motion was made by Rick Garner, messenger from Liberty Heights Baptist Church in Liberty Heights, Ohio and read “I move that this convention adopts the statement of the Executive Committee issued in February of this year, and included in the Executive ‘s report found in the 2007 Book of Reports, Page 17, which reads ‘The Baptist Faith and Message is neither a creed, nor a complete statement of our faith, nor final and infallible; nevertheless, we further acknowledge that it is the only consensus statement of doctrinal beliefs approved by the Southern Baptist Convention and such is sufficient in its current form to guide trustees in their establishment of policies and practices of entities of the Convention.’”

For those who have not been closely following convention politics for the last couple of years, some history is needed to fully understand the significance of this motion. As I briefly recap the historical setting I understand that my personal prejudices will color my interpretation of events.  That is the price of being human.

In 1979 the conservative resurgence began in earnest. Some of the young (40’ish) conservative leaders led a movement to redirect the SBC on a more conservative path. Over a period of years a new generation of leaders took control of the convention and the Baptist Faith and Message (BFM) statement of 2000 was their theological capstone.

Gradually employees of convention entities were asked to sign the BFM. A number of missionaries and seminary professors resigned rather than sign. Some felt we had adopted a creedal statement and they were opposed to any creed other than the Bible. Others had objections to some part of the statement. However the BFM has now been accepted as the “only consensus statement of doctrinal beliefs approved by the Southern Baptist Convention.” As such most denominational employees are required to sign it as a statement of their beliefs.

Some of the SBC entities recently began requiring agreement to additional theological beliefs or practices that have not been approved by the Southern Baptist Convention. Among these are the International Mission Board (IMB), North American Mission Board (NAMB) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS).

In November of 2005 the Board of Trustees of the IMB voted that future missionaries would not be appointed if they practiced a private prayer language of if they had not been baptized by proper church authority. This set off a firestorm of protest. The board voted to ask the SBC to dismiss one of the protesting trustees and later rescinded that vote because of pressure put on the board from around the SBC.

For the past year and a half resistance to what has been called “a narrowing of the theological parameters” of the convention has been building. Last year the convention surprisingly elected someone who was not backed by the group of leaders that has for thirty years directed the convention. A group of younger leaders who are set on reform backed Frank Page and he was elected on the first ballot.

The fight is not now over theology. Conservativism won the battle with the BFM 2000. Now the battle is over whether or not the BFM is a sufficient guide for our agencies in setting polices and practices. Some of those who now hold the reigns of power at these institutions believe they have responsibility to further define who can serve Southern Baptists through these institutions. Their position is that the BFM is a “sufficient” guide but not the only guide. Most of those who backed the above motion feel that if an agency of the SBC wants to define theologically who can serve in that agency beyond the BFM they must bring the additional theological statements to the SBC for approval. Both sides feel that theirs is a correct interpretation of the motion.

I am sure that next year someone will seek to clarify the intent of the motion. The new motion will probably be to require the agencies of the SBC to restrict their theological requirements for service to the BFM unless otherwise pre-approved by the convention. It will probably require all SBC agencies to bring to the convention for approval all such statements already in use.

If I may prophesy a little more, the battle will continue at least for a while. Those who have recently controlled the direction of the convention insisted that all SBC agencies be solely owned by the convention. This helped them maintain control over the agencies. They are now arguing that the trustees independently operate the agencies (which is true). I’m sure the reformers will argue that the agencies are solely owned by the SBC (which is true) and therefore the SBC can instruct them to change their policies.

I believe the outcome will be that those who led the conservative resurgence and are now fighting to hold on to their influence are going to lose. A new group of younger leaders are getting ready to take over the reigns of leadership. They will be conservative but more inclusive. They will not insist on complete theological agreement in order to work with someone for the evangelization of the lost.

The ramifications of such a change in leadership are many and significant. It will affect our missions programs and our seminaries as well as most of our other agencies. What do you think?

Accountable Christians

When I was a student pastor in seminary, I read through the minutes of the country church I pastored. A couple of things caught my eye. In the mid 1800s the church paid the pastor with a bushel of potatoes and two gallons of whiskey. Wow! It must not have been a Southern Baptist Church at that time.

