The 78 million people born between 1946 and 1964 have been a driving force behind many of the changes experienced in American culture. As they approached politics, fashion, child rearing and religion differently than their parents, author Amy Hanson observes, “It should therefore come as no surprise that they are approaching the later years of life in a different way than the generations before them.”

In her book Baby Boomers and Beyond, Hanson offers churches advice on harnessing the potential of a huge demographic shift by reinventing ministry to older adults.

“There are ways in which our churches have bought into the same mind-set as society—that younger is somehow better,” she writes. “Is it possible to be a vibrant, growing, active church that intentionally seeks to reach middle-aged and older adults?” she asks, offering guidance on looking at aging as “something good and desirable, with potential and possibility.”

In her chapter on “matters of faith,” Hanson considers how aging causes people to reflect and make changes. “They hope that in doing these things, they can find purpose for their life today and rectify mistakes they made in the past.”

Significant changes, a quest to find purpose in living, and the desire for meaningful relationships are factors that can draw older adults to Christ, she explains, offering methods for reaching boomer adults. By attending to their discipleship, Hanson calls on churches to count it a privilege as well as a responsibility to help older adults not waste the remaining years of their lives. 

Co-authors Bill Craig and Donna Gandy wrote Respect: Meaningful Ministry with Baby Boomers in Your Church and Community with the recognition that ministry to older adults will look radically different than it has in the previous generations.

Through hundreds of conversations with church members, Sunday School teachers, deacons, pastors, ministers of education, senior adult ministers and individuals who had no ongoing relationship with a local church, their research focused on “a generation that has changed every stage of life they’ve lived through—and every institution and organization of which they’ve been a part.”

A 2006 study by LifeWay Research found that more than two-thirds of formerly churched adults are open to the idea of attending church regularly again, even after staying away for an average of 14 years. Craig and Gandy offer ideas as to what would cause Baby Boomers to return to, remain with, or seek a relationship with the church. Biblically sound preaching and trained class leaders are two elements that stand out, along with flexibility in the timeframe of discipleship studies as well as serving opportunities.

“Boomers are not interested in just filling slots in church ministries,” the authors write. “Now that the nest is empty, and discretionary time more plentiful, they are seeking their heart ministry—ready to invest in a cause that truly matters,” drawing on experience acquired over previous decades.  

HEARTLAND  Any given Sunday will find Vista Church’s congregation of 180 gathered for worship in the local elementary school in Heartland, a small bedroom community just off Interstate 20 outside Terrell, near Forney and Dallas. As members assemble for worship, they do so aware of a common bond with the 17 churches from Boston to Toronto to Seattle to Bangalore that Vista Church has helped plant since its own founding in 2007.

“For many in our congregation, church planting introduced them to something they would have never known. Now it has become part of our DNA,” said Kevin Cox, the church’s pastor. “’When is the next one?’ people ask.”

“Our people have a kingdom mindset. Our giving [to church plants] will not expand our church numerically but will expand the kingdom of God.”

Kevin Cox, pastor, Vista Church of Heartland

Excitement about planting new churches has resulted in generous giving. A special offering the first Sunday in December 2015 brought in $35,000, Cox said, adding, “Our people have a kingdom mindset. Our giving [to church plants] will not expand our church numerically but will expand the kingdom of God.”

Cox’s commitment to planting churches solidified in 1997 when he and his wife started a church in Seattle. The Coxes returned to Texas nine years later, determined to make church planting a priority in whatever congregation they served. That chance came when Cox and five others sat around the family’s kitchen table in May 2007 to start Vista.

“We wanted to plan and multiply,” Cox said, noting that from the beginning, the six Vista members set aside 1 percent of their budget for assisting the first church plant. Within 14 months, the Vista congregation had grown, accumulating $2,500, which they used to assist a Southern Baptist church plant in Seattle.

“We started giving money to the Seattle church before our own grand opening in 2008,” Cox recalled.

Vista assists church plants in three-year cycles. 

“We commit to three years of monthly giving to the churches we work with and partner with,” Cox explained. This January, Vista began supporting church plants in Las Vegas and Portland, Oregon, in addition to continuing partnerships with churches in Bangalore, India, and the Texas communities of Rockwall/Heath and Mont Belvieu. Vista contributed $45,000 to partner churches in 2015 and will give the same amount again in 2016, Cox said.

This generosity comes from a young church in a commuter suburb of starter homes and young families. The average age of adult attendees at Vista is 32. Heartland is not even a town but rather a Municipal Utility District with a Forney zip code within the Crandall school district. Some 1,700 homes exist now; more than 6,000 are plotted. 

