By Doug Rogers
Director of communications, Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions
If the COVID-19 pandemic has proven anything, it’s that Alabama Baptists are faithful and resilient. While no one could have been prepared for what 2020 brought, Alabama Baptist churches were quick to respond by reaching out to their communities with a gospel witness, while also faithfully supporting their individual churches’ budgets and, in turn, the Cooperative Program.
Being fruitful
“The Great Commission is not under quarantine,” said Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions. “It’s been so encouraging to see how God has continued to work through His churches and His people throughout 2020. They are being fruitful in a time of barrenness.”
A top priority for the SBOM in 2020 has been staying connected with the Alabama Baptist family. State missionaries and Alabama WMU have spent hundreds of hours since March contacting pastors by phone, email or text to pray with them, listen to their needs and offer resources.
By November, nine rounds of calls had been completed, resulting in more than 20,000 contacts with Alabama Baptist congregations.
While many prayer needs surfaced during those calls, good news was in abundance. Pastors excitedly shared about opportunities to provide ministry to those in need, how they were embracing virtual technology and drive-in services to continue offering worship and Sunday School opportunities and most importantly how people were being won to the Lord.
After baptizing a 94-year-old, Paul Brasher, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church, Pell City, exclaimed, “The gospel is being presented. The Lord is moving!”
The SBOM’s usual slate of in-person workshops was transformed into virtual gatherings and webinars, with more than 60 online training opportunities offered by the SBOM since March.
A new training site, PinnacleAlabama.org, was launched to serve as a one-stop source for virtual training in Alabama Baptist life.
Staying connected
State missionaries across all ministry areas used virtual technology to convene roundtables and other methods of staying connected. In addition, the SBOM hosted a series of 11 online prayer meetings, drawing hundreds of Alabama Baptists together to pray for our state, nation and world during the height of the pandemic.
The move to virtual meetings has produced Kingdom fruit among the state’s Baptist Campus Ministries. Steve Thompson, senior campus minister at Auburn University, noticed that even in the midst of all the Zoom small groups and virtual game nights, students are getting bolder in sharing their faith.
As a result, he and other Baptist campus ministers have as their goal to “keep them on task” and help them remember that “the mission goes on even when we’re not together.” That includes developing a resource called “The Big 5: Action Steps to Share Your Hope in Jesus,” posted at bcmlink.org/blog.
The value of cooperation and being connected was no more evident this year than in the ministry of disaster relief. When two major hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast in a span of just three weeks, disaster relief volunteers mobilized immediately, first in Louisiana then in Alabama, staffing four command centers, tarping roofs, cutting up trees and limbs, removing debris, cooking and serving meals, operating shower and laundry units and providing chaplaincy ministry.
Karen Nelson, a volunteer with Madison Baptist Association Disaster Relief, summed it up simply: “I love helping people and being the hands and feet of Jesus.”
Faithful support
The pandemic has not deterred either local Alabama Baptist churches or the State Board of Missions from commitment to our one mission, the Great Commission. If anything, it has helped crystallize it.
Throughout the year, Alabama Baptists have been faithful in their support of both the Cooperative Program and the Myers-Mallory State Missions Offering.
“Throughout my 30-year tenure as a state missionary, Alabama Baptists have consistently been at the forefront of missions support among Southern Baptists,” said Bobby DuBois, SBOM associate executive director. “This pandemic has not altered that spirit. The Cooperative Program and the Myers-Mallory State Missions Offering continue to receive the strong prayer and faithful financial support of our Alabama Baptist churches.”
As 2021 approaches, the SBOM will turn its attention fully to OneMission Alabama, a renewed Great Commission focus for the decade ahead.
Five missional initiatives
OneMission Alabama is centered around five missional initiatives:
- Becoming spiritually prepared for a movement of God in our lives which will bring spiritual renewal individually and collectively in our homes, in our churches and in our culture;
- Reaching, baptizing and discipling all people, of all cultural backgrounds, especially students who are in their formative years of spiritual development;
- Revitalizing, planting and replanting congregations so we have more healthy Great Commission churches in Alabama;
- Praying to the Lord of the harvest, petitioning Him to “call out the called,” so we will have an abundance of workers mobilized in the fields of service in Alabama, North America and around the world; and
- Enhancing our commitment to biblical stewardship, including giving to the local church and giving through the Cooperative Program, so we can effectively do Great Commission ministries.
Although there will be no in-person 2020 Alabama Baptist State Convention Annual Meeting, you’re invited to take part in a one-hour State Missions Celebration on Tuesday, Nov. 17, at 2 p.m. Just visit live.alsbom.org at the appointed time to participate.
Then, on Wednesday, Nov. 18, at the same website at 6:30 p.m., plan to be in the virtual congregation for the International Mission Board’s Sending Celebration, an event that was scheduled to be hosted during the state convention at First Baptist Church, Montgomery, but was moved online.
Unwavering focus
As we collectively look toward whatever is on the other side of this pandemic, we know ministry methods may change, but our focus on Great Commission Ministries is unwavering.
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