As Church Staffs Grow, Ministry Leaders Look to the Bible for Titles

By / Sep 29

For generations of Southern Baptist churches, the term “pastor” had a clear and rarely debated meaning. He was the man who preached on Sundays and led the church throughout the week.

But with the rise of mega-churches inside and outside the SBC and the corresponding growth of church staffs, that simplicity has changed.

The National Congregation Study, released earlier this year, found that while fifty-four percent of churches were led by a “solo minister,” most churchgoers were in churches with multiple ministerial staff.

As the number of ministerial staff has grown in many Southern Baptist churches, a new question has emerged. What titles should churches give those in leadership? While no large-scale survey of Southern Baptist ministerial titling practices exists, interviews of a cross-section of Southern Baptist pastors show considerable agreement around the importance of using biblical language and the link between the role of the pastor and his authority in the local church, among other related topics.

USING BIBLICAL LANGUAGE

Jonathan Leeman, who serves as the editorial director for 9Marks, a parachurch organization focused on what it deems are the biblical marks of a healthy church, notes that both the Bible and Southern Baptists’ statement of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, describe only two offices in the local church—pastor and deacon.

“Here’s why you want to use biblical language titles, like ‘pastor,’ because it insists that everybody meets the biblical criteria and qualifications set down by Paul, and therefore it protects the body from unqualified leaders,” Leeman said.

Leeman, who is also an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church in suburban Washington, DC, believes any leader described as pastor should have oversight over the entire church.

“What I would exhort all churches to do is to make sure that every pastor, every elder, whether staff or non-staff, number one, is understood to have oversight over the whole congregation, because that’s what he’s given by God,” Leeman said. “You don’t make him responsible just for his specific area of ministry. You can give him a specific area of ministry to emphasize and to focus on.

That’s fine, but you need to simultaneously recognize he’s still got to be involved in the decisions that involve all the [people].”

Leeman compares it to a household. A mother and father might split up household duties, with one parent taking care of home maintenance and the other paying bills, but they are both parents.

In the same way, two pastors might have specific responsibilities in the church, but they have shepherding responsibilities over the entire church.

“If you’re not going to give him oversight, don’t call him the youth pastor. Don’t call him the children’s pastor. Find another title,” Leeman said.

Juan Sanchez, who pastors High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, believes all the roles in the local church can be divided into two categories.

The first category centers on teaching and oversight and is properly called a pastor. The second centers on service and is called a deacon.

“If these are the only two offices of a church, what we begin to think is, there’s some people that we pay that are doing deacon work and some people that we pay that are actually doing pastor work,” Sanchez said. “We just need to really define who’s doing what in order to make sure that there’s no confusion.”

Sanchez says this confusion goes beyond simply impacting multi-pastor churches. Many traditional Southern Baptist churches, he says, treat deacons as spiritual caretakers of the church, responsible for leading, feeding, and protecting the church.

“Deacons are simply servants set apart by the church,” said Sanchez, who is also an associate professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. “They’re official servants of the church. Everyone serves, but deacons are set apart servants, recognized by the church for specific tasks. Then pastors are those who are responsible for the feeding, protecting, and praying over the congregation.”

AUTHORITY AND OVERSIGHT IN THE ROLE OF PASTOR

Hershael York, who pastors Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Kentucky, describes oversight and authority as key differentiators between pastors and other church roles.

“The way we do it at Buck Run is those we designate as pastors, we mean by that everything that word means, that they are shepherds,” York said. “They are overseers. They have a shepherding responsibility in the church.”

To illustrate this, York told the story of a woman the church hired as a children’s ministry director. From the beginning, York told her they wanted to get the children’s ministry to a point where they needed a children and family pastor.

She accepted the position with that in mind and grew the ministry.

Eventually, she recognized the ministry needed a pastor to children and families. She stepped aside when the church found a pastor to take that role.

“His responsibilities were broader,” York said. “His responsibilities were truly to shepherd and pastor. Her responsibility was making sure that we had children’s workers staffed and that our children were being taught the Word of God. But when we brought in a man, we tasked him with, ‘We want you to minister to these families. We want you to have a pastoral function in their family, so that they look to you as a shepherd.’ Whereas she sort of led from behind, she made sure that everything was done and that we had people in our rotation and all that, but she didn’t have a shepherding function. She grew it to the point where we needed someone to have a shepherding function over this ministry.”

Adam Pickard, who started Citizens Church in Kernersville, North Carolina, about sixteen months ago, says that his church outlines in its church bylaws and membership class a key differentiation between day-to-day staff and elders. Staff leaders are called directors, whether they are managing the church’s youth ministry, children’s ministry, hospitality, or another area of the church.

Currently, Pickard serves as the church’s only elder. But as it raises up new elders, they won’t hold staff positions.

“I would kind of be the go-between, assisting with the overall vision, leading the vision, along with the help of the elders, but also leading my staff team in the week-to-week operations,” Pickard said.

USING PRECISE TERMINOLOGY

Mark Vance serves as the lead pastor of Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa, a Southern Baptist church that specifically prioritizes reaching college students and starting new churches near college campuses. The church has a full elder team of about twenty. A smaller group of eight to twelve (of which no more than half can be on staff) meets weekly as an elder council to provide direct oversight of the church.

“This is where I think the New Testament gives some flexibility,” Vance said. “It doesn’t mandate that you have to have an elder team that meets every single week, or your elder team needs to have twelve people. Those are local decisions. Those are function decisions. But they need to abide by the basic forms and ideas that the New Testament sets out. That’s where I think in Baptist life there are 40,000 different churches in different contexts with different histories. I think it can and should look different in local settings, but it needs to, in those differences, still have a common thread core that’s established by the New Testament.”

The terminology matters, Vance says. Every person the church calls an elder fits the qualifications of elder, as outlined in Scripture.

Daryl Jones, who pastors the Rock Church in Miami, also says the terminology of whom a church describes as an elder or pastor is critical.

His church describes leaders as ministers when they do not fit the qualifications for elder.

Jones specifically referenced a young man in his church who was training to be a pastor. While being trained, the church referred to him as a minister.

Because the young man wasn’t overseeing any ministry in the church or expressing any kind of authority within the church, the term pastor didn’t apply.

“I know that term [minister], biblically, could be a servant, a deacon,” Jones said. “It could be used a lot of different ways because it’s really about service, but we use that term, and we use it specifically to communicate this man is being trained in pastoral ministry, but he is not a pastor yet.”

York agrees that churches need to be careful when attaching the title of pastor to a position.

“If a church is not going to give someone pastoral oversight and authority, then I don’t think they should call them pastors,” York said. “I think they should call them directors. I do think the word minister is appropriate because that simply means a servant. We have all kinds of ministry in our church by both men and women, but that’s a different function from the pastor. I really think we need to protect the office and the function of the pastor.”

DEALING WITH GENDER IN CHURCH-STAFF ROLES

At the heart of the discussion about multi-staff churches in Southern Baptist life in recent years has been gender.

“At Bellevue, we have approximately forty other men who’ve been ordained as pastors,” said Steve Gaines, the senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis. “They lead in various roles over various groups in our congregation. No woman at Bellevue is ordained as a pastor, because the New Testament never refers to a woman as a pastor.”

Instead, Gaines says, the church refers to male and female non-ordained staff as directors.

Vance notes the terminology of pastor is important, particularly because it relates to specific church functions.

“Some people say, ‘You have a woman who is a ministry director. We have one who is a pastor.

Isn’t that the same thing?’” Vance said. “My answer there is no. It’s not, because inside of the way that the New Testament has the pastor to function, the primary responsibility attached is the authoritative preaching of God’s Word.”

Vance doesn’t believe that this prohibits women from teaching in all contexts, but he says Cornerstone doesn’t have women preach and teach on weekends because of the sense of authority that comes along with it.

Despite recent controversies over how Southern Baptist churches use the term pastor, particularly as it relates to women in leadership, Sanchez believes there is an underlying unity within the convention on the topic.

“I just want to reiterate the fact that I think that most Baptists are genuine Bible-believers,” Sanchez said. “They’re faithful, committed to inerrancy. I don’t think most of them want women preaching. I think there’s a confusion, and it is rooted in our pragmatism. ‘Hey, if someone’s doing children’s work, they’re a children’s pastor.’ I don’t think that means they’re egalitarian. I just think it means we need to go back and understand from history, from Scripture, what a pastor is and what a deacon is, and then build from there.”