Eventually Heartland will be a community of 25,000 with seven schools, possibly annexed one day by Forney or Crandall. For now, it is “really a gigantic HOA,” Cox said. Laws forbidding door-to-door solicitations make advertising church events or ministering to residents challenging, so Vista church has engaged the community through volunteering at local events and serving the elementary school where Cox’s wife, Kathy, teaches special education.

Vista is the only church in a community where, for many, Sunday is just another day. 

“Out here off I-20, we are under the radar,” Cox said. “Many have gotten out of the habit of going to church.”

Meanwhile, Vista Church remains united behind sister congregations across the nation and world. Partner churches are chosen partly as an outgrowth of the church planter training Vista offers in a facility built for that purpose by a family in the church on 40 acres of private property.

“Teams come, stay for four days, and we work through the process of church planting with them,” Cox said, adding that Nic Burleson, pastor of Timber Ridge Church in Stephenville, has assisted in the training.

Last Easter, 275 attended worship services at Vista. But across the world, more than 4,000 worshipped in the churches with which Vista had partnered. 

“You don’t have to be big to partner with churches. Don’t wait till you are big to partner with another church.  You can be small and still have a huge kingdom impact.”

Kevin Cox

“We want to grow, but we want to see the kingdom extended even more,” Cox said. “You don’t have to be big to partner with churches. Don’t wait till you are big to partner with another church.  You can be small and still have a huge kingdom impact.”

For more information on Vista Church, see their website at thisisvista.com.

The Cooperative Program is the most tangible way Southern Baptists express their support together for missions and ministry. Certainly, there are many worthy appeals that deserve our attention, including special offerings and designated gifts to benefit a specific need or project. Still, the best way to extend the influence of the gospel is to regularly and consistently give through the unified giving plan of Southern Baptists—the Cooperative Program (CP). 

The SBC budget is determined by the messengers each year at the annual meeting in June, and CP funds are distributed to SBC agencies according to a percentage-based funding formula. The International Mission Board receives a fraction above 50 percent of CP dollars. Most Baptists are aware of the serious shortfall in operating cash for IMB. David Platt is to be applauded for his willingness to right the financial ship at IMB. Presenting the gospel to those who have never heard takes priority for us. If you give more, more will have the opportunity to hear. We must rally behind the foremost reason for collaborative work among Baptists—missions. The SBTC is committed to seeing more dollars go to the places that need it most.

The North American Mission Board receives almost one-fourth of all SBC Cooperative Program dollars. While NAMB coordinates disaster relief, pastoral care, and other ministries, planting churches in the west and north is the focus of NAMB. Going to major population areas that are least evangelized is where your dollars travel through the Cooperative Program. The SBTC is committed to investing the gospel in dark areas of North America.

Southern Baptist seminaries equip pastors, church staff and missionaries. Because of the Cooperative Program, Southern Baptist seminary students have a portion of their education paid. You can have confidence in the theological integrity of each seminary’s faculty and staff because The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 is the instrument of accountability. Some state convention-owned seminaries do not have this guarantee. Put your students and your money where your biblical convictions will be taught. You invest in the future when you give through the Cooperative Program. The SBTC supports seminaries that are doctrinal compatible with our faith statement.

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission gets a tiny amount in comparison to the other SBC ministries but is a needed ministry in precarious times. In January the ERLC hosted an event in Washington D.C. championing the sanctity of life for the unborn. The SBTC and the ERLC joined in an amicus brief to uphold the Texas law that requires abortion providers to meet reasonable health standards for women. The ERLC speaks to social and moral issues that range from pornography to the First Amendment. The SBTC joins with the ERLC in biblically based efforts to be salt and light in the American culture.

Although the Executive Committee of the SBC is not a glamorous part of the Cooperative Program budget, it is a necessary one. Two days once a year, the messengers of the churches gather as the Southern Baptist Convention. The Executive Committee operates for the SBC ad interim. Public relations, communications, race relations and the SBC annual meeting itself are all functions of the Executive Committee. The SBTC is grateful to SBC EC for their frugal management.

When you give to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention through the Cooperative Program, 55 percent is directed to the SBC and 45 percent is invested in Texas. Church Planting is exploding all across our state, while established churches are being revitalized with a passion for people. Churches are being strengthened and pastors encouraged. Communities are impacted through our disaster relief volunteers. 

Texas is rapidly growing with a population of 26 million people. Houston is the most ethnically diverse city in the nation. The need is great. This past November SBTC messengers voted to send 100 percent of all funds exceeding the 2016 Cooperative Program budget to the Southern Baptist Convention. Prayerfully consider having your church increase Cooperative Program giving so more can know our Lord Jesus.

When you partner through the Cooperative Program, you give internationally, nationally and across your state. Lives are being changed through the Cooperative Program. You will meet someone in heaven who will be there because you gave through CP. That’s why your church should participate through the Cooperative Program!

