BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Cooperation has long been a defining mark of Southern Baptist churches. Together, churches can accomplish far more than they can alone.
When one church celebrates, all churches celebrate.
When one church hurts, all churches feel it.
But when one church has a need, how do others respond?
A powerful answer to that question came two weeks ago when Bethany Baptist Church — a small rural congregation in Warren County established in the 1800s — gave an extraordinary gift to a growing congregation in the Bowling Green area.
Some might call it the Mission Church miracle.
Bethany Baptist has supported Mission Church since its founding about 12 years ago. Mission Church only recently took ownership of property it had rented for the past four years from the South Central Baptist Association, purchasing it for $500,000.
Bethany Baptist reached deep and presented Mission Church with a $100,000 offering.
“In a time where the easiest thing to do is be about the church of us, they exuded hilarious generosity. We received what we did not deserve,” said Mission Church Pastor Eric Baker. “It’s a beautiful story from a likeminded church across the county.”
Bethany Baptist Pastor Lucas Page explained how everything worked to give Mission Church the gift. He said it started five years ago when they formed a leadership group to bless someone who had a need.
“We had a lot more in an investment account than we need to sustain our ministry for the upcoming years,” he said. “We began to pray that God would put somebody before us that had a need.”
Page had formed a pastoral friendship with Baker and Mission Church and knew of their transition from being a renter to owner of the building they were occupying.
“We just saw that as an answer to our prayer, a clear opportunity of a like-minded faithful, healthy church that had a need and we had more than we needed,” Page said.
The pastor, who has been at Bethany for 10 years, noted the money came from an investment account from years ago, even before he became pastor.
“That significant amount of money is not money that the current membership at Bethany raised or gave sacrificially. That is part of an investment account that someone I never even met gave years ago. They left it to the church and it grew and its amount was more than we had a current need for. It was good that we’re giving this money, but the real sacrifice wasn’t even to us. We’re just taking that money that we kind of inherited and found a need for it and gave it away.”
Page said Mission Church never asked for money or solicited for funding, rather, the gift was about “being their friends and hearing about their need and their going in debt. We saw that and we prayed that God would give an opportunity and He brought it (Mission Church) to our attention. The (Mission) church would have done that they needed to work and pay off their debt.”
‘A big undertaking’ at Mission Church
“It’s still a big undertaking,” Baker said of purchasing the building. “It has been a huge blessing for us to have a building we can call home but now we have a cost. We paid rent to the association for four years but now we have a mortgage and property upkeep, and it needs a new roof.”
The property includes eight acres of land but requires renovation and updates, which adds additional expense. The church made a $200,000 down payment, but owning the property brings new financial responsibilities. And debt is not something they are used to handling.
Friends like those at Bethany Baptist have followed the plight from the start and understood the burden Mission Church was facing.
“They’ve been huge supporters of ours in backing us in prayer and wanting us to get this building from our local association,” Baker said.
“Out of the congregation, people have been generous, but we were going to need some outside help. We did not want to be in debt. Lo and behold …”
Baker and Page share a close friendship and are part of a group of pastors who meet regularly to share praises and concerns. Their relationship extends beyond that group, Baker said. He has preached at Bethany three or four times, and another member of the Mission Church staff has also spoken there.
“This year they decided, as a church, they want to be kingdom-minded, kingdom focused and were having some of us likeminded pastors to, once a month, come to the church and preach.”
Baker was invited to preach in February. At the end of the service, he was asked to come back to the front where several men from the church gathered around him.
“They explained their vision to be kingdom-minded supporting and cooperating with like-minded churches,” Baker said. “He said, ‘Pastor Eric, we want you to know Bethany Baptist is for you, we want to support you all and we’ve got an offering here to support you guys. You look at this later. We knew new debt is a burden. It’s a gift of appreciation, support and partnership.’ They prayed for me and sent me out.”
Baker took the envelope to his car. Rather than opening it immediately, he Facetimed the two pastors on his staff. After telling them it was a gift, he pulled out the check and placed it face down on his leg before turning it over so they could all see it at the same time.
“We were overwhelmed,” he said.
Announcement followed by praise and tears
They decided to keep the news private until the following Sunday, when Baker could share it with the congregation.
“At the end of our gathering this past Sunday, I told the congregation the importance of partnerships and giving,” Baker said. “I called our deacon over stewardship up and I handed him the check like it was handed to me and told them we’d been given from Bethany Baptist Church a check for $100,000.”
Praises, tears and cheering followed from the appreciative crowd at Mission Church.
Tommy Tapscott, a Kentucky Baptist Convention consultant for the South Central Region, was impressed with the generous gift.
“It never ceases to amaze me of the generosity from our churches toward one another to continue to further the mission of Jesus Christ,” he said. “This is another example of the cooperation that exists among sister churches.”
Bethany Baptist is not a large congregation. It has about 50 covenant members, with 80 to 100 people typically attending Sunday services — many of them children, Baker said. It is also Page’s first pastorate.
“He told me churches should not be storehouses for money,” Baker said. “It doesn’t mean not being good stewards (of money given) but the church should not be sitting on a large sum of money. There is something you can help support.
“We talk a lot about cooperation in Baptist life. This mirrors the best of us acting and responding in this way. We’re figuring out ways to pay some of it forward.”
This article originally appeared in Kentucky Today.
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