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Richards announces plans to step down in 2021

AUSTIN—Near the end of the Nov. 11 SBTC Executive Board meeting in Austin, SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards told the board of his intention to transition from convention leadership, effective Dec. 31, 2021. Richards is the founding executive director of the 22-year-old state convention, which has grown from 120 affiliated churches when he was elected in November 1998, to nearly 2,700 churches today. Richards, who turns 68 in December, came to the convention after serving as a director of associational missions in Northwest Arkansas. 

At the board’s August meeting it passed a succession plan that described the membership of the convention’s transition/search team. The board’s chairman, vice chairman, secretary, committee chairmen and convention president—these being the members of the board executive committee—plus two at-large appointees, will make up the team. 

Richards told the board that he originally planned to begin his process earlier. “I had planned on April 2 of this year to begin a transition, but due to the pandemic, I chose to remain and serve the churches,” he said, adding, “I am convinced it is God’s will; it is time for new leadership.” 

Regarding his current role with the convention, Richards expressed only gratitude, “It has been a tremendously rewarding and undeserved pleasure to have done what I have done. And I’m very grateful for the kind and wonderful people that I have been able to work with, and for the churches I have been able to serve.” 

According to the transition plan, Richards would orient his successor for a duration set by the transition team and then serve for a time as assistant to the new executive director. 

During his last year with the convention, Richards will help with implementation of the Vision 2021 restructuring of the convention, approved in August and effective Jan. 1, 2021. “Hopefully,” he said of the coming year, “what we have done during the pandemic is, rather than hunker down, set a platform for the future and transition our convention to a place where it will be able to accomplish more than ever before in serving the churches.”

Quoting biblical expositor Matthew Henry, Richards said to the board, “’God will change hands to show that whatever instruments he uses, he is not tied to any.’” And then in his own words, “God will continue to maintain his cause upon earth and supply every need of his people.” 

SBTC President Kie Bowman of Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin said of Richards, “Dr. Jim Richards is one the most effective leaders I’ve ever known. His consistent, convictional and compassionate approach has helped shape the SBTC into the best state convention in the SBC.”

As he spoke to the board, Richards warned against those who would with “smooth words” clamor for a merger with another Baptist convention saying, “The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention was founded on a bedrock of biblical inerrancy. As a confessional fellowship of churches, we have a standard that will not allow compromise. Do not change who you are!”

Saying that he does not think of his announcement as a retirement, Richards said instead, “As a preacher of the gospel, I will never retire. I cannot retire from my calling to preach, or from work in the kingdom … retirement from the call comes when you see Jesus face to face.”   

Pastor conducts daily prayer with congregation since 1996

DALLAS—By design, only New Year’s Day and Thanksgiving interrupt the daily 6 a.m. prayer meetings Pastor David Galvan has held since Feb. 5, 1996, at Primera Iglesia Bautista Nueva Vida (New Life Church) in Dallas. The COVID-19 pandemic simply changed the venue.

When COVID-19 restrictions briefly limited gatherings to 10 people months ago, Galvan transitioned the daily prayer hour from the church’s 190-seat chapel to a conference call. Attendance has more than quadrupled.

“All these years up to the pandemic, it attracted from 5 to … 12 people per day, Monday through Friday, and then Saturday, it went up to about 70 that came and prayed,” he said. “We’re averaging 35 to 50 (daily).”

The current concerns of the pandemic, national division and a contentious election cycle have added to the prayer requests during the hour-long meeting, Galvan said. But the current strife has not kept the group from lifting up intentional petitions for national and international missionaries, pregnant mothers, special needs children and adults, prisoners, the president and others in authority, the spiritually lost, workers for the spiritual harvest, the peace of Jerusalem, salvation of Jewish people, and a host of daily personal concerns of participants.

“We’re aware of people that are hurting,” Galvan said. “[W]e’ll just have to pray and let God be sovereign,” Galvan said.

Galvan developed a passion for corporate prayer after attending a series of prayer meetings and fasts hosted by the late evangelist William Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, now Cru, in 1995. After launching the daily prayer meetings at New Life, Galvan instituted a format for the meetings that follows the leading of The Lord’s Prayer.

“I began to see the importance of the model prayer, which is the prayer of the Lord Jesus in the book of Matthew,” he said. “First, I taught that to the church, and the importance of breaking it down, and then, I use that model prayer every day. The first few components of the prayer become, in my mind, the most crucial.”

