“We were very encouraged to have strong reporting by Illinois churches in 2007, and that reporting showed both generous missions giving and a significant rebound in baptisms, worship attendance and Sunday School enrollment,” said Nate Adams, IBSA executive director.

“Some totals, however, have not yet returned to 2005 levels, and participation in programs such as women’s and men’s missions and music have declined,” Adams explained.  “At IBSA our commitment is to continue working with churches not only to strengthen their church ministries, but also to become increasingly relevant and effective in reaching the lost.”

Although the SBC added 473 new churches and gave more than $1.3 billion to support mission activities around the world, Thom S. Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, said there’s no escaping the fact that Southern Baptists are not reaching as many people for Christ as they once did. LifeWay gathers the year-to-year ACP information on the convention's behalf.

“This report is truly disheartening,” Rainer said. “Total membership showed a slight decline. Baptisms have now declined for three consecutive years and for seven of the last eight years, and are at their lowest level since 1987. Indeed, the total baptisms are among the lowest reported since 1970. We are a denomination that, for the most part, has lost its evangelistic passion.”

The 2007 ACP also showed mission giving by Illinois Baptist churches grew last year.  Cooperative Program gifts increased 1.4 percent.  Gifts to the Illinois Missions Offering were up 11.4 percent over the previous year.  And, total undesignated gifts to IBSA churches increased nearly 7 percent.

Missions giving is significant and far reaching. Through the SBC's Cooperative Program, local churches voluntarily pool funds to support mission efforts in their states, throughout the nation and around the world.  Cooperative Program funds support more than 10,250 missionaries who engage nearly 1,200 people groups throughout North America and around the world. In addition, CP funds support six seminaries preparing more than 15,000 ministers for Christian service.

Membership in Illinois Baptist churches grew 2 percent while membership in SBC churches fell slightly. It is the second drop in membership experienced by the SBC in the last decade. In 1998, membership fell 1 percent but increased the next year and recovered to a positive trend in 2000. Prior to that, the last drop in membership was 1926.

Several traditional Southern Baptist program areas in Illinois Baptist churches declined last year including music enrollment, down 7 percent, and Woman’s Missionary Union and Men’s Missions, which declined 22 and 23 percent respectively.  WMU and music enrollment also declined in the SBC, however, Men’s Missions increased slightly.

The number of SBC churches grew by 1 percent to 44,696; primary worship attendance increased slightly to 6.15 million; and total mission expenditures topped $1.3 billion.

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The May 1-3 celebration held at First Baptist Church in Marion, Ill. revolved around the theme, “Weave a Story.” Missionaries and others spoke of how God has woven a story into their lives and the lives of other women.  The celebration included an historical pageant which chronicled the women of Illinois WMU and 100 years of missions and ministry by the organization.

National WMU Executive Director Wanda Lee said Jesus is the ultimate story teller, highlighting Matthew 13 and the seven stories He told.  “When He was finished people were left with something to think about.”

“You and I are to be storytellers to tell people what we have seen and heard. Do you know the story of God’s mission through the ages well enough to tell it so they’ll see God in their own lives?” Lee asked.

Debbie Wohler, a resort missionary for the North American Mission Board in Lake Tahoe, Calif. shared how her parents and home church, First Baptist Church, Fairfield, Ill., prepared her for a life in missions.

“You are a child of the King.  Don’t you dare think small,” her father told her.  “The King has big plans for you.  We’re committed to Jesus.”

“God also used my home church to write on my heart in the 60s and 70s,” Wohler said.

“They were just ordinary people who loved me with the love of Christ in their hearts.  First Baptist Church wrote on my heart, ‘You too can be a missionary.’”

Wohler declared, “We’ve a world waiting for us to tell the story of Jesus and to write his story on their hearts.”

Laurie Ingram, a former SBC missionary born in Litchfield, Ill., told the over 600 assembled women, and several men, how her desire to become a missionary surfaced at age three.  Now a pastor’s wife, fifth grade teacher and crisis pregnancy center volunteer, Ingram said she began to struggle with her calling at age 14.

“It was a hard time, not because I didn’t want to do it.  It was hard because it was all I ever wanted to be. I thought, ‘God, is this you or is it my idea?’” Ingram read Jeremiah 1:5, God’s declaration to Jeremiah of having chosen him in the womb, and realized God had called her.

She met the man who would become her husband while in college, and they served as missionaries together in Belgium and South Africa.