Churches Declare Their Stance on Pastorship Through Ordination

By / Sep 28

There may be nuances related to ordination and how it is observed from one church to another, but the qualifications for the pastor role are crystal clear, said a collection of Southern Baptist pastors and leaders.

The core of who can be ordained reflects what the Bible says regarding the office of pastor, said Mark Vance, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa.

“We avoid giving that terminology of ‘pastor’ to those who would not be qualified as elders biblically,” he said. “The simplest way I can summarize it is, ‘Who fits the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3? Titus 1?’ Those who are ordained are those who are qualified to serve in the office of pastor/elder/overseer.

“So, when it comes to the issue of gender, we don’t ordain women.”

Cornerstone Church sits near Iowa State University and draws a significant number of college students. Attendance can surpass 3,500 during the semester. Taking a complementarian position is countercultural, but something the church does nonetheless.

Vance asserted that holding to a biblical model of ordination and the office of pastor does not diminish the role of women in ministry.

“This doesn’t mean women don’t serve in other ministry contexts,” he said. “They absolutely do. But ordination isn’t just a recognition of an ability to serve. It’s an appointment toward an office that comes with an authority that the New Testament prescribes as limited to men in the household of God.”

The historic Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis and Cornerstone are similar in attendance size, but minister in different contexts. Still, there is clear-cut agreement on ordination between Vance and Bellevue Pastor Steve Gaines.

“To be ‘ordained’ as a pastor means to be ‘sanctified’ or ‘set apart’ for the purpose of fulfilling the biblical role of pastor within the context of a local congregation of Christ-followers,” said Gaines, who served on the study committee for the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, Southern Baptists’ statement of faith. “Only biblically qualified men should be ordained in a local church.”

Gender is one determining factor of who can serve as a pastor, but it’s hardly the only one.

“We look for men who are spiritually mature and qualify biblically to serve as a pastor,” Gaines said. “Our current pastors then interview a candidate to analyze his doctrine, the vibrancy of his walk with Christ and his Christian character. If he passes those examinations, he is recommended to the congregation to be set apart/ordained to be a pastor.”

Thereby, ordination is a factor in a Bellevue staff member’s ministry title.

“We refer to male and female non-ordained staff members who lead as ‘directors,’” Gaines said. “We do not refer to a non-ordained staff member as ‘pastor.’”

The Rock Fellowship is a young congregation in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Its first ordination was significant for the church.

“That was a big moment,” Pastor Daryl Jones said.

A young seminary graduate had been given opportunities to preach and teach, with Jones also establishing a mentoring program in eldership.

Observing spiritual growth and “the Holy Spirit’s empowerment,” Jones and others felt he had become ready to undertake other responsibilities as prescribed in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. That contrasts with another situation where a young man worked with the title of “minister,” who had not quite reached the level of pastor.

“I don’t use that term lightly,” said Jones, who noted that Scripture is “not ambiguous at all” when it comes the office being specific to men.

Hershael York, senior pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Kentucky, and dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, pointed to the practice of laying on of hands in the Bible as “a definite designation of someone as an elder, an overseer, a shepherd” to recognize someone’s “calling and gifting.”

The roots of ordination begin with the Word of God. From there, the responsibility of gauging candidates goes through a council of some type and, ultimately, the church itself.

“Accountability is a good thing,” York said. “When people go off doing their own things without accountability, there’s just no guarantee that they’re going to remain true to their word and faithful to the Lord.

“Ordination is a way where we formally examine someone and declare them fit to be a pastor.”

Others have a differing perspective when it comes to ordination. Juan Sanchez, senior pastor of High Pointe Baptist in Austin, Texas, prefers that churches affirm pastors as opposed to ordaining them.

“In our context, we don’t have ordination services,” he said. “The church recognizes—based on the testing from the elders and observation of the congregation—that once someone is presented to the congregation as pastor, that person is the pastor.”

Ordination, as he has seen it, “seems to give someone a title or office divorced from the local church context.”

“I’ll give you an example,” he said. “I’m just one of the pastors at High Pointe. But if I were to move away [and get another job], I’m no longer a pastor because I’m no longer shepherding a local church. The way ordination is used today, once I leave . . . I would still be carrying the title of ‘pastor’ because I’m ordained.”

The point, he explained, is that the office of pastor is intimately connected to the local church. This bears itself out in how many typically find their next pastor.

Many churches appoint a search team to look through resumes and discuss candidates. They watch videos of sermons or travel to observe in person. Eventually a name emerges and more interviews are held with the search team and meetings with key groups in the church. A question-and-answer session may occur the day before the candidate preaches in view of a call on Sunday morning.

“I realize that I’m swimming against the stream here of traditional Baptist history,” Sanchez said. “But I do think that, intuitively, that’s what is practiced.”

Sanchez also pointed to 1 Timothy 3 in showing the office of pastor as reserved for men, while noting that the explanation actually begins a chapter earlier.

“In 1 Timothy 2, Paul is basically prohibiting women from teaching doctrine to men or having authority over men in the context of the local gathering,” he said.

Jonathan Leeman is an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church in Bladensburg, Maryland, and editorial director for 9Marks, a parachurch organization focused on what it deems are the biblical marks of a healthy church. Leeman agreed that the word “ordination” has some drawbacks.

“It’s a contested term that we have inherited and brings a lot of baggage from medieval Catholicism,” he said. “It can unhelpfully communicate, as it were, a mystical mark on the soul that a man receives once for all, whether or not he’s in this church or that church.”

Like Sanchez, he also pointed to 1 Timothy 2 on the roles of women in teaching and exercising authority over men regarding the pastorate.

“I understand the authority [Paul] has in 1 Timothy 2:12 is that of a pastor/overseer/elder,” Leeman said.

“It does not have in mind congregational authority, which I understand to be shared by men and women by virtue of the priesthood of all believers. Nor does he have in mind any authority that a deacon might exercise over some tangible area of the church’s life. This is why I personally believe there’s room for female deacons, or deaconesses.”

When a church places the title of “pastor” on a staff person who does not meet the qualifications as leveled in Scripture, respondents stopped short of calling for disfellowshipping that church. However, at the very least such practices muddy the waters.

“That is a sloppy use of language,” York said. “I would not put that title on anyone just because it happens to be a man. This is where, I think, Baptist churches have been less than careful with our language. At Buck Run, those who we designate as pastor, we mean by everything the Word means as shepherds and overseers.”

Gregory A. Wills, dean of the School of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, agrees.

“In my view, it’s unhelpful to call someone who is not in the office of pastor, by the title of pastor,” he said. “It promotes confusion between the actions of the individual and the office.”

Wills explained that all believers have a basic set of “pastoral duties” to each other.

“We exercise, by duty under Christ, a certain shepherding function toward all other believers,” he said. “Those who have some maturity and leadership [qualities] are going to have more opportunities and a broader, deeper sense of duty to exercise pastoral functions.

“We minister to one another [and] shepherd one another. But having those general duties is not the same thing as being in the office of pastor/ elder/overseer.”

Regarding the Baptist Faith and Message, Vance said the text clearly limits the office of pastor to men. The overwhelming majority of Southern Baptist churches confirm this in practice. “We don’t have a preponderance . . . having women use the title of ‘pastor’ or preaching and teaching regularly,” he said.

He has expressed discouragement over talk of disfellowshipping any church that has such practices, but perhaps not in the direction one may expect.

“I know there’s a process [Southern Baptists] follow, but I’m discouraged because I think integrity demands that if you already know you’re out of line with where a group is, you should disfellowship yourself,” he said.

York pointed out that many Southern Baptist churches did just that after the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 was adopted to include Scripture and clearer language on gender roles and the pastorate.

“Those churches that left, they weren’t confused about what we meant,” he said.

Vance compared today’s discussion to someone agreeing to play soccer, then showing up in football gear. Both are sports. Both are active and fun. But each is distinct from the other.

In Southern Baptist life, there is a confessional statement “that tells us the game that we’re supposed to be playing.”

“It lacks a bit of honesty for folks to join a fellowship that is clearly complementarian and clearly states male eldership in its documents,” he said. “I find it to lack integrity to think that maybe you can enter the game to play a different one.”



What Is a Pastor?

By / Sep 27

Perhaps you’ve heard about the little boy who leaned over after the Sunday sermon to tell his mother, “I’ve decided to become a pastor when I grow up.”

“You have? Why did you decide that?” she asked.

“Well, I figure it’s more fun to stand up there and yell than it is to sit here and listen,” he replied.

