Sunday, March 14, 2010

Planting churches in Arizona

By Mickey Noah


As a Southern Baptist pastor for the last 30 years – and as a North American Mission Board missionary for the past six – Louis Spears has conducted many a funeral. But none of them prepared him for the long, lonely walk behind his wife’s casket almost two years ago.

A native of Guthrie, Okla., Spears and his wife, Shelley, had been married for 32 years – ever since they were both 20-year-old church planters in Oklahoma. But in May 2008, she succumbed to a pancreas-related illness only 11 days after its sudden onset.

“Shelley was an incredible person, a woman of many talents,” says Spears. “The main thing I miss about Shelley – other than just being together as not only my spouse but also my best friend – is the amount of prayer-time she spent on my ministry. She was really my partner in ministry. It’s a huge loss and huge gap in my life.”

Spears’ strong, tried-and-true personal faith prevented him from caving in to the temptation of chucking his whole ministry and blaming God in the process.

“I never thought about blaming God. I was not mad at God. The worst thing was being totally cut off from Shelley, missing her encouragement and positive reinforcement.”

Still after almost two years, the 54-year-old missionary said the grief is still “like big ocean waves that just swell up over you and you can’t fight them, but you know the Lord is the Lord, that He is supreme, and that in His design, He had a purpose for it.

“I can’t see it and I don’t understand it but I really don’t argue with Him about it. I really tried during Shelley’s 11-day crisis and through the last year to live my life without regrets. I didn’t leave anything undone or unsaid,” said Spears, who has a 24-year-old daughter, Amy, one grandchild and another on the way.

Spears is one of some 5,300 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions. He is among the North American Mission Board missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 7-14, 2010. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Share God’s Transforming Power.” The 2010 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $70 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like Spears.

While no one or nothing can ever replace the vacuum in his life caused by Shelley’s death, Spears depends on his challenging missionary work in Arizona to take up some of the slack, ease the pain and bring new victories.



Saturday, March 13, 2010

Expanding God's work in Puerto Rico

By John J. Correa


At the onset of his missionary career, pastor Luis Rodríguez and his wife, Lourdes Santiago, were dismayed at the lack of commitment from church members at the church they’d planted in Coamo, Puerto Rico. However, this apathy did not hamper the efforts of these Southern Baptists. Besides, from God's divine perspective, this was only the beginning.

Luis remembers the challenges faced during those uncertain days after being sent by the Raham First Baptist Church of Santa Isabel to plant a new church in Coamo.

"When we arrived at Raham-Coamo, we noticed the believers there didn't really have a commitment to come to the services,” said Rodriguez. “When we were on our way to a prayer service, they started calling to excuse themselves from coming to the service. In that moment I turned and looked at my wife and wondered if our efforts were really worth it. We began doubting if God was really involved.”

When Luis and Lourdes arrived at the small church for the prayer service, only one other couple had come to intercede for God’s work there – but a couple with a very special need.

"With great sorrow in our hearts, we found brother Carlos Santiago and his wife, Andrea, who was kneeling in prayer,” recalls Rodriguez. Andrea’s hair had fallen out due to the chemotherapy she was undergoing to fight her cancer.

“I looked at my wife, she looked at me, and the Lord spoke to my heart, saying, ‘For the love of that solitary life I'm sending you to Coamo. It's one life, one soul. Don't worry about the ones who made excuses and didn’t come.’”

Because of Andrea’s commitment, Luis and Lourdes were motivated to press on with God’s challenge of planting a church in Coamo. The result was the creation of the Raham Baptist Church in Coamo.

The name of the church, "Raham," is the Hebrew word for "God has shown compassion.” This is precisely the spiritual gift that continues to be one of the driving forces behind Rodriguez’s work in Coamo.

Luis and Lourdes Rodriguez are missionaries for the North American Mission Board, responsible for planting churches in Puerto Rico. They are two of the some 5,300 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions, and are among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 7-14, 2010. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Share God’s Transforming Power.” The 2010 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $70 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like Rodriguez.



Friday, March 12, 2010

In word and deed

By Adam Miller


Two blocks east of the “El” Train Red Line in Uptown Chicago, a lady named Susan limps over from under a covered bus stop.

“That’s my spot. I was here. I just had to sit down.”
She marks her spot by hanging two canvas bags on the fence where a dozen men and women are lined up outside Uptown Baptist Church.

“I was here. This weather is killing my arthritis.”

