DR teams deploy for Midwest floods
BP News
The state has declared 44 counties disaster areas. The State Convention of Baptists in Indiana also is assessing flood recovery needs.

Read full BP News story.

Building Powerful Ministry Teams is designed to help church leaders discover, develop and produce quality ministry teams. Key Biblically-based principles and practices will be explored and experienced to create and maintain effective, relational ministry teams.

Training for this strategic plan to enhance church leadership is offered Friday, August 3, at Highland Lakes Baptist Camp in the Conference Center Library.

Training begins at 9:00 a.m. (plan to arrive at 8:30) and will conclude around 3:00 p.m.

The cost is $20 for the workbook and for lunch.

Click here to register and pay online.

 Please contact Steve McNeil if you have questions.

NAMB trustees voted unanimously to elect Douglas Dieterly as trustee chairman. Dieterly, executive pastor of Plymouth Baptist Church in Plymouth, Ind., has served as first vice chairman of NAMB's trustees since 2010.

Read full News from NAMB release.

For the week of June 14-19, 240 students and their leaders served the Lord in Indianapolis. Students spent their days roofing, painting, and doing other construction projects in the Indianapolis community. Their evenings were spent at Crispus Attucks Medical Magnet High School, where they participated in worship, Bible study and team-building. On Wednesday night, the students served in seven community events: two block parties, feeding more than 200 homeless people at the Baptist Center, various VBS events and handing out VBS flyers for area churches. Ten people accepted Christ during the week and many recommitments took place. World Changers will be back in Indianapolis June 13-18, 2011.

Click to read personal story and view pictures.

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255 TEENAGERS ARE COMING TO INDIANAPOLIS, JUNE 14-19, 2010 AND THEY WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

NATIONWIDE, May 2010 – This summer more than 23,000 students have made a decision to pay money out of their own pockets in order to help improve living conditions for people across the United States and Canada.

255 students from across the nation will be in Indianapolis the week of June 14-19 working on a variety of assignments that range from painting houses to putting new roofs on homes. The students come with their church youth groups, and on average pay $250 to take part in the week. This summer, 97 World Changers projects will take place in more than 85 cities from Alaska to Florida, New York to California, and many places in between. World Changers is in its 20th summer of operation and is an initiative of the North American Mission Board (Southern Baptist Convention).

Following a six-session “how-to” study that participants complete prior to coming, students serving Indianapolis will hit the ground running. The major work begins Tuesday of the project. The students will be staying at Crispus Attucks Medical Magnet for the week. This initiative is in partnership with Indianapolis, Crossroads Baptist Association, as well as local agencies and businesses.

NOTE: There will be a designated Media Relations specialist on site in your city the week of the project that will be able to coordinate interviews with students and residents as well as provide worksite location information for video and photos.


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If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Jonathan Wilson, please call 770-410-6475 or email Jonathan at jowilson@namb.net.

www.world-changers.net/mediaroom

Ben Beck, BCM Director received an encouraging facebook message from a guy he met last spring break on the Beach Reach Mission Trip.   When JB's path crossed with Ben last March he had just been kicked out of a bar for causing trouble with the DJ. JB was hungry so he headed to Taco Bell where Ben's street team was hanging out sharing Christ. Ben had a very long conversation with JB about God but JB was not quite ready to change his ways. They exchanged information and have stayed in contact via facebook. Ben prayed that God would send someone into JB's life to continue to share in person about Christ. Below is the facebook message Ben received. God has answered Ben's prayer.

Hey Ben! You'll never guess who's going to start going to church again.. me! I met this friend of mine Doug from work who is around my age and is really passionate about Jesus and I've been talking to him alot lately. It's kind of weird because the way he describes the church he goes to it sounds perfect for me. He also has the same perspective on things when it comes to politics, values etc. Also, I just finished the book Blue Like Jazz and it really put alot of things in perspective for me. It was actually kind of weird how I found it. This past weeknd I was riding in a friends car who was borrowing it from her dad, I happened to reach in the back seat and pull the book out. After thinking about the chances of that happening, meeting my friend Doug at work, and thinking about how we ran into each other in Panama, I feel like God is trying to have a personal relationship with me and I haven't been trying very hard to form a relationship with him. The book also talked about alot on what you were trying to tell me in Panama about God's grace and how we are sinful creatures, but the thing is we should understand that Jesus Christ died on the Cross so we can be saved from our sins. And that Christianity is a struggle with one's faith and we will mess up at times, but it is in our sinful nature to. It talks about how easy it is to follow the dark, and stray away from God. I guess what I'm trying to say is Thank you Ben for talking to me that night at Taco Bell. Not only have I came to Peace with myself, I've been able to share some things with my little brother and now he's starting to read the book Blue Like Jazz and hopefully he will start going to church with me also. I hope all is well and you'll be in my prayers!
JB