The second thing that caught my eye was the practice of church discipline. I remember reading of one gentleman who was caught drunk and using bad language. He was brought before the congregation in their monthly Saturday business meeting, charged with his sins and “churched”. That means he was voted out of the membership.

Three months later he came back before the congregation, publicly repented of his sins and gave evidence of his reformation. The church forgave him and reinstated his membership in the church.

We don’t practice church discipline any more in a public fashion and it is my impression that few churches have any means of practicing church discipline privately. As pastor of a church I once became aware of a male member making inappropriate remarks to a female staff member. I took two deacons with me and confronted the man with his sin. He immediately confessed and agreed to apologize to the staff member and also promised never to do such a thing again. Later he came to me and thanked me for handling the situation as we did. As far as I know he never repeated his sin.

There are a number of people in the convention today who are concerned that our life styles as Christians are hurting our ability to reach the lost with the Gospel. They refer to the declining number of baptism and the fact that surveys show that Southern Baptists have a life style similar to the lost world. In fact some surveys have shown that in spite of our proclaimed family values, Southern Baptist divorce rates exceed the general population.

Do we need to do more as churches to uphold our stated values in the lives of our members? Should churches have minimum standards of behavior to which they hold their members accountable? Is it important to expect certain levels of moral behavior from our members? How should we enforce accountability to the church? Are there certain sins in the lives of it members with which a church should always deal? Should members be held accountable for attendance, giving and otherwise participating in the work of the church?

What do you think?

God’s Call to …

All of those involved in ministry (should be all Christians) know the importance of being called by God. We often speak of being called to a church or being called as a pastor, deacon, teacher, etc. We know from experience that an assurance of our calling is sometimes the only thing that keeps us going.

Reading Ed Stetzer’s book Breaking the Missional Code helped me gain a new insight on our calling from God. Always the source of our calling must be God. It is he who calls us. Through the Holy Spirit we are gifted for ministry. Through the lordship of Jesus Christ we are directed to our ministry. Through God the Father we are empowered for our ministry (See 1 Cor. 12:4-6).

But under the lordship of Christ, what do we understand as the object of our calling? Are we called to a church, or to a position of ministry (pastor, deacon, etc.) or as Stetzer suggests, are we called to a people? Our sense of calling will greatly affect how we seek to fulfill our calling.

If our primary sense of calling is to a particular church then to be successful we can be tempted to be competitive rather than cooperative and can be tempted to seek out programs and methods rather than seeking out an intimate relationship with the Father. If our primary sense of calling is to a position then to be successful we can be tempted to depend upon skills and techniques rather than upon God’s enabling.

Our primary call is to an intimate relationship with the Father. It is out of the intimacy of that relationship that he will begin to reveal his plan for our ministry. Yes, we serve in a ministry role through a local church. But, do we serve the institution, the members or are we called to serve the community?

Scripture tells us that God loves the world. He sent his Son to seek and to save those outside a relationship with him (the lost). Jesus wept over the lost of Jerusalem. Have we spent enough time with him to gain his heart for our lost community? Do we have a weeping spirit for the lost of our community?

Missionaries know that to reach a tribe they must have a call from God to reach them. Then they must develop a love for the people to whom God has called them. That love for the people to whom God is calling us will help overcome the temptation for easy and cheap success through programs and methods borrowed from others.

Only when we know whom God is calling us to reach will we be able to begin figuring out how to reach them. Maybe we need to begin to pray, “Lord, who is it you have called me to reach?” When we know the answer to that prayer, the ministry journey is just beginning for real.

What do you think?

Becoming Missionaries

I am concerned that our baptism rates keep dropping while our population keeps going up. We are becoming less and less effective at reaching the lost people in our communities. One of the problems seems to be that our culture is changing rapidly and the church is becoming irrelevant to most of the people in our communities. Our culture no longer sees the value in the Christian faith that it once saw.

How do we cross the growing cultural gap while remaining faithful to our Biblical faith? I believe we must now view our communities as being non-Christian. We must also see ourselves as missionaries being sent into a non-Christian culture. This change in thinking can help us adjust our approach to our communities.

What would we expect a missionary to do when leaving their cultural context and going to a strange and lost culture? If we can learn what missionaries do to reach different cultural settings then maybe we could adapt their methods to our church’s outreach to our communities.

I would expect a missionary to identify with the people where he was going. That means learning their language, their values, their social structures, their taboos, their life-styles and then adopting these everywhere they do not conflict with the gospel.