He begins the prayer meeting with praise, based on “Hallowed be Your Name,” and moves to “Your Kingdom Come,” which encompasses praying for the salvation of the lost, and flows to “Your Will Be Done” and the remaining petitions. Within the hour, he daily incorporates Southern Baptist concerns including the North American Mission Board, the International Mission Board, the Who’s Your One evangelism initiative and individual missionaries the church supports. On Sundays, Galvan focuses prayers on the psalms.

“There are two days out of the year, that we don’t have our morning prayer,” Galvan said. On Thanksgiving, the church holds an annual baptism in an area lake, incorporating prayer into the meeting. On New Year’s Day, the church is in worship and fellowship that begins at 7 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and extends into the early hours of the New Year, including prayer. Other holidays, including Christmas, are included in the daily schedule.

Galvan encourages other pastors to embrace corporate prayer more frequently than on Sundays and Wednesdays.

“It’s not the power of prayer. It’s the power of God through corporate prayer,” Galvan said, citing experiences including the salvation of church members who began to realize they were still lost. “I would encourage them to start and to find the best time when they can bring the church together one way or another in corporate prayer.

“If you can do it in person, do it. If you have to do it by conference call, do it,” he said. “Just do it. And it doesn’t have to be every day, and it doesn’t have to be at 6 o’clock in the morning, but … it’s got to be, number one, extraordinary prayer” that sometimes includes fasting and requires an interruption of the ordinary schedule.

“I would say to every pastor, ‘Do it, even if it starts with just you and your leaders,’” Galvan said. “Or just make an open invitation and say I’m going to start praying at this hour. Just tell them where, and see who comes.

“And by the way, you’re going to be surprised too, at who comes.”

Some churches return to online-only worship as COVID-19 surges in U.S.

MESQUITE—A surge in new COVID-19 cases has at least a few churches returning to online-only worship as many churches continue meeting onsite.

“This Sunday we will be online. We’ll be totally online,” Terry Turner, senior pastor of Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church in Mesquite, said Thursday (Nov. 5). “We’ve actually had a few weeks of indoor service, where we actually come together and we social distance. … Now that we’re back in the red zone (of COVID-19 case numbers) here in Texas, we have suspended our services and we’re doing strictly online.”

A one-day rise of 121,890 new COVID-19 cases nationwide Friday (Nov. 6) is the highest to date in the U.S. since the pandemic began, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported. At 969,605 cases, Texas has surpassed California as the state with the highest number of cumulative cases. Texas’ cumulative COVID-19 death toll of 18,909 is second only to New York’s 33,657, Johns Hopkins reported.

In the COVID-19 hotspot of El Paso, Immanuel Church has closed its school for a couple of weeks but continues onsite worship, pastor J.C. Rico said.

“I would say here in the city, it’s about 50/50,” Rico said of the El Paso Baptist Association’s 100 or so churches. “There are some that just have continued online. There are some that did go back to live, and a small percentage have just gone online again. … I would say about 40 percent of the churches here in El Paso are going live (in person).”

El Paso reported 1,049 COVID-19 patients hospitalized Friday, with 311 in Intensive Care units and 177 on ventilators, the City of El Paso reported.

Cielo Vista Baptist Church in El Paso returned to online-only worship Oct. 25, Lead Pastor Larry Lamb said in a video posted to Facebook.

“[I]f you live in El Paso you know the COVID cases have gone extremely high, a lot of COVID cases, so out of protection for our community, our church community, we’re going to suspend our live weekend services until further notice,” he said in an Oct. 25 video. “But we will be on Cielo Vista Church online every week. … We just pray for the pandemic to stop, we pray for healing, and we pray for the lives of people to be nourished also by truth but also in great health. So that’s why we want to protect our church family as much as we can. Stay safe, and do all the things we’re required to do.”

Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church is a member of the Dallas Baptist Association of about 500 churches. Dallas County lists today’s COVID-19 risk level in the red zone, advising people to “Stay Home, Stay Safe.” The county has a cumulative total of at least 99,761 cases and 1,127 cumulative deaths, with 868 new cases reported Nov. 5.

Turner said Sunday’s services would mark the third consecutive week since returning to online-only worship. He said the church has had deaths among its membership and among its extended church family including relatives and friends, but declined to provide a specific number.