For some, being a pastor is preaching a Sunday sermon. While a weekly message plays an important role, it is only the tip of the iceberg in pastoral ministry.

We talked to eight pastors and theologians about the work of a pastor in a local church.

Pointing to texts such as Acts 20:28-35, Ephesians 4:11-16, 1 Timothy 3:1-7, 1 Timothy 5:17-19, Titus 1:5-9, Hebrews 13:7-17, and 1 Peter 5:1-5, they talked about the need for clarity and the extensive responsibilities that come with the role of a pastor.

As they discussed the biblical words such as elder, overseer, and shepherd, which they believe all point to one office in the local church, the men also fleshed out the practical applications of leading, feeding, and protecting the flock.

“Paul told elders from the Church at Ephesus to oversee and shepherd their flocks,” said Steve Gaines, senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis.

Gaines was a member of the committee that drafted the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. The statement of faith adopted by messengers to the 2000 SBC Annual Meeting says that pastor and deacon are the two biblical offices of the local church.

“According to Scripture, a pastor leads the church primarily through preaching the Scriptures and by equipping and leading church members to minister to one another and to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with non-Christians in order to win them to faith in Jesus,” Gaines said.

Jonathan Leeman, an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church in Bladensburg, Maryland, and editorial director for 9Marks, a parachurch organization focused on what it deems are the biblical marks of a healthy church, agrees and says of a pastor, “He’s a man authorized by God, affirmed by the congregation, to lead the congregation in the way of Christ through preaching, prayer, and general oversight.”

Leeman says it is the call to preach and lead that sets a pastor apart from the deacons in the church.

“If we’re drawing from Acts 6, they [pastors] have the responsibility for the preaching of the Word and general oversight of the church,” Leeman said. “Whereas, deacons have responsibility in that text for bringing unity to the church by addressing tangible needs and supporting the ministry of the pastors.”

Darryl Jones, senior pastor of The Rock Fellowship in Pembroke Pines, Florida, says protecting the flock from false teaching is an important part of the work he feels called to pursue as a pastor.

“Teach them the Word of God. Praying for them. Teaching them spiritually and protecting them from false teachers and false doctrine,” he said.

This can prove to be a challenge in the information age. How can a pastor’s voice be heard by the sheep in an age when there are so many competing voices?

This isn’t a new question for God’s people. God has been caring for sheep for centuries. In fact, He is often heartbroken when His sheep are left to scatter.

God rebukes the “shepherds of Israel” in Ezekiel 34:1-6 when they do not care for the people of God. Jesus says He is the Good Shepherd in John 10:1-18 whose voice is recognized by the sheep.

The similarities between shepherds and pastors are brought to a crescendo in 1 Peter 5 when pastors are charged to shepherd the flock in 1 Peter 5:2, and in 1 Peter 5:4 they are reminded that the Chief Shepherd will appear. Scholars believe the Chief Shepherd to be, quite obviously, Jesus.

But sheep play a role in this shepherding. They must be willing to be shepherded.

That can be tough to achieve within churches that value not only the autonomy of the local church, but the personal freedoms of each believer.

The BF&M says, “Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes.” Further, it affirms the individual responsibility of each believer: “In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord.”

Gregory A. Wills, dean of the School of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, thinks about Hebrews 13:17 as he considers “the leadership or governing function” by which Christ calls the pastor to keep watch over the souls that have been placed in his care.

In that text, the author says pastors are “keeping watch” over the souls they lead. It is a sobering thought when considering the significant spiritual role a pastor should play in the life of a church member.

Thinking about Hebrews 13:17, a Crossway commentary records John Owen writing, “The work of these leaders is solely to take care of your souls: to keep them from evil, sin, and backsliding; to instruct them and feed them; to encourage their obedience and faith, and so lead them safely to eternal rest.”

Juan Sanchez, senior pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, gives the convention sermon at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting June 14, 2022, at the Anaheim Convention Center. Photo by Karen McCutcheon

At High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, Juan Sanchez says that is what he is trying to do.

“Essentially, what a pastor does is feed the flock and protect the flock. So, the image is that of the shepherd . . . to lead the sheep to green pastures and to protect them from wolves,” he said.

He looks to Ephesians 4:11-16 when he considers how a pastor-shepherd moves God’s people to fresh waters and fends off those who would try to harm them.

“What pastors do is they equip the saints for the work of ministry by preaching the Word, teaching the Word, and that’s how they both feed the church and protect the church,” he said.

Mark Vance, at Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa, is working, ultimately, to accomplish the same purpose.

Vance says he aims at four primary responsibilities in pastoral work: preaching and teaching the Word, shepherding or caring for God’s people, stewardship of the resources of the church, and being an example to the flock.

He says pastors should be careful to hear the call of 1 Peter 5:1-5 and remember to focus on what the pastor looks like, not just what he does.

“I would also appeal if you want to see what the pastor looks like, we have not just text but we have context and historical examples,” Vance said. “What did Jesus’ apostles look like? What did the spiritual leadership look like in the book of Acts? Who are the men listed there?”

He believes that while the New Testament features the characteristics of the pastor, there are important pictures of what it looks like to shepherd well.

“We have the exemplary text of the storyline of the New Testament and the development of how spiritual leadership looks in the early church,” Vance said.

Because of the authority given to him, a pastor’s character is of primary importance, said Hershael York, longtime senior pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Kentucky.

“When you think about someone who is a fantastic Sunday School teacher but they would not be a fantastic pastor, it comes down to authority,” said York, who is the dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He sees authority shine through the role of pastor, whether the shepherd is delivering the Sunday message or interacting with church members throughout the week, and likens it to the authority a parent should have in a child’s life.

“There’s a difference when my neighbor sees one of my kids doing something they shouldn’t be doing and tells them to stop and when I tell them that I’m going to discipline them if they don’t stop,” he said. “The difference is authority.

“Like that, a Sunday School teacher would be someone that teaches the Word of God, but they don’t have the authority in the sense of reproving, rebuking, exhorting that a pastor does. But a pastor standing in the pulpit opening the Word of God . . . there is authority.”

And it’s not just in the minutes when the preacher is preaching. The pastor’s spiritual authority should extend when he’s meeting people one on one or leading in a smaller setting.

“The pastor has the right and responsibility to go to people and instruct them and correct them,” York said. “If someone falls into sin, the pastor has the responsibility to call them to repentance. Hopefully they will repent, but if not, then the pastor is to take the next steps of discipline in the church.”

North Carolina church planter Quintell Hill believes that calling remains the same no matter the context. “I’ve thought a lot about this question. If you shepherd the flock of God, the methodology may be different, but the task is the same. We don’t deviate from the Book [Bible],” he said.



Sammy Tippit’s prayer life undergirds his evangelistic zeal

By / Apr 4

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (BP) -- God still is calling His people to evangelism, and veteran evangelist Sammy Tippit has added identifying and encouraging new evangelists at the same time he continues proclaiming as well as training and equipping those who are drawn to God’s love through Sammy Tippit Ministries’ worldwide evangelistic outreaches.

“When I started in COSBE [Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists] in the early 1970s, there were more than 200 members,” Tippit said. “Now there are 62.”

In addition to one-on-one mentoring, Tippit leads retreats for new evangelists in the United States and elsewhere throughout the world to acquaint them with resources, best practices and fellowship with others called by God to spread His love for all people in the United States and throughout the world.

“My heart is for going to the unreached people of the world,” Tippit told SBC Life. “As an evangelist my heart burns to see revival among God’s people. … If we are going to see revival, it is going to be because God is deeply at work in our lives.”

Ministry recap

Tippit had been a Christian four years in 1969 when he stood up at an evangelism conference and implored preachers there to reach out to youth in the exploding Jesus Movement.

International Evangelist Sammy Tippit continues to preach to large crowds in open-air venues, such as this crowd of engaged listeners in Pakistan.

That statement resulted in a pastor inviting Tippit to lead a youth revival at a Monroe, La., church. Just four youth gathered in pre-event prayer, but within days crowds swelled beyond the church’s ability to seat them, and city’s mayor offered the Monroe Civic Center at no cost during the revival’s unplanned second week. 

God then sent Tippit to the highest crime area in Chicago, a communist rally in Eastern Europe, Romania when it was suffering from Christian persecution, war-torn Burundi, and Rwanda after the 1994 attempted genocide. 