Her voice is husky but kind. She limps toward the bus stop, sits and takes a sip from something tightly wrapped in brown paper, looks over her shoulder again, then settles back against the glass enclosure.

As the line builds, she comes back.

Next Monday, she says, they’re giving out shoes.

“Could you help me with this?” asks Susan, holding up a kids’ Revenge of the Sith wristwatch six hours fast. “It’s a cheap watch. I don’t know how to fix it. It’s not a very nice watch.” 

Every Monday around 4:30 p.m. the iron gate separating Uptown Baptist from the sidewalk creaks open and some 350 homeless men and women file into pews for a word from scripture then to the basement for a hot meal.
Shouldering computer bags and backpacks, a flock of Chicagoans scatter from the train and the buses toward home or an evening job in one of the city’s most diverse communities.

This is North American Mission Board missionary Michael Allen’s mission field.

“Uptown is one of the most diverse places in the Chicago area,” says Allen. “It's diverse in almost every way you can imagine -- ethnically, socio-economically, in gender and in age. It’s home to retirees, young couples, newborns, the brilliant and the mentally ill.”

Nearly 80 languages are represented in Uptown’s public schools.  The neighborhood’s population includes government officials, college professors, business professionals and a sub-culture of “down-and-outs.”

Allen is one of more than 5,300 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering®. He is among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 7-14, 2010. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Share God’s Transforming Power.” The 2010 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $70 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like Allen.

Allen has worked with social ministries for years, beginning with his tenure at Moody Bible Church and continuing with leadership at homeless and recovery ministries throughout the city. His ability to interact across a broad spectrum has given the Jamaican-born pastor a voice among Chicago businessmen and politicians. 

“One day I could be at a press conference with the mayor of Chicago and all the movers and shakers and be in a suit and tie, then later that day on the street talking to somebody who’s drunk and just gave his girlfriend AIDS,” says Allen. “It's a powerful thing. It's an amazing thing. It's God at work changing people's lives and I get to be used by Him to accomplish it.”

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Garden of the Gods




What could be better than serving as a North American Mission Board missionary in picturesque Colorado Springs? After all, the city of 380,000 backs up to the base of snow-capped, 14,000 feet-tall Pikes Peak on the edge of the Rocky Mountains.

Money and Outside magazines have both deemed it as No. 1 on the list of the best places to live in the United States. It’s perceived as a Christian “mecca” and nicknamed “The Evangelical Vatican” because so many evangelical Christian organizations are headquartered here – Focus on the Family, The Navigators, the International Bible Society and Young Life, just to mention a few.

Colorado Springs is a military stronghold, the location of the Army’s Fort Carson, Peterson Air Force Base, Schriever Air Force Base, NORAD and the United States Air Force Academy. 

The 6,000-foot high city is headquarters to the U.S. Olympic Committee, the U.S. Olympic Training Center, and the national sports federations for Olympic bobsledding, fencing, figure skating, basketball, boxing, cycling, judo, hockey, swimming, shooting, triathlon, volleyball and wrestling.

The Colorado Springs area is also a vast wilderness of “lost” souls. Just ask Bill and Carol Lighty. 
Bill, 53, serves as a NAMB national missionary and director of missions for the Pikes Peak Baptist Association, which includes about 50 Southern Baptist churches and church plants. In a metro area of more than 600,000, 83 percent – some 500,000 -- never darken the door of a church -- any church.

“God really broke my heart over the lostness of the Pikes Peak region,” says Lighty, who – with his wife of 32 years, Carol – has worked in his current assignment two and a half years. Prior to that, he spent almost 21 years as pastor of Chapel Hills Baptist Church in Colorado Springs. The Lightys have two grown daughters, Trisha and Ashley, and two granddaughters.

Lighty is one of some 5,300 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® for North American Missions. He is among the North American Mission Board missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 7-14, 2010. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Share God’s Transforming Power.” The 2010 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $70 million, 100 percent of which benefits missionaries like Bill Lighty.

Although Lighty says Mormonism and Catholicism are both strongly entrenched in the Colorado Springs area, “there’s half a million people here who don’t know Christ.”

In addition to Pikes Peak, another of Colorado Springs’ famous landmarks is the “Garden of the Gods,” so-called because when it was named in 1859, it was described as a “place fit for the assembling of the gods.” Lighty said this focus on the mythical gods – but not on the one true God – is symptomatic of many of the residents of the Colorado Springs area.