“Among African Americans, the COVID-19 has had its highest impact, and we’ve seen a lot of that within our membership and their families,” Turner said. “We’ve had members who have passed from it, and then we’ve had members who have had family members that have passed from it.”

He referenced the church’s first member to die of the virus, a participant in the church’s healthcare ministry who died after contracting the virus in her professional work as a nurse.

“She was very, very committed to our ministry and our church,” he said, “and yet at the same time she was a nurse and contracted it as a nurse.

“Our sensitivity to what COVID is doing is really at a high alert within our church and within our ministry, because we’ve seen so much of it. … Our members are as committed to supporting the church and to the ministry as they were before COVID-19 hit us,” both financially and spiritually.

Turner said he is monitoring the virus to determine when to resume onsite worship, but has no definite plans at this point.

Dallas Baptist Association Associate Director Scott Coleman said much of what he knows of churches’ current worship plans is anecdotal. An online survey conducted three weeks ago, Coleman said, drew responses from 50 churches, about 10 percent of the congregations in the association. One church was meeting in a parking lot.

“Exactly two-thirds were meeting in person, observing social distancing rules,” Coleman said. “We had … right at a quarter that were meeting virtually. … Only a few, about 7 percent, were still not meeting at all.”

Texas quartet wins Gospel Music Association award

The Erwins, a family quartet from East Texas, were in a Nashville studio recording songs for their new album to be released later this month when they tuned into a Facebook Live videocast on the Gospel Music Association (GMA) Dove Awards page and learned they had been nominated for not just one, but two awards.

“The night before, we were singing in a 3,000-seat auditorium in Branson at The Mansion Theatre, and the next day we received a virtual GMA Live Dove Award announcement on our Facebook page,” said Keith, the oldest son of Tiffany and Dennis Erwin.

This year’s 51st Annual Dove Awards took place on Oct. 30, like most events this year, on a virtual stage. “We were all in our own homes, and I was listening to Apple TV while I was putting together a baby’s dresser.” Keith and wife Lindsey are expecting their first child later this year. 

Kris, sitting on the couch with sister Katie, said, “I don’t know why I feel somewhat nervous. We’re not going to win! It’s not that it’s not a great song; it’s just that we were nominated alongside all these other great ministries.” Other groups nominated for Southern Gospel Song of the Year were Gaither Vocal Band, Karen Peck and New River, Legacy Five, and The Sound. Moments later the announcement came. 

The Southern Gospel Recorded Song of the Year was, “The Power of an Empty Tomb” by The Erwins. Keith said, “We were so astounded that we were winning the award on this song!”

The other nomination was for their Christmas album, “What Christmas Really Means,” which is what Keith, the quartets’ PR manager, thought might be the winner of the two nominated works. 

The gospel quartet is comprised of Keith, Kody, Kristopher and Katie Erwin, who grew up singing as kids at revivals and events around the country wherever their dad, and evangelist for 47 years, Dennis Erwin, preached. 

Dennis explained, “I’m amazed at God’s blessings that the kids have reached this level in ministry. They have such a heart for the gospel and a deep love for Jesus. God has opened the door for them with many opportunities. Tiffany (mother of the four) and I are so proud of them.” 

Their “Favorites on Repeat” album, set to come out later this month, features well-known songs that the Erwin’s grew up on. It will include covers by Phillips, Craig & Dean, Sandi Patty, Gaither Vocal Band, Steven Curtis Chapman, that may feel like pressing the repeat button from years ago, but with The Erwin’s spin. It will also include a current well-known Casting Crowns song, “Nobody.”

They have an all-original material album coming out in April 2021.

“The focus of our ministry is that we want to be bridge-builders—not only in our generation and the generation before us, but the generation coming behind us. We are honored to take our ministry to local churches and events—wherever the Lord takes us,” Keith said.

Booking information for The Erwins can be found at erwinministries.com.

North Texas pastor nominated for Dove Awards

The Gospel Music Association’s 51st annual Dove Awards ceremony honoring excellence in Christian music—which will be broadcast Oct. 30 at 7 pm CDT on the Trinity Broadcasting Network—will look like none other, with organizers foregoing an in-person event because of COVID-19. 