In 1999, Tippit preached in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where more than 300,000 people in four days listened in an open-air stadium. Two months later, he preached in Maracanã, the world's largest stadium, located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Tippit over the last 50 years has proclaimed the Gospel in more than 80 nations.

“It seems that doubt is the biggest enemy I face immediately before I stand to preach the Gospel: doubts about my abilities, doubts about the receptivity of the audience, and doubts whether the technology will work,” the evangelist said. “But the moment I stand and proclaim God's Word, incredible faith rises in my heart. God intervenes and enables me to speak with great confidence and authority. By the time I'm finished, I'm exhausted but filled with awe at all that God has done.”

Technological tools

From his earliest days as an evangelist, Tippit has used the latest technology. In 1970 it was stickers with catchy phrases: Real Peace is Jesus; One Way: Jesus; Repent: Trust Jesus, and others. He had flyers made up designed to attract the attention of youth searching for meaning in their lives.

Tippit also had a knack for attracting attention, which resulted in radio, television, and newspaper articles. 

Then, in 2015, at the request of a pastor in India, he first used the computer app Skype to disciple new believers in an Indian church plant.

The effectiveness of meeting via Skype four times a week for three weeks led Tippit and the longtime board of directors of Sammy Tippit Ministries “to pursue technology and get the Gospel out through technology,” the evangelist said. 

Tippit today uses a wide variety of technological tools, 10 language-specific websites, and 13 apps for mobile devices, and 13 social media pages.

He used 51 QR codes for supplemental information in his 2018 autobiography, Unashamed: A Memoir of Dangerous Faith, one of the 18 books he has written about God’s work. Run Like a Champion, published in 2011, discusses the physical training that produces spiritual benefits.

Tippit developed a year’s worth of 3-minute devotional videos in 2019, translated them into 13 languages, and posted them to language-specific social media pages.  

During 2020, he used the messaging application WhatsApp to distribute copies for Christian WhatsApp groups of two Tippit video-based evangelistic sermons, each translated into 10 languages, to an audience of 10 million people in about 80 nations. A Christian television station broadcasting into Iran also aired the videos to an additional audience of 6 million.

“I preach every Tuesday in Italy and Wednesday in Turkey from my office,” Tippit said. “Normally I preach three to four times per week in other countries. It is out of these connections that we are developing our Digital Bible Institute to train lay leaders in prayer, revival, evangelism, and discipleship.”

If funding is achieved, the Digital Bible Institute will be operational next year, in 2023. Instructors will come from people worldwide who are hands-on proficient in the subject they are teaching.

“Pastors, churches, can use this 21st-century digital technology to supercharge discipleship and evangelism, especially in a world changed by the recent pandemic,” Tippit said. “We know we’ve had millions of people watch and listen to these messages. So, we know there’s a hunger there.

International Evangelist Sammy Tippit preaches to 300,000 Ethiopians in four days at a stadium in Addis Ababa

“We must remember that the new wave of immigrants to the U.S. come from all over the world. Thus, this training is not only beneficial for churches in other countries. I believe we can raise up a generation of new evangelists in America who are multilingual.”

Sammy Tippit Ministries creates tools to encourage churches to do the work of evangelism because of the need for Christians to spread God’s love among their family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and others with whom they have contact, the evangelist said.  

“If the churches don't have a heart for evangelism, then there probably won't be evangelists to come out of those local churches, and they’re needed,” Tippit said. “Therefore, we are trying to equip and provide resources for evangelism. Our websites and applications have 28 days of evangelism training and follow-up for new believers.” 

Technology, however, is but a tool, the evangelist said. Prayer is the key to God’s activity.

Prayer is key

“Normally when revival comes, historically and biblically, it comes on the wings of a person or a small group of people who pray and seek Him desperately, wanting Him to move in their hearts and in their lives,” Tippit said. “From my experience and from the Word of God, I believe the only way God visits His people in revival is when His people seek His face.”

A turning point came early in Tippit’s ministry, one morning on a hill overlooking the Louisiana state capitol, when Tippit opened his Bible and as a result entered a self-imposed ‘school of prayer.’

“As we see God moving and doing things, it is a great temptation to forget what God wants above all else is a relationship,” Tippit said. “He wants fellowship with us. He wants us to draw away into that quiet place and meet with Him and get to know Him.

“More than He wants to do something through us, He wants to spend time with us,” the evangelist continued. “He wants us to have a place where we shut out everything that is around us – even the ministry we’re doing for Him – and meet with Him. If we are going to see revival, it is going to be because God is working in our lives.”

What will it take for people in America to become desperate enough to ask God for His intervention in these days of the fear of crime, COVID-19, crippling economy and a crumbling dream for a better life tomorrow?

“As we pray for our nation, it may get darker before it gets lighter,” Tippit said. “What we need to pray for is not a deliverance from all our problems and our troubles and our economy, but from ourselves. What we need to pray for is a movement of the Spirit of God among His people, where there is brokenness, confession, repentance, forgiveness, and cleansing. In a word: revival.

“Then, with the proclamation of God’s Word, will come a great evangelistic harvest. The greatest harvests always come during periods of revival, and revival always comes on the heels of those who have been praying.”



Seldom a ‘typical’ day in the life and ministry of WMU’s Sandy Wisdom-Martin

By / Jul 21

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—As Sandy Wisdom-Martin approaches her fifth anniversary as executive director/treasurer of national Woman’s Missionary Union, she seldom experiences a “typical” day.

With extensive travel, speaking engagements, strategy meetings, writing projects and a host of other responsibilities, she frequently finds herself balancing big picture goals and day-to-day details.

Those who work closely with Wisdom-Martin know that she takes it all in stride. How does she pull that off amid competing projects, pressures and priorities?

“Who I am today is because of WMU women who’ve invested in me and poured their lives into mine,” she affirmed. “I think of my Acteens leader who taught me so much in my little country church in southern Illinois. I think of WMU mentors who spent years shaping me into the person that I am today. And I just feel such a responsibility to the heritage, to the legacy that I've been given to help nurture that in others.

“At WMU, our mandate is to make disciples of Jesus who live on mission. People did that for me, and I want to pass that along to others,” Wisdom-Martin explained. “I see my role as being the biggest cheerleader I can be to help raise up another generation of women who will be involved in the mission of God.”

In her national leadership role with WMU, Sandy Wisdom-Martin frequently finds herself balancing big picture goals and day-to-day details. “By far, the favorite thing about serving in my role is the people that I get to work with,” she noted. “We collaborate together and we look for solutions and together we will find the future that God has for us.” (WMU photo by Pam Henderson)

Following God faithfully

Beyond that, she is deeply committed to her sense of call from God. “Why am I here today?” she reflected. “I'm the daughter of a foundry worker and a coal miner. I shouldn't be in this place. And it's not because of my skills or abilities. It's because of what God did through others and what He asked me to do and it's just following Him faithfully.”

In reality, she is uniquely qualified for the national ministry role God has entrusted to her. Prior to being elected national WMU executive director in 2016, she held similar WMU leadership positions on the state level in Texas and her home state of Illinois. She previously served several years in an associate role with Arkansas WMU.

And she hasn’t forgotten to focus on the basics. While “there really is no typical day in the life of an exec in WMU,” Wisdom-Martin said, “I like to come to the office and do my devotional time here before I start my work day. It usually involves multiple meetings with staff in various configurations. I do lots of emailing. I check the daily cash position because as treasurer, that's one of my responsibilities.

“I love to do research in the library,” she added. “I have a staff member assigned to ask me, anytime I say I'm headed to the library, ‘Are you sure you have time for that now?’ because I just love to research in the library.”

In her role as executive director of national WMU, Sandy Wisdom-Martin frequently begins her day in the office with a time of devotions and prayer. As she seeks God’s wisdom and guidance, she affirmed, “What God has for us is so much better than we can imagine on our own.” (WMU photo by Pam Henderson)

Sharing ministry conversations

Wisdom-Martin noted that she also does “lots and lots and lots of writing” as well as “lots of interviews with people.”

“One of the most wonderful things that I get to do is hear the stories of others,” she shared, “so to write about their stories or to interview them in a podcast, it doesn't get any better than that.”

In fact, her podcast, “On the Journey Conversations,” debuted as a positive ministry outlet amid the height of the COVID pandemic. Featuring informal conversations with WMU leaders, missionaries and other faith leaders, podcast topics range from “Build Each Other Up” and “Be a Visionary Leader” to “Finding Peace in the Midst of Chaos” and “A Christian Response to Racial Reconciliation.”