Now, she said, “I’m a part of a place where I hadn’t planned to be.  What is God doing with you in that place?  How is God weaving you into the lives of people in that place?  Where is your place in that tapestry?”

Another speaker, *Bonita, an SBC missionary in the Pacific Rim region, was born in Metropolis, Ill. and served as a WMU associate in Illinois for eight years.  

She shared about women in the region meeting in secret to learn more about God’s design for them.  “The Master Designer has a plan for them,” Bonita said. “The Master Designer has a plan for all of us.”

Bonita shared how God is using missionaries in the region to reach Buddhist monks, formerly unreached people groups and the Japanese.

*Barbara, a last frontier SBC missionary, told of an English language church plant attended by university and college students in her country.

One of the students belonged to an unreached people group and her family worshipped 17 idols.  One night the student realized there is a God not made by human hands.  When she went home the next school holiday and told her sister, mother and father about Christ, they all became Christians, the only ones known among their people.

Gail Hallman, Pennsylvania-South Jersey Baptist Convention (PSJBC) State Woman’s Union Executive Director, addressed the new partnership between the PSJBC and the Illinois Baptist State Association (IBSA).  “It will be exciting to see what God will do as He weaves us together in a partnership.  I invite you to become a part of the partnership.”

The 2008 Legacy award was given to Evelyn Tully, IBSA WMU associate from 1967-69 and 1974-84 and state director from 1984-2000.  Several speakers shared how Tully influenced their lives including Lee, who pointed out Acteens was created and the first National Acteens Conference was planned while she served on the national WMU staff.

IBSA Executive director Nate Adams brought greetings on behalf of the association, congratulating the WMU on its 100th birthday.  “We from IBSA love being your partners and look forward to doing everything we can do to help support your ministry,” Adams said.

Adams presented Shipley with a globe and then surprised the WMU president with a check for $2,500 to the Touching Tomorrow Today fund for missions created by Illinois WMU.

State WMU Director Sandy Wisdom-Martin, reflected on the work of Illinois WMU over the last 100 years. “If I could characterize Illinois WMU with one word it would be faith,” she said. “The faith of Illinois women who have helped weave the last 100 years.”

“Tonight, we celebrate the women we come from, and may our hearts be as dedicated as the faithful women we came from.”

*Last name omitted for security reasons.

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As a young man, I guess I thought the local Association was primarily about fellowship.   It seemed it was sort of like a club to which nearby churches belonged so they could occasionally get together and encourage one another.  I also began to understand the Director of Missions as “back up” to our pastor (since he often spoke when our pastor was gone), and as the nearest denominational representative, one who could come in and help us figure things out from time to time.

After I began serving as Associational Youth Director, I began to see the Association more as a “support system,” where stronger churches like ours that had a youth director (me) could help with monthly events for smaller churches that didn’t have much of a youth program.  There was a certain “strength in numbers” that came when a group of churches were willing to band together to do what none of them could do as well separately.  

The more annual meetings I attended, the more I began to see the Association not just as a place of activity, but also of identity.  It was where the larger Baptist family gathered to rehearse its history, to reinforce its beliefs and values, and to recharge for its mission.  In fact, the longer and the more deeply I came to know my family, the less I minded waiting through reports on who had died that year, or what church was celebrating an anniversary, or who was writing an updated history.  Younger men seemed more impatient with those things.  I was learning to appreciate the larger history and the larger family that helped make me who I am.

Those aren’t wrong perceptions of the local Baptist Association.  In fact, together they represent one of the Association’s primary purposes – to strengthen its member churches.  But I’ve also come to understand that there was a flaw, or at least a void in my early perception of the local Association.  I thought that the Association is there only for the churches, for us that are in the family.  It’s the same mistake church members can sometimes make about their church.  The reality is the local Association is also there for the thousands of people who are “lost in the cracks” between its churches!

What do I mean by “lost in the cracks” between churches?  In the children’s game known as “Red Rover,” two groups join hands and line up facing one another in an open field.  When one team calls out “Red rover, red rover send Billy right over,” the other team lets go of Billy and he runs hard to try and break the grasp between two members of the opposing team.  If he can’t he’s absorbed into that team, and if he can he takes a captive back to his team.

Contrast that game with a search party that joins hands, perhaps in that same field, to look for a lost child or injured person.  Both involve individuals joining together for a purpose, but one purpose is far more critical than the other.  It’s that task of joining together to seek and to save the lost in our communities that gives the local Association its most urgent purpose.

