It’s a good day to be a Kentucky Baptist!
In our 176th year of cooperative ministry, Kentucky Baptists are seeing tremendous results. Adding the evangelistic work of our mission board ministries to that of our agencies and institutions and the ministry of our 2,400 churches, more than 20,000 people in came to faith in Christ this past year through the work of Kentucky Baptists!
Moreover, through the Cooperative Program, our churches planted 15 new churches in Kentucky, more than 1,000 new churches in North America, more than 24,000 new churches overseas, and witnessed hundreds of thousands come to faith in Christ around the globe!
While we rejoiced over these accomplishments and many more at our annual meeting last month in Paducah, we also celebrated the impact of RISK: Paducah, the evangelistic effort leading up to the convention. That effort resulted in over 330 people calling on Christ for salvation! We appreciate the churches, individual Kentucky Baptists, and members of the Mission Board staff who served in RISK: Paducah. We rejoice in God’s faithfulness to use the preaching of the gospel to save the lost.
We’re already making plans for RISK: Bowling Green leading up to the 2014 annual KBC meeting. The annual meeting will take place on Nov. 11, 2014 at Living Hope Baptist Church. If you want to save dates to participate in RISK, mark off Nov. 2-10. We will be communicating the specific evangelism projects you can participate in, as well as dates and times, well in advance of November.
Fulfilling the Great Commission requires cooperation. None of us, alone, are able to make disciples among all the world’s people groups. Working together, however, I believe the Great Commission can and will be fulfilled.
During the Christmas season, Southern Baptists are challenged to focus on Great Commission work overseas. Today more than 3,000 unreached people groups around the world remain unengaged with the gospel. At the same time, due to a lack of funding, our overseas mission force on assignment through the International Mission Board remains in a state of decline. Tragically, over the past 5 years, that mission force has been reduced by nearly 1,000. Today it stands at roughly 4,800 missionaries.
The issue is not that Southern Baptists are too poor to provide for 5,800 overseas missionaries. Rather, we are not willing to make the lifestyle sacrifices that would allow us to be, at a minimum, tithers. If every Southern Baptist simply committed to giving the Lord ten percent of their income, the result would be that church budgets would more than triple, as would the sending capacity of our mission boards in Kentucky, North America, and overseas.
Will you sacrifice so others will have the opportunity to hear the gospel?