The podcast series, available at wmu.com/podcast, is a testament to Wisdom-Martin’s commitment to creative, cutting-edge missions endeavors.

“When we talk about making disciples of Jesus who live on mission, while that is our big mandate, we all have to find our place in that mandate,” she emphasized. “That's what I want for every Christ follower – to be able to take their place in God's plan. What God has for us is so much better than we can imagine on our own.”

Citing WMU’s team approach to pursuing God’s plan, Wisdom-Martin added, “By far, the favorite thing about serving in my role is the people that I get to work with – such a group of creative, committed Christ followers who show up every day and give it all they've got. We collaborate together and we look for solutions and together we will find the future that God has for us.

“Today, we’re looking at a day in my life, but we could be looking at a day in anyone's life,” she concluded. “I think the goal is, no matter who you are, no matter what you do, to live surrendered wholeheartedly to the will of God.”

That’s typical in Sandy Wisdom-Martin’s life and leadership – every single day.

National WMU Executive Director Sandy Wisdom-Martin often records brief video greetings to WMU groups across the nation and around the world, especially amid the height of the COVID pandemic. During a recent video session, she shared words of appreciation and encouragement for WMU gatherings in Alaska, Illinois, Tennessee and the Philippines. (WMU photo by Trennis Henderson)


‘Count the faces’: SBC diversity on the rise

By / Jun 11
NASHVILLE (BP) – When messengers see more ethnic diversity on committees at this year’s SBC annual meeting, they shouldn’t be surprised. As a report by the convention’s Executive Committee puts it, such diversity long has been “the expressed desire of the Southern Baptist Convention.” More than half of SBC President J.D. Greear’s appointments to 2020-21 committees are non-Anglo, as is 37 percent of the Committee on Nominations elected by messengers at the 2019 SBC Annual Meeting. Those are just two examples of how diversity has increased since the convention began to implement recommendations from a 2011 Executive Committee report suggesting a variety of new measures to expand non-Anglo participation. Among those measures was annual publication of information on ethnic participation on committees and at SBC entities. “There has been an increase in upper-level” ethnic participation, said EC chairman Rolland Slade, who is African American. “Doors have just been opened.” The 2011 recommendations stemmed from an SBC motion two years earlier by Massachusetts pastor Paul Kim, who is Korean. “When I went to the SBC annual meetings,” he said, many ethnic groups “were not represented. So I began to pray and to feel burdened.” Realizing most SBC calls for increased diversity over the previous half century had come in resolutions (which express messengers’ views without taking a specific action), Kim decided to make a motion asking the EC to take action. His 2009 motion requested a study group to examine “how ethnic churches and ethnic church leaders can be more actively involved in serving the needs of the SBC through cooperative partnership on the national level.” Robert Anderson, an African American pastor who helped lead the Executive Committee study from 2009-11, said EC members wanted to establish goals to translate the SBC’s diversity aspirations into “tangible and visible” results. “We wanted to require our agencies to let us know about ethnic people that were working in their ministries,” said Anderson, pastor of Colonial Baptist Church in Randallstown, Md. A progress report four years later from the EC noted that SBC committees and entities had begun to report on annual ethnic participation, and nomination forms used by the Committee on Nominations and the Committee on Committees had been amended to allow nominees to indicate their ethnic identities. Still, observers wondered if seemingly minor changes in reporting could make a tangible difference in SBC life. This year’s EC diversity report suggests they may have. Between 1996 and 2015, just 3.2 percent of individuals elected to serve on the Executive Committee were non-Anglo, a figure the EC’s 2015 progress report suggested was representative of other convention trustee boards. Today, that percentage has nearly tripled. Nine percent of the EC is non-Anglo, as is 36 percent of EC leadership staff. Overall, the SBC averaged 12.4 percent ethnic diversity per trustee board for 2020-21, according to the EC report. Individual boards range from a low of 3.9 percent ethnic diversity to a high of 21.6 percent. Among all Southern Baptists, at least 10.2 percent (nearly 1.5 million) are non-Anglo, according to a 2020 BP report. On just three of the convention’s 12 trustee boards does non-Anglo representation fall below that mark for 2020-21. Diversity among SBC leadership is important not only to reach all ethnicities with the Gospel, Kim said, but also to sustain the Cooperative Program, the convention’s unified channel for missions giving. “If you want to have Southern Baptists strong, you have to have all Southern Baptist churches come together, especially ethnic churches,” Kim said, “because most ethnic pastors don’t know Southern Baptist life.” Unless ethnic churches increase their knowledge and trust of the SBC, “they won’t contribute through the Cooperative Program.” The need to sustain CP and reach America’s diversifying population magnifies the importance of fixing Southern Baptists’ remaining weaknesses related to race and ethnicity. Among those weaknesses:
  • Despite multiple Baptists of color serving as entity vice presidents, the SBC has never elected a non-Anglo entity president.
  • In recent years, some SBC entities have reduced their number of non-Anglo employees, Kim and Anderson said.
  • At the end of 2020, just 20 of the International Mission Board’s 3,558 international missionaries were African American, according to the IMB’s 2021 CP Ministry Report.
Fred Luter, the only African American to serve as SBC president, said political tensions have made the past four years “some of the most difficult times” to be Black in the SBC. His comments came in a YouTube series hosted by Dhati Lewis, president of Send Network with the North American Mission Board, who is among the highest-ranking Black employees at any SBC entity. Alan Cross, a California pastor and longtime racial reconciliation advocate, said a key to further progress is for all Southern Baptists to form relationships with fellow Southern Baptists of other ethnicities. The need for diversified relationships struck him with particular force when an initial report from the 2018 Committee on Nominations recommended Anglos for 67 of 69 open committee and trustee positions. The ethnically lopsided nominations likely occurred because Committee on Nomination members “pick their friends. They pick people they know,” Cross said. Though unintentional, the lack of diversity highlighted the need for each Southern Baptist – especially those serving on committees – “to know people from diverse backgrounds.” Progress “shouldn’t go slow,” Cross said. “Time is not an excuse at this point. It’s 2021.” Still, Anderson rejoices in the progress that has been made. He cited an increased volume of Bible study curriculum for ethnic churches produced by Lifeway Christian Resources, more ethnic minorities in SBC leadership and an expanded annual Black Church Leadership and Family Conference funded by convention entities. Yet perhaps the most vivid reminder of progress will come when Baptists look around at the SBC annual meeting in Nashville next week. “All you’ve got to do is count the faces you see when you go to the convention,” Anderson said. There are “many more” ethnic minorities present now than there were 25 years ago.


From Cuba to US: President of Florida WMU Reflects on Life Lessons Amid Upheaval

By / Mar 30
Irma Moss (left), her sister, Leisy Gonzalez, and their mother, Amelia Hernandez, pose for a family photo. Moss fondly remembers her mom as a dedicated prayer warrior who taught her about the power of prayer. Photo courtesy of Irma Moss

Irma Moss vividly remembers five or six Communist soldiers invading her family’s home in Cuba and whisking her father off to jail in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. That was more than sixty years ago.

It was a traumatic, life-changing experience for the frightened eight-year-old girl and her family.

Moss’s life journey eventually led to her current leadership role as state Woman’s Missionary Union president for Florida Baptists.

Incredibly, the day after her father’s arrest, he was released from custody. He told his wife and two young daughters that they had less than twelve hours to leave their house, abandon most of their possessions, and find shelter elsewhere. Her father, a successful businessman in Cuba whose assets were immediately frozen by the Communist officials, made arrangements to immigrate to the United States and found work as a restaurant busboy.

Moss, her mother, and her sister took refuge in her aunt’s one-room apartment in Havana. Her family eventually reunited in Florida several months later.

Recounting their departure from Havana, Moss said flights to the US were on the verge of being halted and the plane they hoped to board was overbooked by thirteen passengers.

“That was the beginning of the journey where my mom taught me that prayer changes things,” Moss said. She said her mom began praying that they would be able to get on the flight, and thirteen people did not show up.

“God saved the last three seats for my mom, my sister, and I,” she said.

“The Doors Opened in America”

That also was the start of Moss’s new life in the United States.

“God was in control,” she affirmed. “My mom and my dad always looked to do God's will. The doors closed for us in Cuba, but the doors opened in America and I bleed red, white, and blue. I have lived the American dream.”