Next I would expect the missionary to begin developing relationships with individuals within the culture. He could begin with meeting needs of individuals and helping them solve problems in their society. Working shoulder to shoulder with the people to help others and make their community better will break down many barriers.

As God gives opportunity the missionary should share his faith and lead others to faith in Christ. These first converts should then be taught that their responsibility is to reach their family and friends. Those who are “native” to the culture are best able to reach other “natives”. What we are looking for is an indigenous church planting movement within a lost culture.

Let’s face it; most of us are no longer native to our community’s lost culture. We are part of the Christian sub-culture. We no longer have the language, values or life-styles of our lost neighbors. We must learn to be missionaries to our own communities if we expect to be effective in reaching them for Christ.

We must begin to plan how to get ourselves outside our churches rather than planning how to get the lost inside our churches. We must find more ways to serve God in the world where the lost are rather than in the church where the saved are. As much as we can we must learn to love and serve the lost in our communities so they can learn to love and serve our God rather than the gods of this world. Let’s become missionaries! What do you think?

A NEW PARADIGM FOR ASSOCIATIONAL MINISTRY

Adapted from Mike Day’s address to the

Baptist Identity Conference II

Union University

February 2007

 

Church Driven – Associational ministry starts with the church as the legitimate expression of God’s mission in the world. It affirms that the Great Commission was given to the church.

Priority Based – The association bases its ministry on the priorities of the local church.

Leadership Development: most of us learned our leadership skills in a less complex church and cultural environment and need to add to our skills base for today’s leadership challenges.

Membership Deployment: The work of the ministry is the responsibility of the whole body and we must find ways to involve a larger percentage of the body in the work of the church, inside and especially outside the church walls.

Life and Community Transformation: Unless the gospel changes the way we live the world will have little reason to believe our testimony that God can change their life and destiny. Being a transformed people we must seek to transform the world in which we live.

Spiritual Reproduction: The ultimate end of all we do is to produce more Christians and more churches.

Institution Free – The association supports and encourages institutional ministries but does not own and maintain them. It encourages churches to be in the ministry business or helps develop parachurch organizations to operate institutional ministries.

Resourced Focused – The association helps provide the churches the resources they need to accomplish the mission to which God has called them. It has no programs to maintain; no ministry of its own to develop but uses its resources to assist the churches to fulfill the commission God has given them.

Strategically Managed – The association provides a non-directive, catalytic and facilitative model of leadership for the local church. Non-directive in that the association will help the church decide for itself the direction of its ministry under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Catalytic in that the association will help the church in developing its response to the great commission without inserting itself into that church’s ongoing ministry. Facilitative in that the association will help the church discover its resources for fulfilling its mission without the church becoming dependent upon the association for those resources.

The State of the Association

2007

As a pastor it was my practice to preach a “State of the Church” sermon on the first Sunday of each year. In that sermon I sought to give a realistic assessment of where the church was in relation to God’s will and what we had to do in the future to get in line with His calling. I believe it is time for a “State of the Association” message.

I am presenting this statement to our senior pastors for your reflection and comments. I want and need all the feedback I can get as I seek to discern God’s direction for our ministry together. In January I will begin making appointments to come talk to you about these ideas. If a number of you would like, we can get together to discuss it. I would love to get your ideas and response to this position paper before I make it public. 

A Vision of a Future
Mission Together

The role of the association is always adjusting to the needs of the times. It began as an organization to set doctrine and establish fellowship among like-minded churches. Later, as the national denominations grew in importance and structure, the associations became a channel for supporting denominational programming. During the last twenty-five years many associations have turned 180 degrees and now see themselves as a support to the local church rather than an extension of denominational programming. 

It is my conviction that at the very center of God’s will for this world you will find the local church. The church is a divine organism of God’s own making. As good as the Southern Baptist Convention, Florida Baptist Convention and The Choctaw Baptist Association are, they are man-made organizations whose calling is to resource, assist and encourage CHURCHES to do what God has called them to do through the vision He has given them. “The mission of the Choctaw Baptist Association is to unify, encourage, and equip its member churches to fulfill the Great Commission” (official CBA mission statement).