For Matt Boswell, pastor of The Trails Church in Celina, experiencing the event live or televised makes no difference. He is happy to be among the honorees.

Boswell and co-writer Matt Papa of Atlanta, Georgia, have been nominated for a 2020 Dove in two categories: best inspirational album for “His Mercy Is More,” and best inspirational song of the same name. 

The TEXAN interviewed Boswell on the eve of the Dove Award ceremony about modern hymn writing, what the nomination means and what’s next for the North Texas pastor.

The nominated album marks the first time Boswell and Papa have recorded together, although they have been a song-writing team for over a decade, penning such modern hymns as “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery” and  “Christ the Sure and Steady Anchor.”

“His Mercy Is More” was inspired by the words of “Amazing Grace” writer John Newton: “Our sins are many but his mercies are more.” 

Boswell has been writing and performing worship songs for a quarter century, since he led student worship at age 15 in his father’s church in DeSoto, Texas. He met Papa in Nashville over a decade ago when the two were writing songs for different publishers and Boswell reached out.

“We just hit it off in the beginning. We work really well together,” Boswell said of the collaboration, describing the typical process the two undergo during composition. Generally, Boswell begins thinking through a new hymn by conceiving of a title and working through content. Papa supplies most of the melodies. 

“Matt [Papa] is a much stronger musician than I am,” Boswell said. “I am not near as gifted musically as he is and I just love the melodies he writes.” 

Biblical accuracy is important to both songwriters. Boswell received his PhD with an emphasis in Christian Worship and Biblical Spirituality from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in May; Papa also attended seminary and currently serves as the worship and arts director at Christ Covenant Church in Atlanta. 

“We both care about the tethering of truth to beauty. But truth is paramount,” Boswell said. “What we sing must be true first and foremost. And then you add layers of trying to adorn that truth with beauty, whether it be with language or music. But everything revolves around the truth of who God is, the sufficiency of God’s word, the centrality of the gospel.”

Performing with Papa

Although the two have written together since 2009, “His Mercy Is More” marks the first time Boswell and Papa, who have distinct stylistic interpretations of their music, have recorded together. It won’t be the last.

To commemorate their Dove nominations, the pair released a new song, “Psalm 150” on Oct. 23, recorded this summer. 

Boswell praised the team at Getty Music for their support in taking the pair’s hymns and “scattering them all around the world.”

“His Mercy Is More” reached number 45 on the Church Copyright Licensing International charts, while the pair’s older songs such as  “Christ the Sure and Steady Anchor” and “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery” remain in the 100s.

Boswell credited Northern Ireland’s Keith and Kristyn Getty and the UK’s Stuart Townend for opening the door for the “new generation” of hymn writers.

“Had it not been for those guys, I don’t know that I would have written in this genre,” Boswell said. “It’s fun to get to work with my heroes now. And to love them still.”

Boswell said he, his wife, Jamie, and their four children, plan to view the Dove Awards in a virtual watch party in Texas along with Papa in Georgia and the Gettys in Northern Ireland. 

The Trails Church

When not writing and recording modern hymns, Boswell leads The Trails Church, a church plant of Frisco’s Providence Church that has grown substantially in its short existence. Although he served Providence as worship leader, Boswell has assigned that duty to another music director at The Trails.

“I’ve retired,” Boswell mused, adding “For 25 years I led worship through song and now have the privilege of leading worship through preaching.”

The growth of The Trails has been remarkable, Boswell said, noting that some 500 attended an anniversary and baptismal service held outside in early October.

“The Lord has been so kind to us,” Boswell said. 

On Sundays, the church meets in a community room at the Prosper ISD stadium complex. Reservations are required for the two in-person services to ensure proper social distancing. Services are also online. Recently the church merged with the former Grace Baptist Fellowship in Celina. Now that facility provides office space and room for midweek Bible studies and events for The Trails.

Boswell, whose father now serves as the Colorado Baptist Association’s director of church health, and whose grandfather was an IMB missionary and interim pastor, came to Southern Baptist life naturally.

“It chose me,” he says of the SBC.

As for the Dove nomination, “The 10-year-old part of me who grew up listening to Christian music is very excited,” Boswell said, adding, “It’s an honor to be recognized by the Gospel Music Association for the work we’ve been doing.”

For a full list of nominees, please visit www.doveawards.com. 