After learning English and completing elementary school, middle school, and high school in Orlando, Moss went on to college where she sensed God calling her to full-time Christian service. She earned her master’s degree at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and was involved in education and youth ministry for several years.

Along the way, she met and married her American husband, Tony, and they raised their son, Jonathan.

Moss said the Lord eventually led her to what she describes as “the mission field of public education,” where she served as a teacher, principal, and director of bilingual English as a Second Language for Orange County Public Schools.

“In the school system, God gave me the opportunity to share Jesus Christ by my witness and my life,” Moss noted. “That's what missions is all about.”

Connecting that belief to her WMU involvement, she said, “That’s why I love WMU so much, because WMU is about prayer. My mama taught me to pray for everything and God will answer your prayer.

“The other thing that I love about WMU is that we're teaching people about the best answer in life and that's Jesus Christ—that He is the way, the only way.”

“Missions Will Never Grow Old”

Florida WMU President Irma Moss describes her church, Iglesia La Roca, as “another story of God’s miracles.” She said the Spanish-language congregation that meets at Conway First Baptist Church in Orlando includes people from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Honduras, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. WMU photo by Pam Henderson

Describing WMU as “the wonderful ministry that unites the church” amid today’s chaotic world, Moss said, “Missions will never grow old because missions is telling the story of Jesus. It’s telling the lost world that God loves them and that He died for them—and that the only hope that we have for our sin is Jesus.”

In her role as Florida WMU president, she added, “This is what the Lord was calling me to do, and I needed to do it and to do it enthusiastically and do it to the best of my ability to glorify Him.”

Cindy Bradley, executive director of Florida WMU, admitted it is “difficult to sum up the impact of Irma’s leadership and friendship over these past few years.” She said words that come to mind when she thinks of Moss include faithful, enthusiastic, prayerful, humble, and discerning.

“Her commitment to our God and to His Kingdom is unswerving,” Bradley affirmed. “She is a faithful student of God’s Word and is a faithful prayer warrior. When you ask Irma to pray about something, you know she really will.”

That was a valuable life lesson Moss learned long ago from her mother at an airport in Cuba. It’s a lesson she still is practicing more than six decades later.



American Indian Embraces Culture to Lead People to Jesus

By / Mar 11

People don’t grow into mature Christians until they serve others. So says American Indian pastor and ministry leader Bruce Plummer, of Sioux, Assiniboine, and Cree heritage.

In his multifaceted ministry, Plummer invites mission teams to come to Montana to serve with Montana Indian Ministries: picking up trash and handing out water and coffee in four weeks of powwow ministry, five weeks of Indian camp ministry for children and youth, and construction/maintenance/mercy ministry to people on the reservation.

Powwow ministry. Photo courtesy of Montana Indian Ministries.

Plummer also takes mission teams from four Montana reservations to do similar ministries elsewhere in the United States, Mexico, Central America, Australia, and the Philippines.

In addition, he started and currently pastors Frybread Fellowship on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, and another church of the same name in Great Falls, where urban Indians live.

“I just believe serving people first is so critical when you want to share the Gospel with them,” Plummer said. “You can tell people all day long you love them but until you show them, they’re not going to hear you. It’s a core belief I have.”

Plummer also is involved in training tribal men to lead their families through the Fatherhood is Sacred ministry; in ministering to American Indians by leading them through grief and shame; and in providing training for Native Americans in chaplaincy so they can be certified to minister to tribal people in non-reservation hospitals. On Friday nights in the summer, he shows family-friendly films on the outside wall of the church building.

“I’m constantly trying to figure out how to effectively reach our people,” Plummer told SBC Life. “In serving their social problems, then I can share what Christ has done for them and what God can do for them.

“My job,” Plummer continued, “is to take the indigenous people, who already believe in the Creator, from Genesis 1—In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth—to John 1—In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was God—and I have to do it in a culturally contextually relevant way.”

Barrett Duke, executive director of the Montana Southern Baptist Convention, told SBC Life he is “grateful for all Bruce is doing” because “the needs are tremendous and the challenges, daunting.”

When Plummer became a Christian at age twenty-one and God didn’t instantly turn his skin white (see related article), he realized it was okay to be Indian. That was contrary to his reservation upbringing and the stories told by his father and others of that generation, most of whom had been taken from their homes to be “civilized” in boarding schools.

Realizing God loved the Indian he was, Plummer began to rejoice in his culture. Today he wears Native attire, prepares Native meals, sings Native songs, plays Native drums, participates in Native sweat lodges and powwows, and tells American Indians it’s okay to be the person God created them to be.

“Bruce—Chief Geshka Wamni Tanga—is a follower of Jesus who can serve his Savior without abandoning the culture into which God chose to place him,” Lenny Loe told SBC Life. Loe is missions pastor at First Baptist Church of Jonesboro, Georgia. “He is honored by his people by being recognized as a chief, a tribal elder, a pastor, and a man of God.”  

Paul Ragsdale, an outreach leader at Houston’s First Baptist Church in Texas, noted the effectiveness of Plummer’s ministry.

“When we began helping Pastor Bruce in 2008, there were probably not five hundred evangelical, Bible-believing, church-going Indians in Montana,” Ragsdale told SBC Life. “Today, there is a great percentage—at least 25 percent—of the Fort Belknap Reservation who know Jesus as their Savior.”

More than 2,400 Indians in the last fifteen years of Montana Indian Ministries have made a profession of faith, Plummer said.

“We have several young men and women who have felt called to serve in the ministry—many now are in college and serving in various ways with their home churches,” Plummer said. “Those who have grown up on the reservation and are answering the call have overcome incredible odds and are genuine miracles in the making.”

Those “incredible odds” include a pervading sense of hopelessness because of chronic joblessness, inadequate health care, and unrelenting poverty that leads to many forms of abuse, broken families, various addictions, and loss of pride in their identity and heritage, Plummer said.

Under a banner of “One Earth, One People, One God,” Montana Indian Ministries works with its partners to share the Gospel with Montana’s eleven tribes of American Indians on seven reservations and in the state’s urban areas.

“God has gifted Bruce with a culturally-relevant vision to reach his people with the Gospel while others have been largely unsuccessful,” Eric Brown, missions pastor at Central Baptist Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas, told SBC Life. “It is obvious that Bruce holds tight to what Southern Baptists believe but more important, what the Bible says. 

“The darkness where Bruce lives makes the ministry even more difficult,” Brown continued. “He deals with hopelessness in his people, men and women that do not expect to live past their fifties. Montana Indian Ministries has been a driving force to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a guarded people who feel secluded and forgotten.”

Mission team from Church at the Mill in Moore, South Carolina, serving with Montana Indian Ministries. Photo courtesy of Montana Indian Ministries.

Ministry partners financially support the work.

“I don’t charge for anything, for powwows or camp, one of which has three hundred kids,” Plummer said. “If we’re obedient, [God] will take care of everything else. I’m trusting God completely for everything: for the air I breathe, the food I eat, and every time I get in the shower I say, ‘Thank you God for the hot shower.’”

When God told him to move into full-time ministry on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation—previously he was pastoring three churches and working as the manager of a feed store and fuel station—God also told him to pick up trash, Plummer said. Plummer knew that meant God wanted him to go to powwows, a type of Native festival that can draw four thousand to fifteen thousand participants for a four- to eight-day event.

Some say going to powwows, dancing, drumming (said to invoke Native spirits), and going to sweat lodges (a place of prayer for American Indians) are things Christians should not do. Plummer says he keeps his focus on the God He knows from personal experience and the Bible.

“Pastor Bruce is one of the most faithful men I have ever served with,” Jason Williamson, missions pastor at the Church at the Mill in Moore, South Carolina, told SBC Life. “He truly relies on the Lord for all things.”

The stumbling block in reaching American Indians is that they know there is a Creator; they just don’t know who He is, Plummer said. “That’s my calling, to tell them.”

Mel Blackaby, senior pastor of First Jonesboro in Georgia, had this to say:

“We believe God is effectively using Bruce Plummer to reach a people group that desperately needs Christ. Effective and lasting ministry can only happen when there is consistency and faithfulness over long periods of time.

“Dad [Southern Baptist statesman Henry Blackaby] has said many times that he believes God is going to use the Native Americans to bring revival to America. There is no people group in America that has been more devastated by drugs, alcohol, suicide, poverty, and hopelessness. If God can set them free, and set them on fire, God will use their testimony to transform any people who would turn to Jesus. “Bruce Plummer has been called to reach the most difficult people in America: a people who feel betrayed and used by the church of previous generations,” Blackaby concluded. “It is a hard road, but one that we must walk. Let’s keep Bruce in our prayers.”



