Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! This is such a wonderful season of the year as we celebrate God coming in the flesh as the God-man to provide a away for us to be right with God. The celebrations and festivities are always a joy to experience: Cantatas, children’s musicals, dinners, and 5 parades! It has been a very joyous and busy season.
The Bartholomew Baptist Association had an incredible 2019! As a result of the ministries and churches throughout the network we have experienced God’s favor. It is a pleasure to serve pastors and ministry leaders that are passionate to reach the southeast region of the state. With nearly every church in the network having a pastor churches are experiencing stable leadership. Now is the time for congregations to be finalizing strategic plans to maximum Kingdom impact with the personnel, volunteers and resources available to each congregation.
God bless you pastor as you led your church to reach people with the the gospel in 2019! 23 of the 25 churches in the BBA baptized at least one person. This maybe one of the BBA’s best years too. BUT…. We can all do more and better! We must do more and better! To state it plainly we must make more and better disciples. We must have an urgency that compels us to encourage, equip, and lead our members to be faithful missionaries who steward the gospel with passion to compel others to be born again. We never drift into reaching people with the gospel, we drift into personal preferences and ministry comfort. We must diligently work at leading the church to be on mission.
BEGINNING FEBRUARY 4TH, 6-8pm, we will be offering an important EVANGELISM class through Theological Education. This eight-week coarse meets every-other-week for two hours and will provide participants resources, methodologies, and conversations that will shape how the church carries out the Great Commission. This course is for pastors, ministry leaders, and laypeople. The cost is $50.
SUMMER INTERNS
I am seeking 6 Summer Student interns to serve the BBA this summer. These young men and women should be considering a call to the gospel ministry or have surrendered to the ministry and have completed high school. They will participate in a disciple-making environment that will encourage them to grow spiritually. They will also receive hands on ministry experience. The opportunities will vary from local church ministry of teaching, preaching, singing, leading ministry, VBS, Bible Clubs, Gospel Bus events, children’s ministry, youth ministry and so much more. Summer Interns can be local students or from out of town. We can find housing for out-of-town interns and we expect to offer an academic scholarship too. To receive more information, go to bartholomewbaptist.org to the Ministries tab, then to School of Ministry.
CHURCH PLANTING
Church planting remains a priority for the churches of the association. I believe we have discovered God’s will can be different than God’s timing. As a result of an inspiring Church Planting dinner in September that led us all to believe we were on the threshold of planting a church has been slowed. We believe we had a “man-of-peace” for a Hispanic church and an African American church but both candidates withdrew from the process with the BBA and the ABSC. We patiently wait upon the Lord as week see planters.
THE MERGER OF ASSOCIATIONS
The “Shared DOM” transition towards the merger is going well. We have completed two of the six months of sharing. A pastor’s wife recently told Errin, “This has been the resurrection of the Delta Association”. The DBA churches are grateful for our service to them and they are excited about making the transition by July.
WOLF CREEK CAMP (WCC)
We, the BBA, are naming two people to the Wolf Creek Camp Board of Directors in January. We have also assessed the camp property and facilities and have prioritized the work that needs to be accomplished to revitalize WCC. You can learn more about the WCC revitalization and its ministry at wolfcreekcamp.com Expect to hear about a couple of workdays that will include an opportunity for everyone. The work will include painting, tree work, roof repair, install a new mattress in every bed, install a temporary pool and a lake front beach, plumbing, electrical, outdoor lighting, etc Workers will be fed lunch during workdays.
The challenge of doing a year end newsletter is that there is so much to look forward to on the ministry horizon of 2020!! No time to look back though we are grateful to God for His hand upon us. I hope you will be diligent to keep your congregation informed as to all that is going on. The Bartholomewbaptist.org website is up-to-date and reflects everything occurring in the network. To follow the ministry activity of the BBA go to our Facebook page at BBASEARK.
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