In 2016, Bethany Baptist Church celebrates eighty-four years of ministry in the Highlands area of Louisville. The church’s peak membership of more than 1,100 people occurred in the 1970’s, during the ministry of the senior pastor with the longest tenure at Bethany—a tenure of twenty-four years. From 1986 to 2010, the church saw five senior pastors come and go, with an average pastoral tenure of less than four years. At the time of my call to serve as senior pastor in 2011, much work had recently been done to ensure that membership rolls were up to date and accurate. The church’s membership stood at approximately 230 people, with an average attendance of 105 people in Sunday morning worship services.
During the last five years, I have rejoiced to see several areas of growth in the ministry of Bethany Baptist Church. The church is more engaged in North American and international missions today than ever before in its history. The generous and sacrificial giving of church members has resulted in an increase in budget and designated offerings even when membership and attendance has declined. However, the greatest challenge before us is an ongoing decline in membership, resulting from a small number of professions of faith in Christ through baptism. That challenge is the need I aim to address in the planning and implementation of this ministry project. Strengths and weaknesses at Bethany Early in my ministry at Bethany, I labored to lead the church to be faithful in sending and going to the nations with the gospel. In 2011, we held Bethany’s first annual International Missions Festival. Each year, we invite missionaries to spend a weekend with our church, informing us of what God is accomplishing through their ministries and encouraging us to be involved. We began to solidify partnerships with missionaries, and our weekly prayer gathering became focused primarily on petitioning God with specific requests provided by those missionaries. It did not take long for those prayer partnerships to blossom into additional involvement. In 2013, Bethany sent the first team of our members to work among the Songhai people of Niger, Africa. Although many of our members have been at Bethany for decades, no one could recall the church sending an international mission team before. Since that time, we have sent additional members to work among that people group, developing a deeper partnership with the missionary on the ground in Niger. We have also begun a partnership with a church planter in Montreal, Quebec, and are sending small teams to work alongside that missionary on an annual basis. We have seen an increase in giving to send missionaries. Our offerings for international missions have increased every year since 2011, and most of those increases have been in double-digit percentages. Bethany’s 2015 offering for international missions was a fourfold increase over that same offering in 2011. Additionally, the church has voted unanimously a one percent increase in Cooperative Program giving to Southern Baptist Convention causes from the church budget in each of the last five fiscal years. I am thankful to God to see our growth in direct and cooperative mission’s involvement. In contrast, one of our great current weaknesses is a lack of effectiveness in reaching our own local community with the gospel. …show more content…
A handful of our members are active in local gospel ministries and are laboring to witness for Christ in their spheres of influence. However, I believe the majority of our membership is languishing in a state of apathy when it comes to evangelistic outreach. For some, there may be no sense of urgency in reaching people for Christ in our community, while for others there may be a desire to do so mixed with a feeling of being ill-equipped to the task. Many of our members are above sixty years of age, and they fear they have no way of finding common ground with the younger generation in order to build relationships. Some have grown accustomed to relying on attractional events as the sole means of outreach, expecting the lost to come to the church rather than the church reaching the lost. I believe that attractional methods that may have been effective a few decades ago will not be as effective in our current culture. As the culture has shifted, we must adapt our methods in order to reach people with the gospel. A related
During the last five years, I have rejoiced to see several areas of growth in the ministry of Bethany Baptist Church. The church is more engaged in North American and international missions today than ever before in its history. The generous and sacrificial giving of church members has resulted in an increase in budget and designated offerings even when membership and attendance has declined. However, the greatest challenge before us is an ongoing decline in membership, resulting from a small number of professions of faith in Christ through baptism. That challenge is the need I aim to address in the planning and implementation of this ministry project. Strengths and weaknesses at Bethany Early in my ministry at Bethany, I labored to lead the church to be faithful in sending and going to the nations with the gospel. In 2011, we held Bethany’s first annual International Missions Festival. Each year, we invite missionaries to spend a weekend with our church, informing us of what God is accomplishing through their ministries and encouraging us to be involved. We began to solidify partnerships with missionaries, and our weekly prayer gathering became focused primarily on petitioning God with specific requests provided by those missionaries. It did not take long for those prayer partnerships to blossom into additional involvement. In 2013, Bethany sent the first team of our members to work among the Songhai people of Niger, Africa. Although many of our members have been at Bethany for decades, no one could recall the church sending an international mission team before. Since that time, we have sent additional members to work among that people group, developing a deeper partnership with the missionary on the ground in Niger. We have also begun a partnership with a church planter in Montreal, Quebec, and are sending small teams to work alongside that missionary on an annual basis. We have seen an increase in giving to send missionaries. Our offerings for international missions have increased every year since 2011, and most of those increases have been in double-digit percentages. Bethany’s 2015 offering for international missions was a fourfold increase over that same offering in 2011. Additionally, the church has voted unanimously a one percent increase in Cooperative Program giving to Southern Baptist Convention causes from the church budget in each of the last five fiscal years. I am thankful to God to see our growth in direct and cooperative mission’s involvement. In contrast, one of our great current weaknesses is a lack of effectiveness in reaching our own local community with the gospel. …show more content…
A handful of our members are active in local gospel ministries and are laboring to witness for Christ in their spheres of influence. However, I believe the majority of our membership is languishing in a state of apathy when it comes to evangelistic outreach. For some, there may be no sense of urgency in reaching people for Christ in our community, while for others there may be a desire to do so mixed with a feeling of being ill-equipped to the task. Many of our members are above sixty years of age, and they fear they have no way of finding common ground with the younger generation in order to build relationships. Some have grown accustomed to relying on attractional events as the sole means of outreach, expecting the lost to come to the church rather than the church reaching the lost. I believe that attractional methods that may have been effective a few decades ago will not be as effective in our current culture. As the culture has shifted, we must adapt our methods in order to reach people with the gospel. A related