New Beginnings Pregnancy Center Offers Help and Hope for Mothers and Babies

By / Mar 2
Janet Dixon, executive director of New Beginnings, and other staff members are trained and qualified to provide limited ultrasound exams for clients. As expectant parents and family members view the ultrasound, Dixon said, “The tears come when they get to see that heartbeat. That is always amazing to them. It just speaks to God's creation.” WMU photo by Pam Henderson

New Beginnings Pregnancy Center in Benton, Arkansas, has had a few new beginnings of its own. Originally established in 2003 as a nonprofit ministry to pregnant teens, it has grown to serve women of any age who can benefit from the ministry’s resources.

In recent years, New Beginnings has expanded to include ultrasound exams and pregnancy testing in addition to offering material resources such as diapers, wipes, baby formula, and gently-used clothes for babies up to twenty-four months old. The center also provides confidential counseling, mentoring, parenting classes, and Bible studies.

“I just think that babies are the most precious human beings in the whole wide world,” said Patti Snowden, New Beginnings’ assistant director. As a mother and grandmother, “I feel grandmotherly towards the babies and motherly towards the young women,” she added.

Snowden, whose professional background includes thirty years as a speech pathologist in public schools, coordinates the ministry’s resource center in a small, renovated house located on a side street behind the offices of Central Baptist Association. Executive Director Janet Dixon, a nurse with training in OB ultrasounds, supervises the pregnancy test center housed in a dedicated wing of the associational office.

“In the Central Arkansas area, there is a lot of poverty,” Snowden explained. “We do have a certain young woman who tends to come into our center needing help. Typically, they have not had a good experience in their own family.

“Most of these young women do not have much financial support,” she added. “Some are employed, some are not, but those who are employed typically are those who make minimum wage so there's just not a lot of extra money to go around.”

Noting that “we believe that whoever comes to our door, God brought them here for a reason,” Snowden said, “Many times they have had no experience of knowing who Jesus is so we get the privilege of telling them about Jesus. That is our honor and our joy to be able to do.”

Woman’s Missionary Union groups, including Women on Mission at nearby First Baptist Church of Benton, partner with the ministry by donating diapers, wipes, and other needed items. A couple of area quilt guilds and volunteers at a senior citizens center craft homemade quilts and afghans for the pregnancy center to distribute.

Motivated to “Make Much of Jesus”

Rose Donoher (left) is among volunteers who lead an eight-week Bible study for expectant mothers at New Beginnings Pregnancy Center in Benton, Arkansas. Each client who attends the Bible study sessions receives a diaper bag and a variety of care items to fill it for their new baby. WMU photo by Pam Henderson

As she works with volunteers and offers encouragement to the women who turn to New Beginnings for help, “my motivation is to make much of Jesus,” Snowden said. “I want these young women to know His love.”

Affirming that Christ “captured my heart” at age nineteen, Snowden reflected, “Over the course of my lifetime, He has just drawn me so close to Him.” Longing for New Beginnings’ clients to experience that same spiritual relationship, she said, “I want them to know exactly who He is and the dimensions of His love, which are higher than the heavens.”

Diana Lewis, a longtime member of Central Association’s Missions Development Council, recounted God’s clear leadership in founding the ministry and expanding in 2015 to include the test center and ultrasound.

There were three big things the ministry needed in order to offer the medical services, she said: a facility, a medical director, and an ultrasound machine. In short order, the association offered part of its facility to house the test center and Lewis discovered that her new medical doctor had previous experience as a pregnancy center medical director. He readily agreed to serve in that role for New Beginnings.

The final hurdle was acquiring a $26,000 ultrasound machine. A local organization offered to contribute half the money if New Beginnings could raise the other half. Lewis, a retired North American missionary and avid quilter, organized a silent auction and quilt auction.

“The next day after that, our director came to my house and we counted the money,” Lewis said. “And we had almost to the dollar exactly what we needed for our half of the ultrasound machine. To me, it's a miraculous story of how God laid this on our director’s heart and then we all caught the vision for it—and then just boom, boom, boom, God laid before us the things that we needed most to be able to make it happen.”

Offering Practical and Spiritual Aid

Patti Snowden (left), assistant director of New Beginnings Pregnancy Center, and volunteer Tara Dennie count and sort donated diapers to distribute to clients at the ministry center. WMU photo by Pam Henderson

Dixon, who often provides pregnancy counseling for clients, views her role as executive director as an opportunity to offer both practical and spiritual aid for women and their families.

“As we help them in motherhood, we're pointing them to Christ,” Dixon said. Resources from ultrasounds to diapers are “filling a need for them that day, just like we would give a cold drink of water to someone,” she added.

Noting that they often come alongside clients who are “abortion vulnerable” or “abortion-minded,” Dixon said, “Some of the times they are shocked about being pregnant and they then need to work through their attitudes about their pregnancy and what their plans are.”

Those moments, she added, “are our opportunities to talk to them about fetal development and about what the Bible has to say about babies and about their value” as well as God’s view that each one of them are “valuable women.”

Emphasizing that “we are speaking the truth in love,” Dixon said, “We are not manipulating. We do not tell them what we think they should do.

“We are very truth-based,” she said. “We tell them facts about fetal development, things that I would tell them if I was in a clinic that's not faith-based. As a nurse practitioner, that's important to me.

“I see it as empowering them to make a good decision for their baby and for themselves,” Dixon shared. “Whatever they do, we want them to feel loved.”

Helping Build Accountability, Responsibility

That unconditional love and acceptance is expressed through such creative programs as a diaper bag ministry where clients can select items—including the cherished, one-of-a-kind quilts and afghans—to fill a diaper bag after attending Bible study classes each week. They also can earn Baby Bucks by attending parenting classes and other activities, redeeming the coupons for diapers, formula, and baby clothes.

“No real money exchanges hands but they have an accountability and a responsibility on their part,” Snowden pointed out. “It is a great incentive to them. Plus, for us, we get to know them and they get to know us and we build a relationship with these young women.” As New Beginnings Pregnancy Center helps women and families navigate their own new beginnings in life, Snowden concluded, “We are in hopes that what we do here will help change the trajectory of their lives—that they will see that they have a purpose and a destiny and every plan that God has for them is a good plan.”



Love World and Welcome House Impact Knoxville and World for Christ

By / Feb 18

How can the crisis of an Iraqi refugee family’s house fire help churches engage young women in missions involvement amid their busy twenty-first century lives?

Several congregations in the Knoxville area are discovering the answer through hands-on interaction with such ministry groups as Love World, Welcome House Knoxville, and Knoxville Internationals Network.

Welcome House Knoxville, a nonprofit ministry organized in 2019, provides temporary housing for refugees and other internationals. The ministry’s primary aim is “building long-term relationships through short-term housing” as volunteers “share the love of Jesus through the ministries of hospitality and friendship.” WMU photo by Pam Henderson

Kimberly Poore is a member of the Love World team at Wallace Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville. The missions group, which launched in 2019, is geared toward young women ages twenty-five to forty. She said the leadership team seeks “to educate and also provide mission opportunities for other Wallace women within our church.”

Love World’s missions focus includes ministering alongside Welcome House Knoxville, a nonprofit ministry that provides temporary housing for immigrant and refugee families in the Knoxville area.

The ministry’s primary aim is “building long-term relationships through short-term housing,” according to welcomehouseknoxville.org. Providing “safe and loving space for individuals and families in transition to permanent housing” allows volunteers “to share the love of Jesus through the ministries of hospitality and friendship.”

Cindy Hood, the founder and director of Welcome House, noted that long-term housing often is difficult to find for many refugees, especially for larger families and single women with children.

After visiting a similar refugee ministry model while on a family vacation in North Carolina, Hood said she returned home with a burden to partner with Bridge Refugee Services, Knoxville’s local refugee resettlement agency. Following discussion with leaders at Central Baptist Church of Bearden and Knoxville Internationals Network (KIN), she began working to establish Welcome House Knoxville as a nonprofit ministry.

Renting an unused missionary guest house from a local church, Welcome House officially opened in 2019 to provide short-term housing for refugees or other internationals. The ministry also recruited Sunny Ikojoh, who came to the US as an international student, to serve as the minister of hospitality for guest families.