Most associations have an organizational structure that mirrors the program structure of the denomination. It is a leftover from the days when the denomination held up standards of organization and operation in every area of church life. Programming flowed downhill from the denomination to the state conventions and associations and from them to the local church. Local churches strove to be “standard” in every program of the church. When you went to a SBC church anywhere in the country you knew what you were getting. Not so any more.

Our churches are models of diversity and uniqueness. Every church feels free to seek God’s guidance in organizational structure, worship style, ministry efforts, mission emphasis, etc. The new “standard” is to seek God’s unique vision for each individual church.

For the first time in history we have four generations alive and old enough to make informed spiritual decisions. Surveys indicate that the younger the generation the less we are reaching them with the gospel. The scary thing is that it is not a gradual drop-off, it is precipitous. About 65% of those born before 1946 are Christian. Of those born between 1946 and 1964 about 35% are Christian. About 15% of those born between 1965 and 1976 are Christian. Only about 4% of those born between 1976 and 1994 are Christian.  This is reflected in the graying of our churches. If the trend continues our churches will soon become relics of a past glory.

Our churches are already feeling the impact of the dying off of the older generations. They are the ones with institutional loyalty and they are the ones who give the great majority of our offerings. Many of our churches are feeling the squeeze on their income. The younger generations do not give or work to support institutions and their programs as did their parents and grandparents. Money and workers are getting harder to find.

According to CBA church reports, in 2000 our churches baptized 555 people. In 2005 (the last year we have fairly complete records) we baptized 288. That is a decrease of 48% in our baptismal rate. Our worship and Bible study attendance over this same period stayed absolutely flat. There has been no growth in church attendance and a decrease in baptisms during a time of rapid population growth in our area.

In addition to these pressures the secular culture in which we live is no longer “church friendly.” It is no longer expected that people will go to church on Sunday. Our communities are becoming culturally diverse. Peoples from all over the world continue to pour into our communities with their diverse customs and religions. Realistically only about twenty percent of our population attend any church. Only God knows how many are Christians.

On the national scale we are told that if present trends continue in twenty years the percentage of the population that attends church will be fifty percent less than it is today. If we continue with no major changes a number of our churches will be closing their doors for the last time in the next 10 to 20 years. I think it is safe to say without overstating the problem it is very possible that in 20 years the Baptist presence and witness in the EmeraldCoast area will be marginal at best.

We must ask ourselves, “Is it reasonable to conclude that we have the luxury of maintaining the traditional habits, behaviors, and strategies that associations have used in the past while our society and culture are being completely reshaped?” My conclusion is that we must change how we function as an association. We must reposition the association to better assist the churches. Business as usual simply will not work anymore. The stakes are too high. The eternal destiny of thousands of people in our communities weighs in the balance!

We made some changes in the associational structure a couple of years after I became your DOM. However, I was too new at associational work to give good guidance and the results of that reorganization have been less effective than I had hoped. Now after seven years as your DOM I am sufficiently experienced at the job for God to give me a more complete vision of our work together.

The following is an overview of some of the things I believe God is showing me about the future of our work together. It is prayerfully presented to let you know what I am thinking and to stimulate and encourage us all to begin thinking about how we may work together more effectively for the kingdom ofGod.

I am not sure how to make into a reality many of the suggestions in this vision statement. Much of what follows will have to be revised as we move forward. Working together we will have to put together a plan for how we can accomplish all we envision. If God uses this vision statement to move us toward transformation, then all the glory goes to Him.

CHURCH DEVELOPMENT

Program Development: In the past we have scheduled association-wide training events. We would invite a denominationally trained “expert” to tell all of our churches and their leaders what they need to know in order to do the programs the way they were designed. This is the old model of pushing programs down to the local church. Convention wide we are finding this model of training is no longer effective. We must find a different method of delivering leadership training to our churches.

It is my belief that we must move to an individualized and contextualized training model. This means that the association goes to the local church and asks “Do you have any training needs with which we can help?” Then when programming, mission, ministry or leadership skill needs are uncovered in the local church, the association would help develop a training program or event for that particular church’s need. It would be individualized to the local church and contextualized to its specific needs.

Where appropriate the associational staff could provide training. When needed, we could call upon expertise from our sister associational churches. It is time we quit being program competitive and became mission cooperative. If needed, we could look to other associations, the state convention or the SBC for training help. The associational staff would facilitate and resource these training events as appropriate. I foresee a time in the near future when we have few association-wide training events and many church based events.