East Texas church revitalization spurred by food ministry

SWAN  A small East Texas congregation is making a big difference in Swan, a once prosperous community just north of Tyler.

When Jeremiah Dollgener, pastor of First Baptist Swan, came to the church in July 2019, his family of eight doubled the congregation’s size. Attendance, now about 30 members, has more than tripled since the pastor’s arrival.

When Dollgener accepted the church’s call in 2019, he told members he wanted to reach Swan.

“We started praying, ‘God, what does that look like? Give us a specific vision for this community,’” Dollgener, who also teaches social studies at Tyler’s Hogg Middle School, told the TEXAN.

From the 1960s to the 1980s Swan thrived, boasting a grocery store and a post office. Tyler Pipe, Swan’s major employer, located just across County Road 492 from the church, provided jobs for around 2,000, Dollgener learned from local businessmen. 

Then Texas energy sector cratered in the 1980s, devastating the Tyler economy and by extension, Swan’s. Although Tyler has rebounded economically since the 1980s, Swan has not. Tyler Pipe has steadily reduced its local workforce to around 100, Dollgener said. 

Highway 69, on which the church is located, connects Lindale and Interstate 20 to Tyler. Some 4,000 people reside within a three-mile radius of First Baptist. Although one neighborhood features middle-class houses, Swan also contains empty apartment complexes and lower income housing. The area enjoys Tyler water but lacks city sewage, trash pickup and even internet. 

“This is the community God has given us,” Dollgener said, “Our church vision is simple: we love the Lord and we love people.”

In early 2020, this simple vision acquired an unanticipated focus.

Swan native steps forward

A businessman who no longer lived in Swan but had grown up there came to Dollgener’s attention. The man desired to start a food pantry in the community, an idea that had already occurred to the pastor.

Dollgener made contact. The businessman, who asked not to be identified for this article, explained that he had grown up in poverty and remembered the kindness of a local grocer who left boxes of food at his family’s doorstep.

“I remember how much that meant to my parents that they were going to be able to feed all of us kids,” the benefactor said, offering to underwrite the costs of a food pantry in Swan. He just needed space.

“That’s great,” Dollgener replied. “We’ve got all kinds of room [at the church] and no money.”

In January 2020, Swan Food Bank opened its doors at First Baptist, where storage areas and freezers are now stocked with non-perishable and perishable food items. 

“We started in January by going to Walmart and buying 20 loaves of bread, peanut butter, staples like rice and beans. Then COVID-19 hit and we started getting dirty looks when we’d buy 20 loaves,” Dollgener recalled with a chuckle.

Pre-COVID, the church provided food to 10-20 families per week and began preparations for a clothes closet.

When the coronavirus hit, the numbers of families needing food skyrocketed and the church’s distribution system shifted to follow safety protocols and serve 60-70 families weekly, a trend that continues. 

Six months into the pandemic, Swan Food Bank’s partnership with the East Texas Food Bank was approved, allowing the church to obtain free and reduced price grocery items from that facility. Still operating on around $250 per week, they now order weekly from the regional food bank. Dollgener’s wife, Jessica, does the ordering, and volunteers from the church and nearby Hopewell Baptist handle packing, boxing and curbside delivery.

The menu changes weekly, depending upon what the East Texas Food Bank offers. Area citizens and businesses also sometimes drop off food. A nearby Lindale food bank shares its surplus. Tyler Pipe sends regular donations, and the original benefactor covers the bulk of the $1,000 – $1,200 monthly budget.

Each Tuesday, Dollgener hurries from school to the church shortly after
4:00 p.m. to greet clients lining up in the church’s slag parking lot. He offers the week’s menu and sends the orders inside, where Jessica logs the information required by the East Texas Food Bank. The boxed food is delivered within minutes to the waiting cars.

“Each week, the line wraps around the church,” Dollgener said. “For us to see a church that had been in decline for years now with a parking lot full of people is amazing.”

The outreach has attracted families to First Baptist Swan. Volunteer Mike Steemfott, whose wife helps Jessica with orders, began helping in March. 

“The desire to serve has really increased in our church. We’ve gotten some new folks. This attracts people who like to work, who like to do things. They want to make an impact on their community,” Dollgener said, also praising the help from Pastor Floyd Smith and Hopewell Baptist.