Meeting Needs in Times of Crisis

Cindy Hood, the founder and director of Welcome House Knoxville, noted that long-term housing often is difficult to find for many refugees. “We are a ministry that wants to show the love of Jesus through Christian hospitality,” she explained. “I feel like the best I can do is be the hands and feet of Christ in a very practical way." WMU photo by Pam Henderson

Since opening Welcome House’s doors, “we've had several single moms, mostly from Africa, with toddlers,” Hood said. Most recently, they hosted the refugee family of seven from Iraq whose rental home was destroyed last summer in a house fire.

Volunteers from Welcome House, Love World and KIN all came together to help meet that family’s urgent need in the midst of crisis.

“At supper time, they were cooking. The mom stepped out of the kitchen and when she came back in the kitchen was on fire,” Hood recounted. “It was too much for them to put out themselves and so they just really escaped with what they were wearing. They had a few trash bags of just some things they grabbed, but most things they lost in the fire.”

After the family spent a sleepless night in a local business where the father works, KIN’s director put them in contact with Welcome House, where they spent their second night. “We put out on our Facebook page what their story was and we had churches, individuals give through our website, and we were able to give them gift cards,” Hood said. “A volunteer took them shopping to buy clothing, shoes, personal necessities.”

The Iraqi father asked Hood several times if his family would be safe at Welcome House. “I assured him that yes, it was going to be very safe and that Sunny would be taking care of them—and he has,” she said.

“We are a ministry that wants to show the love of Jesus through Christian hospitality,” Hood emphasized. “However, we don't require that someone is a Christian to live in the house. But we also are very willing to tell them why we're helping them. . . . I feel like the best I can do is be the hands and feet of Christ in a very practical way.

“When I got the call about the Iraqi family, they needed to move in the next day,” Hood said. “So I got in contact with Kimberly Poore and she made a couple of phone calls, and she and another woman were able to meet me and my family—my husband and daughter—and Sunny at the house, and we just went through and cleaned the house super quick.”

When refugees or other international guests move into Welcome House, “I want it to feel like you're at a friend's house and you can relax,” Hood said. “There's food in the refrigerator, there's clean towels, clean sheets. You don't have to really think about taking care of yourself for a few hours or a few days. You can just exhale.”

Equipping and Educating Volunteers

Jani Whaley
Jani Whaley, executive director of Knoxville Internationals Network, said her group’s goal is to serve internationals “by equipping and educating church members and small groups so that relationships can be built and the Gospel message can be given.” Her organization often partners with Welcome House Knoxville to help match available volunteers with various ministry needs. WMU photo by Pam Henderson

Jani Whaley, executive director of Knoxville Internationals Network, said her group’s goal is “to reach the internationals through the churches by equipping and educating church members and small groups so that relationships can be built and the Gospel message can be given.”

With a database of three hundred volunteers, she said KIN often helps find volunteers for the Welcome House for cleaning and getting supplies.

Recounting the night of the house fire, Whaley said the Iraqi family had been living down the road from her. “I saw the fire trucks; I saw the fire and I didn't even realize that there was a refugee family that lived in that house,” she said. “It was just a few hours later I got a call stating a refugee’s house just burned down and there's five children involved.”

As a former short-term missionary to the Middle East, Whaley said, “I have a heart for all internationals, but there's something special about those Middle Eastern people that just really tugs at my heartstrings.”

After connecting with the family’s teenage daughter who speaks English, “I went over there within the hour and met the family and talked to the father and met all the children and developed a friendship right then and there,” Whaley said. The next day, “I went over to their house personally and loaded them up in my car and just picked through the rubble of their house. We took them to the Welcome House and got them situated.”

Doing Life Alongside Refugee Families

Welcome House Knoxville serves refugee families and other internationals in need to temporary housing. Director Cindy Hood noted that when guests move into Welcome House, “I want it to feel like you're at a friend's house and you can relax.” Photo courtesy of Cindy Hood

In his role as minister of hospitality, Ikojoh stepped in to assist the displaced family with day-to-day adjustments. “When that incident happened, we saw the love of Christ,” he said. “We don't get to choose where we shine the light. The light is meant for everywhere, taking away all darkness all around.”

Ikojoh, who grew up in Nigeria, came to the United States in 2015 to attend seminary. After working with refugee families during a volunteer mission trip, he felt God was calling him to this ministry.

“I cannot fully understand what a refugee experiences. I can't even fully understand what it means to be a refugee,” he acknowledged. “But being an international student, I can identify that truly they do go through a cultural shock.

“When we intentionally engage our international neighbors and make them feel at home, then we have been the light of Christ,” Ikojoh said. “We just listen and pay attention and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us as we respond to these needs. I think the goal is to do life alongside these people.”

In her leadership role with Love World, Poore helps coordinate the group’s quarterly gatherings in members’ homes. Activities range from hosting missionary speakers to providing a monthly fellowship brunch for international moms.

When Cindy Hood shared about Welcome House at one of the gatherings, “I felt the Lord really just putting that on my heart to be involved,” Poore said.

While she and other Love World volunteers have served the Iraqi family and other refugees by helping clean Welcome House and provide other needed resources, Poore said she hasn’t personally met the house’s international guests. But that doesn’t diminish her enthusiasm for her behind-the-scenes ministry opportunities. “We know their story,” she pointed out, “so we feel connected to them in that way.

“Being a part of this is important to me because God calls us to be disciples, make disciples of all nations,” Poore added. “He also calls us to unite together, to bear one another's burdens.”

That powerful truth is making a practical impact for refugee families who call Welcome House Knoxville their temporary home.

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How Can Your Congregation Help Young Women Develop a Heart for Missions?

Wallace Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee, is among area congregations seeking to encourage missions support and involvement at home and around the world. Wallace Memorial’s Love World missions group involves young women in a variety of hands-on missions projects with local ministries such as Welcome House Knoxville. WMU photo by Pam Henderson

How can your church start a missions group like Love World to help young women develop a heart for missions?

Kim Cruse, a former International Mission Board collegiate church planter in the Philippines, insists the need is urgent. “If you can put missions into the DNA of a new believer or of a young believer early on in their Christian life, they will always see missions as important,” she emphasized.

Cruse, who began serving last year as Tennessee WMU’s missions discipleship specialist, poses the thought-provoking question: “Where are the future IMB missionaries going to come from and where are the future mission supporters going to come from if we're not able to engage and connect and get these younger women involved in missions?"

“This has been a burden of WMU for many years, so I love what has happened at Wallace [Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee],” she said. Missions leaders there launched Love World in 2019 to reach and involve women from age twenty-five to forty in missions discipleship and support.

The response has been noteworthy. In addition to listening to missionary guest speakers and praying for missionaries, Love World participants are involved in such hands-on missions projects as hosting a monthly fellowship brunch for international moms and partnering with Welcome House Knoxville to serve refugee families.

Those ministries are particularly fitting since Wallace Memorial is named in honor of Dr. Bill Wallace, a revered Southern Baptist medical missionary and martyr who served in China for seventeen years until his death in a Chinese communist prison in 1951. Seven decades later, Wallace Memorial and Love World echo Wallace’s commitment to global missions service.

Kimberly Poore
Kimberly Poore is a member of the Love World team at Wallace Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville. The missions group is geared toward young women ages twenty-five to forty. She said the leadership team seeks “to educate and also provide mission opportunities for other Wallace women within our church.” WMU photo by Pam Henderson

“God put missions on my heart many years ago,” noted Kimberly Poore, a Love World team member. “As a mother of young children, it's not easy just to pick up and go somewhere, but there's so many opportunities locally that we are able to reach internationals.

“God has opened that door for me to be able to do that even within our church,” she added. “He just opened the doors to the international moms group. Our kids are playing together and creating friendships and just loving on one another.”

Love World’s quarterly gatherings “have given us the opportunity to be educated and to share mission opportunities within our area and also within the world that we can be a part of,” Poore shared. “A wonderful aspect of our Love World is just gathering together, praying for missionaries together and bringing awareness to the different mission opportunities within our world.”

Cruse said in her conversations with other WMU leaders, “I frequently refer them back to Wallace’s Love World group. This is a group that has found a way that's working, that younger women are responding.

“Every time they gather, they have twenty to thirty young women that are getting more and more involved,” she pointed out. “They're inviting their friends and some of them are really being engaged with missions for the first time.”

Love World’s ultimate goal, Cruse concluded, “is really to draw the hearts of these young women into God's purpose of making His glory known around the earth and giving them opportunities to experience that firsthand.”