“In a very real sense, Colorado Springs is not godless because the people here have a lot of gods they worship,” he says. “Some worship nature and the mountains. Some worship skiing. Some worship the metaphysical. Spiritualism is a big element of our culture, and we have a strong Wiccan movement. Some worship their motorcycles. With five military installations here, many worship the military and the goal of getting promoted to the next rank.

“So our challenge is competing with all these other gods plus the mountains – where there’s something to do 12 months out of the year -- in order to help people worship the one true God versus their multiple gods,” Lighty says.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Off the Beaten Path





To understand a person, walk a mile in his shoes. But if that person is an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, you’ll have to walk several hundred miles.
“It’s not until about mile 500 that they start to listen,” says North American Mission Board Mission Service Corps missionary Suzy Miles. “Before that, they’re superheroes.”
MSC missionaries Craig and Suzy Miles started Appalachian Trail Servants (AT Servants) six years ago so they could help represent Christ through service, evangelism and discipleship to reach the longtrail hiking community trekking the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail (AT).
The couple has hiked about 1,000 miles of the trail themselves, and visited most of its length to conduct ministry training to churches near trailheads and to minister to hikers through acts of kindness.
The Mileses are two of more than 5,300 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering®. They are among the NAMB missionaries featured as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 7-14, 2010. This year’s theme is “Live with Urgency: Share God’s Transforming Power.” The 2010 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $70 million.

Week of Prayer for North American Missions

In Romans 1, Paul tells us he is not ashamed of the Gospel and is eager to preach it everywhere he goes. Like Paul our North American missionaries know that only God is powerful enough to transform lives. Every day they live with urgency to share that transforming power.

During the Week of Prayer for North American Missions, March 7-14, pray for our eight Week of Prayer missionaries and others like them who are supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® and the Cooperative Program. As you read about each missionary and pray for them, consider how you can partner with them to take the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout North America.

Day 1: Jim and Myrtle Ballard | Blackfoot, Idaho












Day 2: Mike and Vickie McQuitty | Syracuse, New York












Day 3: Vivian and Jim McCaughan | St. Louis, Missouri

Friday, March 5, 2010

The Power of Prayer

By Dave Storey

I love how the Bible describes Elijah as a man just like the rest of us, but we also know that he prayed fervently. Though we always have prayer meeting on Wednesday nights, sometime last November I sensed that we should also be praying on Saturday nights – to have a time when people could just come and gather near the front of the church and pray for the next day’s services, and that God would show up with convicting power, as mentioned in John 16:8.

A few weeks after we started having prayer on Saturday nights at our new church in Blackville, New Brunswick, we witnessed God’s movement in the life a young woman named Jennifer. Just like a lot of people who grew up in churches around here, she was a Baptist and had “religion,” but she wasn’t genuinely converted. That Sunday night she was really broken and responded to the invitation I extended after warning people to flee from wrath to come, to be born again. The Holy Spirit convicted her that she was religiously lost, and her mother recommitted her life to Christ, too!

I think that when people come and pray, it invokes the Holy Spirit’s presence. When we ask God to show up, we can expect Him to move. Sometimes it will be conversions of the lost; sometimes convictions for believers. It really boils down to us coming to God; not too much happens if we’re not seeking His face.

Dave Storey is a North American missionary serving in Doaktown, New Brunswick, Canada.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The challenges of campus church

This morning the North American Mission Board (NAMB) staff was on the phone live with North American missionary Mike McQuitty, a Baptist Campus Ministry (BCM) director at Syracuse University.

As the town of Syracuse fills with snow and the energy of March Madness, Mike McQuitty describes a college campus dark with an undercurrent of sin and despair.
“College campuses are the greatest missions fields in the world,” says McQuitty. But addiction and mental illness ravage many among the student body, he says. “Please pray for these students.”
Faced with the challenges of a transient mission field as students come and go, McQuitty’s job is to raise up leaders and start new works. The church McQuitty helped start is now student run and student led. 
Transience and change have turned to strengths at Syracuse University. So while bolstering and building the work at Syracuse, he’s also preparing believers who will graduate and enter the mission fields of their careers and vocational ministry.
One student he mentions became a believer through the BCM, and is now an international missionary in a closed country. Similar stories are coming out of Syracuse and dozens of BCM works throughout North America.
To learn more about McQuitty, and the work at Syracuse, visit www.onmission.com.
-Adam Miller