Spiritual and physical food

Dollgener asks clients how the church can pray for them. Opportunities to witness for Christ are common. Some families have expressed interest in attending the church after the pandemic ends.

Clients have come to church, including a formerly homeless woman who trusted Christ during a service and was baptized. Only days before, a Swan volunteer had given his own boots and socks to the woman’s boyfriend, who had been wearing worn-out flip flops.

 Physical services at the church resumed in June and Dollgener said he is happy to have the surplus food and clothing available to give people in need who come asking for money.

“We can’t give them money, but we offer them food and let them go in the clothes area and get what they need,” the pastor said, adding that he hopes in post-pandemic times to extend the ministry by expanding the clothes ministry and appointing a board. 

For Ellarene, a colon cancer survivor awaiting disability, each Tuesday’s food distribution is a lifeline.

“I can’t work no more,” Ellarene told the TEXAN. 

Dollgener’s life experiences explain his empathy. Raised in a Christian home, he was saved after high school. The pastor friend who led him to the Lord recommended he attend Criswell College. The Dollgeners married during college. 

The heartbreaking loss of their firstborn to cystic fibrosis led to a stint in Uganda establishing an orphanage and later to their involvement in foster care after moving to the Tyler area, where Dollgener began teaching following two pastorates in East Texas. They have adopted six children, all homeschooled. The older Dollgener kids volunteer at the food pantry.

Over 300 individuals have received help from FBC Swan in the last nine months in a church revitalization project born of a businessman’s vision and a pastor’s dream.

“We really get a chance to meet people’s needs. You look at the Gospels. Jesus goes around meeting people’s needs. He was filled with compassion for the people,” Dollgener said, gesturing to the line of cars: “They are going to be fed because of the work we are doing here.” 

—With reporting by Gary Ledbetter

Annual meeting panels to focus on post-COVID evangelism, revitalization

In the midst of a somewhat simplified annual meeting schedule for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention at Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin, the Tuesday Nov. 10 schedule contains three panels on relevant subjects. One panel will take place in the main session and two will take place during lunch.

The main stage panel will be during the Tuesday morning session and is entitled “Re-engaging the Heart: Keeping Focused on the Mission,” and it is themed around the charge given to Jesus’ followers in Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and] to the end of the earth.”

“With so much uncertainty in our world, it remains essential that we maintain the mission God has given us,” said Lance Crowell, panel moderator and SBTC church ministry associate. 

Panelists will include Gregg Matte, pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church; Matt Queen, L.R. Scarborough Chair of Evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary; Caleb Turner, assistant pastor at Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church; and IMB missionary Alex Traverston. 

“Churches can be tempted to focus on the logistics of ministry, while losing the hope and focus of our calling. God has redeemed and commissioned us to be his witnesses, and that has not changed in the midst of the circumstances with which we find ourselves,” Crowell added. “This panel will look to inspire, challenge and educate leaders to maintain the mission in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

The two president’s panels will be held back-to-back during lunch. The first, “The Revitalized Church in a Post-COVID World,” will be moderated by Kenneth Priest, SBTC director of convention strategies.

“The panel is designed to think about how a church can re-engage missionally while COVID is still impacting gathering and how, especially in a revitalization context, churches may be experiencing a need for spiritual renewal even if pre-COVID they did not,” Priest said.

Panelists include SBTC consultant Mike Landry; Matt Queen; Randy Spitzer, pastor of Caribbean Baptist Church; and Andrew Johnson, pastor of Faith Memorial Baptist Church.

The second panel, “Reaching the Next Generation in a Post-COVID World,” will be moderated by NAMB next-gen evangelism director Shane Pruitt.

“Looking at things big-picture evangelistically, churches are saying that they want to see baptism numbers go up, they want to see people reached for the gospel. And the next generation is where that’s going to happen,” Pruitt said. “According to polls, 77 percent of born-again Christians made a commitment to Christ before the age of 17. So now is the time to reach them, and if you wait you miss a generation. 

“If there’s a blessing to COVID it’s that it has opened people’s eyes in a way and they are more aware that they’re not guaranteed tomorrow. Gen Z especially, who are agenda-weary and propaganda-weary—they’re searching for truth.”