Cooperative Program Sunday is April 10. For more information, visit our website at sbtexas.com or whatiscp.com. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. Zack Randles believes that the nation’s capital needs another fort, and he’s willing to build one. The fort he envisions, however, will not look anything like the military installations that protect the hub of America’s government—this fort will be a church.

The young West Texan set his heart toward Washington during his senior year at Oklahoma State University where he studied sociology. He committed to God in prayer to “do whatever you want me to do.” Randles had prayed that before, but this time was serious about obedience for the first time in his life.

“That day the Lord cast a vision for a place I’d never been and for people I’d never met. I felt drawn to Washington, D.C.”

Zack Randles, pastor, Waterfront Church, Washington, D.C.

“That day the Lord cast a vision for a place I’d never been and for people I’d never met,” Randles said. “I felt drawn to Washington, D.C.”

During the next several years, Randles worked on ministerial staffs of several large Texas churches while attending Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He regularly led mission trips to the nation’s capital with his wife, Autumn. In 2005 with 42 students, “The spirit just fell in a way that I had not experienced before. We knew that we would come back here.”

What he didn’t immediately know was that coming back would involve church planting.

A Ministry Legacy

Randles grew up in the pastorates his father served. Jon Randles was a pastor and an evangelist. When the senior Randles served existing churches as pastor, those churches typically experienced much growth. But his father never planted a church.

“My dad was my absolute hero,” Zack said. “It was not always this way. It’s rare to find someone who is your dad, best friend and hero all wrapped into one. He was an incredibly godly man.”

Zack was already following in his father’s steps by preaching at events for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, something his father did for years. So if the Lord wanted him in Washington, there surely would be an existing church calling him.

“I had been filled with so much pride that I had to take over a pre-existing church,” Randles said. “I thought people planted because they couldn’t plug into an existing system. I was incredibly wrong.”

God was calling the younger Randles to a city that many churches had recently abandoned for the suburbs. During his trips there, he determined that if his calling was to pastor in Washington, he would have to plant the church. The “follow me” passages of Luke 9 helped bring him to that realization.

Of the three people Jesus encountered that day, Randles realized that the only person Christ called to action was the second one. He wanted to bury his father first.

“The second guy in the story, Jesus has a mission set aside just for him,” Randles concluded. “It’s strategic and timely.” 

Randles then understood God to say, “Trust me, and do the mission I’ve called you to do.”

His father became sick before Randles left Texas. A month after arriving in Washington, the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer. There was no turning back, but his heart was clearly back home.

As Zack and Autumn poured themselves into starting Waterfront Church, they wrestled with how best to support Jon. For Zack the answer was to preach. His dad had said to him, “If a Randles can preach, he should preach.” 

The flights between Lubbock and Washington and the emotional roller coaster stretched him. 

His father died April 1, 2015. Several days later, after preaching an Easter message in Washington, he returned to Lubbock to preach his father’s funeral to about 2,500 people in attendance and several thousands more via a live stream of the service.

“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Randles said. “Planting a church is a close second.”

Building the Fort

The Randles felt God’s call to plant along a revitalized area between the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers, less than a mile from the capitol and just two blocks from Major League Baseball’s Nationals Park. 

“In the years we came here to do short-term mission work, we met brick wall after brick wall when it came to the gospel message,” Randles said. “When we moved here, it was the exact opposite. We prayed for 25 people. God sent us over 100.”

Waterfront Church launched August 10, 2014, at the Courtyard Marriott Navy Yard. By Easter Sunday 2015, Waterfront Church had 150 in attendance. Randles baptized 15 people in the first eight months of the church—11 of whom were adults.

Randles calls Waterfront the bridge between politics and poverty. Though the neighborhood is now upscale, homeless people are still in the area.

“A homeless man walked in late,” Randles said of one Sunday service. “He sat next to
a congressman.”

Waterfront is mixed culturally, ethnically and economically, Randles said. Members range from Capitol Hill workers to military to hot dog sales people at the nearby ballpark, and the congregation is not necessarily a young one. 

“We don’t sell ourselves as the young-person church or the southern-gospel church,” Randles said. “We sell ourselves as the church that really does care about our community and wants to share the gospel message above all else.”

Planting a church in Washington hasn’t been cheap. Waterfront’s five-year budget is $1.3 million. An acre of land sells for $10 million. Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® and Cooperative Program funds helped Waterfront launch. 

In spite of the cost, Waterfront’s leadership plans to have a permanent presence in the capital.

“Our goal is to establish a fort,” Randles said.  