I’m grateful that the same Association that taught me about fellowship, mutual support and Baptist identity also taught me about church planting and missions in our local “Jerusalem” mission field.  As churches in our Association
helped us start a new church and begin reaching the lost, it was as if those two Red Rover lines had eagerly joined hands, faced the same way, and become a search party.  That is the local Association joining hands for a purpose – its Great Commission purpose!

We live and serve the Lord in a day when the search party purpose of the local Association is desperately needed.  In 2007, Southern Baptist churches across America baptized 5.5 percent fewer of those “lost in the cracks” than in the previous year.  Though our churches’ baptisms here in Illinois rebounded by 15 percent over the previous year, we still did not return to the 2005 number.

The Red Rover joys of fellowship and mutual support and identity are valuable and important.  It’s just that they’re only part of the purpose of a healthy Association.  As your church considers its involvement and support of the local Association this month, consider some new ways you can join hands with other churches and form a search party for those who are lost in the cracks between you.

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The meeting will extend a theme of spiritual awakening that has characterized the tenure of Frank Page as SBC president, pressing on to the evangelistic outreach that flows naturally from renewal.

For a complete schedule of events, go here.

"The motivation and power for evangelism arises out of spiritual awakening," said Page, who is completing his second term as SBC president. "I keep going back to Acts 1:8, which says, 'When the Holy Spirit comes, you shall receive power.' And when we have been stirred by God's spirit, we reach out to the lost and God draws people to Himself."

That's why Page said he selected Acts 2:47b as the watchword for the gathering: "And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved" (HCSB).

"The recent report of a decline in baptisms and membership in the Southern Baptist Convention re-emphasizes that for too long we have been attempting to raise baptisms among non-revived people in non-revived churches," Page said. "The lack of connection with lost people and the lack of urgency for soul-winning and personal evangelism is a direct indication of our lack of spiritual passion and love for the lost.

"Even when there is a love and a concern for the lost, sometimes we have a total disconnect with the culture in which we live," Page added. "Many of our people simply do not know how to relate to people in 21st-century culture and have been frustrated at their inability to communicate the Gospel. Many believers do not know people who are outside the Kingdom and often do not even know their own neighbors."

Under the banner of "Fulfilling the Mission," Southern Baptist leaders will introduce a multifaceted long-term strategy for helping churches evangelize their neighborhoods, states, country and world. The 10-year National Evangelism Initiative was a priority Page set for his time in office when he was elected in Greensboro, N.C., in 2006.

"The moment I was elected, I knew I wanted to encourage a continent-wide evangelism strategy," Page said. "A large number of people have been saying to us, 'Don't just tell us what to do, but show us how to do it.' So I approached the North American Mission Board and they have worked with our state and associational partners to come forward with a strategy that will help us know both what to do and how to do it."

Unlike some programs that drop a big box of material on the desk and leave it to the pastor to figure out whether it can be implemented in his church and how to do it, the National Evangelism Initiative will offer a menu of strategies in four areas: praying, engaging, sowing and harvesting, Page said. Churches will be able to pick and choose strategies that will work in their unique contexts.

"There will be many elements produced so churches of all sizes and all ethnic backgrounds in all areas of the continent can take part," Page said. "They will be able to pick and choose from various strategies, tools and emphases. It will be very flexible.

"Of all the things that could come out of the meeting in Indianapolis, the greatest for our continent would be that we come away with a common direction in presenting a very positive, life-transforming message about Christ."

Among the other highlights of the annual meeting:

-- Block parties in 27 ethnically mixed neighborhoods will spearhead a drive to launch eight new churches during Crossover '08, the citywide evangelistic campaign set for June 6-7. "I want to encourage Southern Baptists to be part of Crossover," Page said. "I will be out sharing Christ on Saturday and hope hundreds, if not thousands, will join us in that great evangelistic opportunity."

-- Messengers to the annual meeting will hear challenges from Leo A. Endel, executive director of the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention in Rochester, Minn.; Rob Blackaby, president of the Canadian Southern Baptist Seminary in Cochrane, Alberta; and Forrest Pollock, senior pastor of Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Fla.

-- An intensified focus on prayer will be another feature of the convention. In addition to the prayer room, signs will be posted around the convention center to help messengers make a "prayer journey" for the annual meeting. A virtual prayerwalk will be available at www.crossover08.com for people who can't attend the convention. Information for those interested in volunteering to intercede for the annual meeting is available on that site as well.

-- The North American Mission Board report and presentation is scheduled for Tuesday evening, June 10, and the International Mission Board report and presentation will be Wednesday evening, June 11.