 
Purdue Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM)
507 Waldron St., est Lafayette, IN 47906
www.purduebcm.org
"The BCM is a body of students striving together to glorify God and spread His love through relationships and service."

Pastor Roger Kinion of Calvary Baptist Church, one of the four churches participating in the walk, answered questions by e-mail about the event.

Question: What exactly is a prayer walk?

Answer: Prayer walking is basically a proactive way of praying for your community where you actually walk through a neighborhood while praying for it. As you walk, you make observations and ask God to make you sensitive to the needs of the community. Then you continue to pray according to the needs God reveals to you.

Our prayer walk is called One Prayer to signify the unity of spirit and purpose the four churches have that are coming together, asking God to bless our community.

Q: What will participants in this walk do?

A: Teams from the four churches will be assigned specific streets throughout the city of Greenfield to prayer-walk. The goal is that every street in Greenfield will be covered in prayer at the same time. Following the unified prayer walk, the prayer teams from all four churches will come back to Brandywine Community Church for a time of celebration and worship.

Q: What churches are participating?

A: The four churches are Brandywine Community Church, Park Chapel Christian Church, Realife Church and Calvary Baptist Church.

Q: Can anyone participate?

A: Participation is encouraged to be routed through one of the four host churches.

Q: Where did the idea originate for this event?

A: Prayer walking has been a part of Calvary for about two years. It is a great way to become sensitive to community needs. The idea for One Prayer was birthed out of a conference attended by Matt Wickham, the pastor at Brandywine, and Dean Nester, the pastor at Park Chapel. When they returned home, they sought out interest from Adam Detamore, the pastor at Realife, and myself.

With all four churches being in agreement that prayer is the starting point for God making a difference in our community, the planning began. During a time of prayer, the title and focus "One Prayer" came to life.

Q: What's the ultimate objective?

A: The ultimate objective is to see God glorified by prayer -- walking every street in Greenfield at one time, praying in unison for our community, and allowing our congregations to work together to accomplish this goal.

Q: Do you see value in different churches joining together like this to collaborate in activities?

A: Absolutely! We are each different in some ways and alike in others. It is a great learning experience to join together and to realize we have so much in common and we are not alone in our faith and our desire to see our community reached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

-Bill McCleery, Indy Star

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009908290333

Firefighters respond to an early morning, Saturday January 17, 2009, at Oak Creek Community Church, Darin Garton, pastor. The roof and attic in the sanctuary were affected, along with smoke and water damage. Fortunately the fire was contained. The church will be meeting in a temporary facility until the repairs can be made. Darin came to Indiana 15 years ago as the church planter for the church. He has been their only pastor, and serves on the state convention executive board. Pray for the church family during this time of re-building. Darin stated, "Even though the building was damaged, the church is in good shape, because the church is the people. No church member was injured as a result of the fire."

Pictures (pdf)

Local news station video

"A God Size Story"
I am continually amazed at how God continues to work through a handful of people that just give Him room to work.  Since I have been a part of Elston this time around (I grew up in this church), the steady growth has been somewhat of a miracle.  Our location, and the difficulty in accessing our facility goes against most "church growth stragegies" (a heavily traveled highway, populated mostly by commuters and delivery vehicles with a median preventing direct access to our church).  Our worship center is small and we have very little room to grow.  Yet God continues to bring them in!  We just started two services this fall and we already need to consider "what to do next" as more families keep coming.
 
Several years ago when we decided to reach out to the children, and build a program to teach them, we knew the families would come.  And they have.  Many of them with complex issues that we feel inept to handle.  But in spite of us, God is moving and bringing restoration to marriages and people.
 