LAS COLINAS—Christians and churches must rely on God’s power through prayer and recognize their role in reaching friends, family, co-workers, neighbors and the nations with the gospel, speakers at the 2016 Empower Conference said Feb. 29-March 2. The three-day evangelism conference put on by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC) at the Irving Convention Center in Las Colinas drew pastors and church members from across the state and featured 15 main session speakers as well as breakout sessions.

Nathan Lino, pastor of Northeast Houston Baptist Church and SBTC president, spoke of what he called a “state of evangelism atrophy” in the majority of Southern Baptist churches today. Similar to muscle atrophy—a loss of vigor and strength due to lack of activity—churches and individuals are suffering from a lack of regular, intentional gospel witness.

“Everything left alone under the curse of sin ultimately reaches a state decay, even the most important things, like evangelism,” Lino said in the opening evening session of the conference.

Preaching from Ephesians 6:19-20, Lino acknowledged the great irony for the Apostle Paul to request prayer for boldness and clarity to speak the gospel, but Paul recognized that “past effectiveness is no guarantee of future effectiveness.”

“I don’t think what we need as shepherds in Texas is more statistics about evangelism and how urgently we need revival,” Lino said. “I think what we need is to return to intentionality in evangelism. Nothing good happens in this world for Jesus Christ without intentionality.”

Intentionality was the theme of Lino’s message as he exhorted pastors in particular to greater intentionality in personal and corporate evangelism.

“Intentionality looks like a plan,” Lino said. “So what is your plan to directly engage unbelievers with the gospel of Jesus Christ?”

“We need a return to exhorting each other and our people to actually verbalize the gospel in its entirety to people who do not yet believe.”

International Mission Board President David Platt urged Christians to “recognize the reality of God’s wrath upon millions of people across this state and billions of people around the world” during his message, which followed Lino’s. Too often, Platt said, Christians are ignorant or indifferent regarding Scripture’s teaching on hell and the fact that people who do not repent will spend eternity suffering there.

Preaching from Exodus 32:1-14, Platt also called on believers to “realize the role God has given you to play in his relenting wrath.”

“Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you do, realize that God has put you where you are for a reason. … God loves the people around you so much, and he’s designed your life to be the means in his sovereign hand by which his wrath is relented and his mercy is made known to the people around you.”

Like Moses, who interceded on behalf of the Israelites for God to show mercy on them, Christians must regularly intercede in prayer for those unreached with the gospel.

“Pray to God like it matters; pray to God like your prayers affect the way God acts,” Platt told conference attendees and those who were watching the event via livestream.

“God wills to work through willing intercessors. When we pray, God responds. When we pray, we take our God-given privilege to participate with him in the spread of his mercy in the world. Moses prayed, and it had an effect. When you pray for people in Texas, it will have an effect.”

In addition to praying like it matters, Platt called on Christians to share the gospel like it matters.

“We’ll never reach the nations with the gospel if we’re not reaching our neighbors with the gospel,” Platt said. He concluded his message with a challenge to pastors in the room to commit to reaching homes in their communities as part of SBTC’s “One in a Million” evangelism initiative to reach 1 million homes in Texas with the gospel by the year 2020. Scores of pastors brought forth commitment cards and placed them on the stage.

SBC President Ronnie Floyd continued the call for prayer and bold gospel witness during his message, March 1. Too many churches, he said, are trying to accomplish God’s work apart from his power.

“Why do we believe so much in the power of God for New Testament salvation, but we struggle believing in the power of God to turn the deadest church in Texas upside down?” Floyd, pastor of Cross Church in Northwest Arkansas, asked.

“Trust the God of heaven who was able to raise Jesus Christ from the dead is the same God who can raise up this convention of churches to take the gospel into at least 1 million homes in this state. We need to understand that none of that can happen without God.”

Floyd assured pastors and churches that God has a future for them individually and corporately and that faith-saturated prayer was the bridge between their current state and that future. Preaching from 1 Chronicles 4:9-10, the account of a man named Jabez’s prayer, Floyd explained that the passage was not a prescription on what to pray but was a description of a man who cried out to a God who answered. Likewise, Christians should cry out to God as their only hope and the only hope for an unbelieving world.

Lifetime Achievement Awards

During the Empower Conference, SBTC evangelism director Nathan Lorick recognized two men for their faithfulness in evangelism. David Stockwell, a fulltime vocational evangelist from Katy with more than 50 years of evangelistic ministry, received the Roy Fish Lifetime Achievement Award for vocational evangelism. Lynn Crosslin, a bi-vocational pastor at Harmony Baptist Church in Weatherford, received the W.A. Criswell Lifetime Achievement Award for pastoral evangelism.

In 2017, the Empower Conference will return to the Irving Convention Center in Las Colinas, Feb. 27-28.