The panelists for this second session include Brent Isbill, pastor of Epic Life Church in New Braunfels; Jessica Kowalski, college minister at Great Hills Baptist Church; Jason Mick, student pastor at Prestonwood Baptist Church; Hannah Lee Duffey, children’s minister at Hyde Park Baptist Church; and Rylan Scott, student pastor at Houston Northwest Church.

The lunch panels will begin at 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday and include a free boxed lunch for all attendees. No registration is required for the lunches. 

Sports is among “greatest avenues for outreach,” Pender says

HOUSTONFoot traffic on the church campus—particularly because of sports activities—has been vital to the growth of Fallbrook Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in north Houston. If people are familiar with a church because they’ve played ball there, they’re more likely to attend a service, the pastor said.

“We just think that sports is one of the greatest avenues for outreach because you’ll be hard-pressed to find somebody who has a kid who didn’t play some sort of sport here,” Pastor Michael Pender told the TEXAN regarding the local community.

The church has hosted a men’s basketball league, a youth basketball league, football, volleyball and even track and field. 

“Prior to COVID, every single weekend there was some sort of sporting event at our church. There aren’t too many Houston professional athletes in terms of basketball that did not come and play in our gym,” Pender said.

Nearly every week, people come through the visitor line and say they attended a sporting event at Fallbrook before they attended a service.

“When they decide to go to church, when the family wakes up and says, ‘We want to go to church today,’ the logical place they’re going to come is Fallbrook,” Pender said. 

The predominantly African American congregation began as a Southern Baptist church plant in 1994 with Pender, the founding pastor, also driving a truck for FedEx. Now with an ever-expanding campus and thousands of members, Cooperative Program giving remains a priority because of the resources they received in those early days, Pender said. 

“I fully support the Cooperative Program. The Cooperative Program certainly helped us to get started,” the pastor said.

Situated near four elementary schools in a growing community, Fallbrook has seen tremendous success at reaching people whose lives were headed in the wrong direction before they were introduced to Jesus. 

“Even those who make poor choices in America are in need of a Savior,” Pender said of the church’s decision to emphasize community missions. Too often, people who have made poor choices don’t feel welcome in church, he said, but Fallbrook seeks to change that perception.

“Throughout the years, we’ve had so many men and women who came and didn’t know Christ. They received Christ and got saved, and now they’re Sunday school workers,” Pender said. “That’s pretty much how we’ve gotten our people over the years.”

Something people are searching for, he said, is authenticity. People also look for leaders who demonstrate integrity and set a good moral example, Pender said.

The latest way Fallbrook is bringing people to its campus is by building a state-of-the-art facility to be used as a branch of Lone Star College, the third-largest community college system in America. The church has included chemistry and biology labs in the new building and will welcome students in January. 

“This partnership, from what we understand, is the first of its kind,” Pender said. “Fallbrook Church believes that if we love our community, we’ve got to put skin in the game. We can’t wait on government. We can’t wait on others outside the community. We’re going to be able to bless thousands of students in our community.”

The pastor said, “Kids come to my office all the time and say, ‘Hey, Pastor Mike, I don’t know what I’m going to do.’ I’m going to be able to walk them across the parking lot on our campus and get them registered at one of the largest community colleges in America.” 

Fallbrook already houses a K-12 charter school as well as a before-and-after-school program and a daycare. Pender likes the idea that a child could come to the church campus as a baby and not have to leave for his education until he has graduated from college. 

“We want to get traffic in our buildings, so we want our buildings used every day,” Pender said. 

The church hosts blood drives and has been a voter registration site for years. Twice a month they host a drive-through food pantry, giving out thousands of meals. 

“Early on, we realized our building was just a building,” the pastor said. “People and kids are going to tear up your building, and that’s why God gives you resources to fix it up. We have thousands and thousands of people outside of Sunday that come through our building.”

Those are people the pastor and other church members have grown to love and to recognize when they see them at the mall or elsewhere in the community, he said. 

“Traffic is our friend, and in my mind it doesn’t make sense to have a church building—hundreds of thousands of square feet—that’s only used on Sundays and Wednesdays.”   

First candidate announced for 2021 SBC President

One year after announcing his willingness to be nominated for SBC president during the 2020 Southern Baptist Convention meeting set for Orlando last June, R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has announced that he will be nominated during the 2021 SBC meeting in Nashville, June 15-16. The 2020 meeting was cancelled because of COVID-19 and Mohler says his reasons for being willing to serve the convention in this way have not changed. 