Challenges?  You bet.  I'm just grateful that He's "more than able to do above and beyond what we imagine or dream."

Running Hard After Him!
Randy Skidmore
Senior Pastor
Elston Family Church

Dear Friends,

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Many of you may know I recently experienced a very difficult period with my health going through quadruple by-pass surgery, including the “Mays procedure” to improve the beating function of the heart. The surgery was October 10, 2008, at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, by Dr. Dowling, one of the best cardiac surgeons in the region. After two more days in ICU and eight days in the Heart and Lung Center at Jewish Hospital, I went home to continue my recovery. November 17 I began Cardiac Rehab at the hospital in Scottsburg and am doing very well. I want to say a very grateful word of THANKS to each and every individual, church congregation and our state convention staff for your prayers and support.

But, as Paul Harvey would say, there is a "rest of the story.” God answered prayer that made the by-pass surgery possible. Two days before the surgery Dr. Dowling said he was not sure they would be able to do the surgery at all. One third of my heart muscle was dead, one third was dormant and not working, and I had a very bad arrhythmia problem. He ordered a viability study for the next 24 hours to see if surgery was possible. If not, the only option was a heart transplant.  I told him we would do what we do best and pray while he did the study. He told me he would be praying also. Many of you received the prayer request by phone, e-mail or other means. God heard you and answered in a very amazing way.

Almost exactly 24 hours later Dr. Dowling reported the following: four hours into the study my heart was the same as he had reported but at eight and 12 hours into the study there was no dead tissue in my heart. What was dormant was working and he was confident they could do the surgery. Please, do not miss this: dead heart tissue once dead does not come back on its own.  Something had to happen to make dormant tissue begin to beat again. Understand also the doctors did not put any medicine into the heart that would have caused this.

There is only One who can bring life where there is death; only One who can bring such healing to make surgery possible. I knew what was happening and so did the doctors. They were surprised and excited that they would be able to do the surgery. God is good and faithful and ALL THE GLORY AND HONOR goes to Him. God’s people prayed for me. I’ll never forget this and every chance I get, I’ll tell this story to His Honor.  God, help me to be worthy of what you have done and help whoever reads this to know You are able to touch their lives and bring eternal life where there has been nothing but death.

Again, thank you for praying and know that God is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all we could ask or think.

Still In His Service,
Jim Downey

World Changers come to Indianapolis

Teenagers from the states of Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Illinois and Indiana came to Indianapolis to work as part of the “World Changers” program the week of June 2-6, 2008. Some 105 teenage volunteers are in 8-10 different locations. The groups began working on Monday morning, June 2 to paint houses, put in new windows, tear out old sheet rock, throw away trash, and put on a new roof.

The groups represent young people from junior high through college age. The homes they are working on were recommended for this program through a partnership between the Crossroads Baptist Association (Indianapolis area) of the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana, and the United Northwest Area Development program of Indianapolis.

As most students spend their summer break soaking in rays at the beach or lounging around the house, 105 teenagers and their adult leaders, have been hard at work on this week-long refurbishment and construction project. Several of the homes were projects that would help current residence with some needed repairs. The other projects were clean-up projects that will the city to make the homes livable residence for low-income families.

Two of the students who are participating in this year’s group are James Cash from Dublin, Georgia, Dublin Bible Church and Hailey Snyder from Mt. Vernon, Illinois. This trip was James’ first time to participate in a World Changers event. He came because he wanted to do something to help people, to grow in his relationship with the Lord and to grow together with his youth group. Hailey is on her third trip with World Changers. She first learned about World Changers when her youth group attended Youth Encounter in Illinois. Her youth group came back from that event and began talking about how they could get involved in World Changers.

This summer more than 22,000 students nationwide will participate in World Changers. They will pay on average $260 to participate instead of staying home and earning money. They will participate in 95 construction and community projects from Alaska to Pennsylvania to South Carolina.

World Changers is a project of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. The program began in 1990 with 137 volunteers who refurbished homes in Briceville, Tennessee. Since that first outing, 290,000 students have renovated more than 18,000 homes in 900 communities worldwide. This year 23,000 students will participate in 95 projects in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada and 20 international locations.

See local news coverage