Leadership Development: High importance should be given to the development of leadership skills in our pastoral staffs and key lay leadership. I propose several leadership development tracks:

1. High Quality Seminars—We would continue what we have begun with the engagement of Reggie McNeal (The Present Future), Ed Stetzer (Breaking the Missional Code) and Eric Geiger (Simple Church). God has blessed us with many men of vision from whom we may learn. We will continue to seek out the best God has to offer so we might be the best we can be.
2. Peer Learning Groups—Scripture says, “Iron sharpens iron.” We have much we can teach each other. Collaborative learning and mutual accountability are two effective learning tools used in peer-groups. I am presently researching what it will take to organize a peer-learning group for 10 to 12 of our senior pastors to begin in the Fall semester of 2007.
3. Mentoring and Coaching—It is my dream that some of our more experienced pastors could mentor or coach some of our less experienced pastors. Wisdom is gained through experience. I do not believe God gives us wisdom and wants us to bury it. I believe he wants us share with the generations coming behind us so they may stand on our shoulders and reach higher than we ever dreamed. Mentoring and coaching is a means of leaving behind a ministry legacy that will far out-live us. It is also an effective means of contributing to the kingdom of
   God that is beyond our personal reach.

MISSION DEVELOPMENT

For purposes of this discussion, I am defining ministry as what we do to bless our members and missions as what we do to bless the world beyond our church membership. Our mission is the same as Abraham’s in Genesis 12, to bless those who are not of our tribe. It includes meeting physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs of all the peoples. The Acts 1:8 model is that we bless the whole world simultaneously. We are to be a blessing to Jerusalem, Judah,Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, all at the same time. Wow, what a great commission our Lord has given us!

Two concepts are basic to the understanding of mission development. First, the association is not called to fulfill the great commission. It is the church and its members who are called to fulfill the great commission. The association exists to help its member churches to fulfill the great commission.

It is also important to understand that church members are missionaries to their world. Being a missionary is not a special calling it is a common calling. A few Christians are called to be missionaries sent by others to a different culture for vocational missionary service. But all Christians are missionaries to the lost world in which they live.

Blessing People: As an association we are to be helping our churches involve their members in a lifestyle of blessing people in the name of Jesus. Jesus instructed his disciples, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons; freely you received, freely give” (Matt. 10:8). In our daily walk we meet many people who are suffering in some area of their lives. When they experience us living out the unconditional love of God toward them, they cannot help but be more open to the Holy Spirit’s drawing power.

Sometimes our members will be involved in an unrelated series of individual blessing activities. At other times they will join fellow Christians in an organized mission activity-bringing blessing to a larger number of hurting individuals. The association must find ways to help the churches encourage and equip their members to have a mission lifestyle. At times the association will also unify the churches and their members in a common mission such as the Crossroads Center Medical Clinic.

Blessing Communities: Communities as well as people have unmet needs. In Jeremiah 29 God instructs exiled Israelites to settle in the city where He has placed them and to become a part of the very fabric of that city and to bless the city. He concludes, “For in its welfare you will have welfare” (vs. 7). The association should unify, encourage and equip the churches in developing mission activities and organizations that will bless our communities.

1. Prayer-Based
   Mission—in both Jeremiah 29 and 1 Timothy 2, God’s people are specifically instructed to have a prayer-based mission to its community and its leaders. We are to pray for the city (Jer.) and for “kings and all who are in authority” (1 Tim.). Every church ought to have a prayer strategy for its city and county leaders. On a rotating basis commissioners and mayors could be called and informed that the church is going to be praying for them individually. Specific personal and governmental prayer requests could then be communicated to the church family for corporate and personal prayer support. Imagine what God might do in our cities if God’s people regularly prayed for the specific needs of their city and its leaders.
2. Church-Based
   Mission—the local church is the focus of God’s mission activity in this world. Most of the communities’ needs ought to be addressed through the mission activity of the local churches. There are many needs in our communities that need to be addressed by the churches: hunger, poverty, crisis pregnancies, tutoring, illiteracy, lack of job skills, etc. It is the role of the association to encourage and equip our churches to discover the needs of their communities and develop mission approaches to meet those needs.
3. Community-Based
   Mission—sometimes the community need is too great for one church alone to meet it. It is then that we need to develop a mission strategy that involves the whole community. Crossroads Center Medical Clinic is an example of this type of mission. As an independent incorporated entity, Crossroads Center does not require the association to build buildings, hire staff, create new levels of bureaucracy or become financially responsible for a very expensive mission.