“Anything that has happened in the last several months has only amplified the reasons I was willing this year to be nominated and now next year since the convention was delayed,” he told the TEXAN, “I think Southern Baptists face some incredible challenges and some very real issues, and I think we need to have the kinds of conversations that will clarify issues and bring Southern Baptists together. And we’ve got to address some questions of urgency, as the SBC moves into the 21st century. I would hope to serve Southern Baptists by helping the right conversations to take place in the right way.”

Mohler told the TEXAN in a January interview that he was concerned but optimistic about the future of the SBC. That optimism remains, calling Southern Baptists, “incredibly committed and generous and focused on the gospel,” though he believes circumstances related to the pandemic have prevented Southern Baptists from addressing some issues, while also increasing tension. 

“When you think about the national conversation right now, everything appears to be reaching a feverish boil almost instantly. And Southern Baptists have demonstrated over time an incredible faithfulness in being deliberate and careful and biblical. And so, to put it bluntly, the future of the SBC can’t be woke and it can’t be mean,” he said. 

“We’ve got some very real theological and moral issues to deal with just in terms of our engagement with the culture and where we stand. There are some ideologies set loose in the larger society that will be absolutely toxic to biblical Christianity. Southern Baptists need to be very clear that many of these ideologies, including critical theory, have no place in the Southern Baptist Convention and are antithetical to the confessional basis of our denomination. At the same time, we’ve got to show that we are a gospel denomination of biblical Christians who are committed to talk to one another about these things with respect and to seek agreement.”

Mohler is a member of Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. In 2019, the last year reported, Third Street gave $66,000 through the Cooperative Program, which is 6.1 percent of the church’s $1,075,000 in undesignated receipts. 

Give thanks in all things

In 1789, George Washington issued a Thanksgiving Day Proclamation stating, “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection, aid and favors. … Now, therefore, do I assign and recommend Thursday, the 26th day of November next … that we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks for his kind care and protection of the people of this country, and for all the great and various favors which he has been pleased to confer upon us.”

In 1942, Congress passed a bill setting the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. Now Thanksgiving was to be observed annually as a federal holiday. In the book The New England Mind: From Colony to Province, the author wrote this: “For the Puritan mind, to fix thanksgiving to a mechanical revolution of the calendar would be folly; who can say that in November there will be that for which thanks should be uttered rather than lamentation? By the time ceremonial gratitude can be channelized into an annual festival, calculated in advance, society is rewarding its own well-doing, not acknowledging divine favor … though the society doggedly persists in giving autumnal thanks, it no longer has a mechanism for confessing its shortcomings and seeking forgiveness for its trespasses.”

This year Nov. 26 is Thanksgiving Day. Most of the time it is associated with family, food and football. This year is different. Amid a pandemic, hurricanes, wildfires, racial discord, civil unrest and political rancor, we struggle to be thankful. Perhaps we have lost the concept of thanksgiving altogether. 

Thanksgiving is more of an attitude than an event. God has given us much. We have physical life, material possessions and spiritual truth. Sadly, most of us are spoiled with abundance. Yet we find it hard to acknowledge God’s hand. I hear people say, “Thank goodness,” or, “I’m so thankful.” They have no concept that it is the sovereign God of the universe who has made the blessing possible. Spiritual consciousness of the God of the Bible has been lost in the general population. We know to whom we are to offer our thanks as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

As believers we march on through this life without much more awareness of God’s hand of providence than our unbelieving friends. Perhaps if we were to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts about our sins, we could once again catch a glimpse of Calvary. Once the cross is in full view, we can do nothing else but offer thanks for all things. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:57, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

Once we revisit the grace of God, we can begin to give thanks in all things. And as Paul writes once again in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” The New American Commentary on this verse says, “Paul never instructed the church to thank God for evil events but to thank God that even in evil times and circumstances our hope remains, and God continues to work in our lives.”

The hardship of a pandemic will pass. Natural disasters will end one day. The injustices of this world will be rectified when Jesus comes back. So, when you think all is lost, give thanks. Return to the cross and enjoy the grace that is abundant. It is saving grace, traveling grace and dying grace. Above all people, we should express our deepest and heartfelt “thanksgiving” to our wonderful Savior. I pray you and your family will experience a blessed Thanksgiving.