-- Congregational praise and worship will be led by convention music director L. Lavon Gray, minister of music and worship at First Baptist Church in Jackson, Miss. Steve Blanchard, director of worship ministries for the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana, will lead the Indiana Baptist combined choirs in several performances.

-- Al Gilbert, senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., will deliver the convention message Wednesday morning, June 11.

-- The SBC Pastors' Conference will begin early -- on Sunday afternoon, June 8 -- to preview "Fireproof" (fireproofthemovie.com), a new movie on unconditional love and covenant marriage produced by Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Ga.

-- The annual Ministers' Wives Luncheon will be held at noon Tuesday, June 10, in the Sagamore Ballrooms 1-5 of the Indiana Convention Center. Gary Chapman will speak on the topic "How to Love a Leader." Registration information is available at www.sbcannualmeeting.net.

-- Woman's Missionary Union activities will begin Sunday evening, June 8, at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis, with a banquet featuring SBC President Frank Page as the keynote speaker. A day-long missions celebration will be held June 9 in the same hotel. Registration information for the banquet is available at www.wmu.com.

-- Online registration is available at www.sbcannualmeeting.net through June 7 so messengers can avoid lines upon arriving at the convention. The website gives a church a messenger reference number form to be printed out and presented by each messenger at the registration booth in exchange for a nametag and a set of ballots. The appropriate church-authorized representative must complete all online registrations. The traditional registration method also is available. Registration cards are available from state convention offices.

-- Messengers wishing to propose resolutions must submit them at least 15 days prior to the annual meeting, giving the Resolutions Committee a two-week period in which to consider them. Detailed guidelines on submitting resolutions are available at www.sbcannualmeeting.net (by clicking on "resolutions").

-- Shuttles will be available to and from most official SBC downtown and airport hotels. The shuttle service will be complimentary on Sunday afternoon, June 8. Shuttle tickets will be available at the convention center information desk for $10, with children 12 and under riding free when accompanied by parents who purchase tickets. Hotels near the convention center that will not have shuttle service are the Canterbury, Conrad, Crowne Plaza Union Station, Embassy Suites Downtown, Hampton Inn Downtown, Homewood Suites, Hyatt Regency Capitol, Marriott Downtown, Omni Severin and Westin. The Country Inn & Suites near the airport will not have shuttle service. The remaining official SBC downtown and airport hotels will have service.

-- Childcare (birth-3 years) and a children's conference (ages 4-12) have been planned for the meeting, with registration information available at www.sbcannualmeeting.net.

-- Students grade 7 and above will be able to participate in Bible study, worship and fellowship during the annual Centrifuge program. Registration information is available at www.lifeway.com/fuge/cfuge under "SBC Fuge."

-- Guidestone Resources will sponsor a wellness walk at 6:15 a.m. Tuesday, June 10, at White River State Park. Online registration is available at www.GuideStone.org/walk or www.sbcannualmeeting.net.

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Dale Davenport, IBSA Education and Leadership director, describes the conference as “an opportunity to equip and encourage everyone who plays a vital role in their church’s Sunday School.”

Participants in the two-day conference will learn how to unlock the full potential of Sunday School, the importance of small group outreach, five principles for church growth, strategies for sharing vision and motivating others and practical, step-by-step plans to implement in church.  They will also enjoy uplifting worship and have the opportunity to choose from 25 elective conferences for pastors, Sunday School directors, ministers of education and workers in every age range. Sample elective conference topics include Proven Ingredients for Building an Evangelistic Sunday School, How to Enlist All the Leaders You Need, Teaching Preschoolers Today and Motivating Leaders.

Davenport initiated the idea of hosting the event two years ago.  As pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Country Club Hills, he attended the Nashville-based conference with three other Chicago-area education leaders.  He found the conference met a real need among area churches, but the cost for travel and lodging was prohibitive for many of them.  “I thought if it could come to Chicago many Illinois Baptists could attend without having to leave home.  I asked the LifeWay leadership team, ‘Do you ever take this show on the road?’”

LifeWay liked the idea and two years the later, the conference is coming to Chicago.

Davenport encourages African American church leaders to attend the conference.  “It’s a practical time for working with key church leaders in making a difference,” he said.

The $50 conference fee covers workshop sessions, materials and Friday’s lunch.  After May 8 the cost to register rises to $65.

For more information or to register call Dale Davenport at (217) 391-3130 or e-mail daledavenport @IBSA.org.

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