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Partners In The Mission:
Reaching North America for Christ
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| Release Date: 03/04/2008 |
| a message from Dr. Bill Mackey, executive director |
As we rapidly approach the time when we collect the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions I want to talk about another Annie – Annie Allen – who also had a tremendous impact on missions right here in Kentucky.
Annie Allen was a Kentucky Baptist Convention and Home Mission Board (now North American Mission Board) missionary worker who helped start the First Baptist Church of Garrett in 1939. Working under the direction of Rev. Lewis Martin, another missionary, Annie conducted Bible studies in the schools and Sunday school on Sunday. With Martin conducting worship services, she helped the new church grow so that it could buy property and build its first building.
Due to her outstanding ministry, the Enterprise Association’s annual offering and week of prayer emphasis now carries Annie Allen’s name. It would be impossible to measure the influence for God’s kingdom of this wonderful missionary from a lifetime of teaching the Bible to thousands of students.
I thank God for those who have answered the call to missions in Kentucky, across North America and around the world. Today there are more than 5,000 missionaries serving across North America. About 150 serve as Mission Service Corps missionaries in Kentucky along with about 25 others who serve on the KBC staff and as Hispanic missionaries. I am grateful for their work in reaching people for Christ.
Despite the best efforts of these missionaries, however, the North American Mission Board reports that there were fewer than 375,00 baptisms in North America last year. That compares to more than 600,000 reported by the International Mission Board.
Before we are critical of this number, however, we need to remember that Kentucky and each of our churches are in North America. The report by NAMB is based on the reports from local churches through associations and state conventions.
During the past 10 years baptisms have been down in North American churches. KBC churches have been above average for the past 10 years, but we have been well under our Kentucky Baptists Connect goal of 25,000 each year. Preliminary reports even indicate that baptisms in KBC churches may be down by as many as 2,000 in our 2006-07 reports as compared to 2005-06.
During the Week of Prayer for North American Missions, please pray for national, state, associational and church strategies that can be used by God through us to reach people for Christ and discipleship in His churches. Pray as well for all pastors and church staff.
Don’t stop there though! Pray for your own boldness to share the Gospel. Every believer has an incredible testimony of life transformation that deserves to be shared. People will love to hear how God has changed your life and how He is at work in your life each day!
Dr. Mackey's column appears weekly in the Western Recorder. To subscribe to the Western Recorder, call (502) 489-3535. |
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