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State Missionary Rick Lance is executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.

Other Recent Blog Entries:

A Sincere and Respectful Call for A Great Commandment Renewal
Thursday, June 24, 2010
As I have said earlier, I will do my best not to let disagreements define our relationships. I am praying that The Great Commandment Renewal will begin in me!

VBS Is a Blessing!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
As a pastor, I always felt that VBS was to be a major commitment on my part. I wanted to be in town, involved and engaged in the efforts of impacting the lives of children, youth and adults. It was not a chore for me, but rather it was a joy!

Taking the 'Stew' Out of Stewardship
Thursday, May 27, 2010
At first, I thought I had hurt his feelings. I mean this was a serious project, and maybe I was being a little too cute for my own good.

April 2009

Are We in a Southern Baptist Recession?

When I served as a pastor, I was sometimes criticized for emphasizing numbers, such as how many people attended the previous week's Sunday School and worship services and how many baptisms we had in a year's time. That is the way most local church leaders think -- and rightly so, I contend.

Statistics for 2008 from across the Southern Baptist Convention are now available for reflection and strategy planning. Southern Baptists are to be commended for their generous giving for the cause of Christ, despite a deep recessionary economy -- a point to remember as we analyze the stats.

Indeed gifts through the local church, the Cooperative Program and the special missions offerings were up, but other statistics were not so favorable.

These other numbers should give us pause for sure. Total church membership for our churches was down slightly in 2008. The same is true for Sunday School enrollment, which is a really important barometer of church health for Southern Baptists.

Especially disturbing is the continued decline in THE number of baptisms in our churches. This is the fourth consecutive year for the trend downward --- certainly not something that Southern Baptists want to see as a pattern for the future.

The timing for the GPS strategy (God's Plan for Sharing) for Southern Baptists could not be better. This 10-year initiative is the right focus for the right time. If we believe that all people are lost without Christ, then we will want to share the Gospel with anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Our goal is to increase the population of heaven and to decrease the population of hell. GPS is a timely strategy to share the timeless message of Christ with the mission field we call North America.

Numbers do count because they represent people and, as the song says, "People Need the Lord." As Southern Baptists who believe in Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life, we need to commit ourselves anew to "do the work of an evangelist." That is what GPS is all about.

Perhaps, we should view this as a temporary recession, not a permanent trend, for our denominational family. Recessions are downturns in the business cycle; therefore we are definitely in a recession currently. However, even the most pessimistic forecaster would admit that this recession will end at some point. What will bring it to an end? One way to answer that question is to reply, "When there is a revival in the economy."

The SBC recession will end when we experience a revival as a people of God. When we have a true sense renewal in our relationship with the Lord, the numbers will take care of themselves. Why? Because we will be doing God's work in God's way according to God's will.

My prayer for my denominational family is that in 2010 we can look back and see the beginnings of a revival among us and the end to our own denominational recession.

This blog article by Rick Lance was also published by Baptist Press on April 28, 2009.

The Church Is On Fire!!!

"The church is on fire." That was the heartbreaking news delivered to Chuck Weaver, pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Hale County. The church is located less than 10 miles south of Moundville in the rural area of the county. Recently Pleasant Hill has been growing in attendance under the loving leadership of their devoted pastor. At one time, the attendance was as low as 15, but not now. On Sunday morning for worship, more than 50 people gather together to praise God and hear the Gospel preached. That has been the pattern for this close-knit congregation at Pleasant Hill.

During the night of April 14 or the early morning hours of the 15th, the church caught on fire and was functionally destroyed as a facility for worship and Bible study. I was in Cleburne County when I heard the bad news. Mel Johnson, our state missionary assigned to leadership in disaster relief, immediately went to the scene on Wednesday. He assessed the situation appropriately, and we began making arrangements to have a new mobile chapel on site for the church to use by the first Sunday in May. By the way, this is their homecoming Sunday.

Thursday, Bill Wallace, the director of missions for Hale County Association, and I came to visit the Pleasant Hill church. I carried with me a check from disaster relief funds, made possible by the generous giving of Alabama Baptists. I was able to talk briefly with two church members, a deacon and a lady who serves the church as treasurer. To both of them, I offered the cooperative support of Alabama Baptists as they look to the future. Sunday, Bill Wallace will be present for their worship services to personally give the disaster relief check to the pastor and the church family.

While at the site of the fire on Thursday, two television news teams were present to take video pictures and to have interviews. One was from nearby Tuscaloosa, a small local coverage station for that area. ABC 33/40, perhaps, the largest television news outlet in the state, was also represented. In both of the brief news interviews with me, I was able to describe how Alabama Baptists work together when natural or man-caused disasters take place. The two interviewers were young but experienced, and both of them seemed to be impressed and grateful that people care about others in a time of need. It was an opportunity to share the love of Christ in a time of crisis.

As I stood there and viewed the burned out hull of what once was the picturesque church worship center and Bible study rooms, my mind raced back to three years ago, when we had the rash of nine or 10 church fires in our state. I remembered seeing the distraught faces of those who look upon the grisly sight of their church buildings in utter ashes and rubble.

I remembered the fire in Chilton County 15 months ago, where the pastor guided me through the remains of their educational building. He sadly showed me where he had his office, and then he rummaged through the few charred books, which were salvaged from the fire. There was a yellow sticky note attached to one of the burn edged books, which read "no matter what."

In the days to come, that "no matter what" spirit became his contagious leadership style. That church has bounced back and is continuing to minister for the Lord. The other churches have recovered too. Our mobile chapels have been used as places of worship and Bible study during this painful period of rebuilding and restoring for a good number of these churches. This has assisted them in incalculable ways, mainly giving them a place of worship until a new facility can be built.

There are two ways a church can be on fire. One is tragic, a literal fire, where facilities become shambles and congregations are caught in some very tough circumstances, dealing with the aftermath. The church can also be on fire spiritually. When the church becomes focused or refocused on the mission of the Great Commission, the fire of the Holy Spirit of God becomes the wind, which carries them into the future. Rare as it may be, the church can be on fire literally and spiritually. The literal fire has burned down the building at Pleasant Hill, but the spiritual fire of God's Holy Spirit is leading this growing church into an even brighter future. As an Alabama Baptist, you are a vital part of that future!!!