The KBC Communications Team and Public Affairs Committee help churches engage pressing cultural and social issues. For example, their appeal to Kentucky Baptists to make their voices heard during the commonwealth’s General Assembly helped keep casinos out of Kentucky. We expect to confront the issue again next year as the gambling industry will not give up this fight while it has a sworn ally in the governor’s mansion. We are fighting a good fight and, so far, have the upper hand. Let us not grow weary in well doing.
Another pressing matter may prove to be the defining cultural issue of our time. The gay-marriage and homosexual agenda is not a benign cause we can afford to ignore. In the name of equal rights, Christians are having their rights trampled. Christian business owners are being fined, forced out of business, and dragged into the courts. Houston’s sermon subpoenas have been dropped for now, but government’s intolerance of a biblical worldview continues to grow. The KBC’s Protecting Biblical Marriage Conference resulted in a collection of free resources now available on the KBC website. These resources include sample bylaws and building-use policies intended to protect the local church from frivolous lawsuits and baseless discrimination charges.
The KBC Missions Mobilization Team, under the leadership of Eric Allen, encourages churches to adopt an Acts 1:8 missions strategy and helps connect them to missions opportunities. A record number of 106,687 Kentucky Baptists participated in missions projects and mission trips (according to ACP data) last year. Efforts of our 105 self-funded missionaries in Kentucky and the 23,314 short-term volunteers who came to serve alongside them yielded more than 2,000 professions of faith, resulting in 708 baptisms. Working in places like flooded areas of Detroit and war-torn areas like Sudan, KBC Disaster Relief teams conducted nearly one-third of the national Southern Baptist Disaster Relief response ministry visits this year and recorded more than 20 percent of the total decisions for Christ.
Members of the KBC Church Consulting and Revitalization Team, under the leadership of Steve Rice, drove more than 300,000 ministry miles across Kentucky to carry out their assignment of helping churches. The team is currently working with 500 different churches and 1,100 different people each month, helping them reach Kentucky and the world for Christ.
The KBC Evangelism, Church Planting and Collegiate Ministry Team, through initiatives like “Tell Your Story” and “RISK: Bowling Green,” is also helping churches reach Kentucky. The team has reported an unprecedented number of professions of faith on university campuses and expects a record number of new church plants this year.
These are just a few highlights from the cooperative work of our churches. Might God continue to use us to reach Kentucky and the world for Christ!
