The Wright Word
January-February 2006
Happy New Year!
In Luke 19:10,
Jesus reminds his followers that “the son of man came to seek and to save that
which is lost.” (NKJV) The new year prompts us to resolutions for many physical
changes. 2006 can be the year we ask Jesus to make us like him, personally and
corporately seeking the lost.
Baptism Ratios
MBA churches reported 1,031 baptisms in the church year ending August 31, 2005.
Our churches also reported 71,629 members. That means we had a baptism ratio of
69:1, or that it took 69 of us to reach one person for Jesus in the entire year.
(There may have been more professions of faith but the best measure of the
number of professions of faith comes through our baptism statistics.) Our “best”
year evangelistically in the MBA was the church year that ended August 31, 1961.
That year MBA churches reported 2,872 baptisms and 50,625 members. That gave us
a baptism ratio of 18:1. Obviously something has gone wrong when we are that far
from the biblical ratio of one to one.
What is the baptism ratio in your church? Wouldn’t it be great if all of our
churches had a baptism ratio of one person for every ten active members? That
ratio would give us over 7,000 baptisms a year across Mobile County. Even at
that rate it will take us nearly 30 years to reach the 200,000 lost people in
Mobile County.
Please begin praying, planning, training and budgeting for evangelistic ministry
personally and corporately through your church. It will take priority commitment
of time, money and talent to lead our churches into the evangelistic ministries
that Christ intended.
New
MSC Evangelism
Coordinator
Dave Hudson has agreed to join our staff as Evangelism Coordinator. He is a
Missions Service Corp Missionary (self-funded and working a minimum 20 hours a
week). He will begin contacting you to help begin or revitalize an Evangelistic
Ministry Committee (team, council, etc.) in your church. Many of you know
Brother Dave from his many years of pastoral ministry in the Mobile area. He
will begin planning training events for your Evangelistic Ministry Committee.
Please let Dr. Hudson
(ramhud2@earthlink.net) and I help your church increase the emphasis on
evangelistic ministries.
CrossOver Evangelistic Parties January 21-22
Our six children’s festivals are a great opportunity for every church to be
involved in an evangelistic outreach activity. Please look on page 3 to find a
list of the sponsor churches and locations and pick one to join. These are
excellent opportunities to involve your folks in a fun and effective
evangelistic ministry. Please contact Ric Camp
(hogheaven@sonrisebaptist.net)
for more information.
Vote on New Church Property January 10
The Finance and Church Planting Committees will be proposing in our January 10
Executive Committee Meeting that our MBA churches pursue the purchase of 10
acres of property at the new exit 10 interchange on I-10. The county is building
a new school there, a developer is building 240 homes adjacent to the property
and 39,000 people a day travel through that interchange. The property is $60,000
an acre and has excellent frontage on I-10. We will need sponsor churches to
purchase an acre or two or a group of churches to purchase an acre. We also need
to be looking at property in several other locations in the county. It will
never get cheaper and much of it will not be available when the need comes.
Please make an extra effort to be here for this important discussion and vote.
Please contact Dr. Cutrer
(terry@moffettroad.org) or me for more information.
Know any churches that may want to join the MBA?
As you saw at the annual meeting we inducted seven new churches into the MBA in
2005. The Membership Committee will be recommending on January 10 that Forest
Lawn Baptist Church come into the MBA under watchcare. Many of you know pastors
whose congregations are consistent with SBC theology and polity. Please invite
them to meet with our Membership Committee to see the advantages of serving
together to make an eternal difference. Please contact Dr. Bill Whitfield
(docwhit@bellsouth.net) or me for
more information.
Church Prayer Committee Trainings Continue
Bill McCracken continues to do a marvelous job as our Missions Service Corp
Prayer Coordinator and Missions Mobilizer. Our initial training had 30 people
from 16 churches. We want to enlist and train Biblical Prayer Committees (teams,
councils, etc) in each of our 105 churches. Please contact Bill
(macnmony@aol.com) or me for details.
Want to Host the 2006, 2007 or 2008 Annual Meeting?
In case you are wondering we haven’t been inundated with invitations to host the
annual meetings. Please continue to consider being a host on one of these dates:
October 19, 2006, October 18, 2007 and October 16, 2008.
How Can You Help in Ongoing Katrina Relief?
We have determined that the motel at Camp Whispering Pines will need to be
demolished and rebuilt due to Katrina damage. We will need teams of workers to
help us with construction and materials. Please consider adopting one or more of
the 32 new motel rooms to fund the cost of building ($2,000) or furnishing
($500) each room. Please contact Kevin Perrigan
(kperrigan@campwhisperingpines.com) for details.
We still have need for volunteer roofing teams (several 25-50 square roofs need
to be done), and sheet rock hangers and finishers.
We also need carpenters to build working shutters on the MBA office. Please let
Dave know if you have a team that can help.
Getting Ready for Next Time
Please enlist a Disaster Relief Coordinator in your church and let us know who it is.
Please send interested people to MBA Disaster Relief Training.
Please build and host the needed trailers for our MBA Disaster Relief Fleet.
Please consider preparing your church facilities for the next event: add a generator, showers, and space for indoor camping so you can serve immediately as a comfort station, distribution center, evacuee shelter or host volunteer teams coming in to help.
The MBA office will begin
immediately to coordinate untrained but skilled volunteers to help churches and
staff members get back to ministry as soon as possible. We will work with the
trained SBC guys, but we CAN process ALL volunteers that want to help.
The MBA office will help coordinate shipments of materials to churches that will
serve as comfort stations, distribution centers, feeding centers, and hosting
volunteer groups if we know how to help you. Please talk to Charles Matthews
(cmatthewssr@comcast.net), our MBA
Disaster Relief Coordinator, or me for details.
Electronic Versions of Newsletter and Announcements?
Please email rec@mobilebaptists.org
if you would like to be added to an electronic version of the newsletter and
receive periodic announcements about our minister’s meetings and training
opportunities.
In the Lamb,
Brother Thomas