Crossroads Center will maintain it Christian character, witness and identity because the CBA Executive Committee will always appoint 50% of the Board of Directors and the DOM will also serve on the Board. Being structurally independent it can more effectively utilize support from God’s resources outside the local churches. It can also bring Christians from other faith traditions to join in the mission with us.

Blessing the World: The great commission extends the mission of the local church to the ends of the earth. Where can we begin to get our arms around such a large task? I believe we need to apply the resources we now have to the opportunities that are now before us.

1. Mission Trips, Partnerships and Unreached People Group Adoptions—many of our churches already plan mission trips, a few are involved with partnerships and at least one has adopted an unreached people group. The association may be able to encourage our churches to form mission partnerships with one another. Larger or experienced churches could partner with smaller churches or churches inexperienced in these activities and thereby enable more of our members to be personally involved in being a blessing to the world.
2. Resort Mission—tens of thousands of people come to our area every year. Wouldn’t it be a blessing to the world if we were able to send some of them home as born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ? At the very least we need to find ways to bless large numbers of them in Jesus’ name so that when they return home they will be more receptive to the gospel message than when they got here. We need to find ways to bring blessings into the lives of our area’s guests.
3. Every week businessmen and military personnel fan out from our little spot on the globe and go to the ends of the earth. We need to develop a means to encourage and equip those who are members of our churches to go as Christian missionaries. Imagine how God could bless the world through them.

Planting Churches: It has been proven that new units grow faster than old units. This is true whether it is a new church, a new Sunday School class or a new cell group. Population growth is far outstripping our church growth. Every day we become a smaller and less significant portion of our population. Yet we continue to ignore the practice of planting new churches.

Every year there is less land for new church buildings. The land that is available is extravagantly expensive. Add to that the cost of building and insurance, if you can get it, and you have made it extremely difficult to plant a traditional land-based church. 

More and more we are being told that the younger generations do not support or even want to be a part of large institutions. Observation of the difficulty of involving them in the life of the typical institutional local church seems to testify to this truth. These generations are more interested in being a part of a small group of intimate friends than they are interested in being part of a big church.

Contained communities are more and more a part of our housing reality. Only about 2% of apartment, manufactured home communities and condo dwellers will ever leave their complex to go to our churches.

We will always need our institutional “big box” churches. But we must find ways of developing church outside the box. The association can encourage and equip our churches to develop chaplain ministries for apartments and other contained communities. We also need to find ways to call out some of our members to “pastor” their business, their street, block or neighborhood. Many of these people can be reached for Christ but may never darken the door of our churches. We must begin to think outside the box in planting churches and church type fellowships.

Another opportunity for church planting that is in our midst rests in the military. Our government sends many committed Christians to our churches. We have them for two or three years. We need to develop a plan among our churches to call out and train many of them as church planting missionaries. Then Uncle Sam will send them to the ends of the earth not only as soldiers but also as evangelical church planters.

IN CONCLUSION 

I have heard that the Chinese character for crisis is also the character for opportunity. I believe that the churches in our culture are facing a crisis in the near future. I also believe that we are being presented an unprecedented opportunity. Our response to the changes in our culture will determine whether we face crisis or opportunity.

“The mission of the Choctaw Baptist Association is to unify, encourage, and equip its member churches to fulfill the Great Commission.” For us to fulfill our mission we must change how we function as an association. We need to change our structure and the means of delivering our services to the churches. We cannot keep on doing things as we have in the past and expect different results.

The vision statement above is my attempt to lay out the outline of a course toward the future. It is more of a statement about where I believe we need to go than it is a statement of how to get there. If we can agree on where God wants us to go then I believe that with His help we will be able to figure out how to get there.

I believe with all my heart that the best is yet to come. I believe that with God’s help, we will begin to see the work of our churches take great strides forward as the Kingdom of God is advanced both locally and globally through the transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To Him be all the Glory, Praise and Honor!

H. Hershel Adams,

Choctaw Baptist Association

December 19, 2006