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End of a chapter…but not the end of the story

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Bro. James Hoffmann has resigned as editor of the Missouri Missionary Baptist after serving in this position for 33 years. He was unable to attend the Annual Meeting due to a death in his family but sent this as his final report to the Association.

Missouri Missionary Baptist Editor’s Report

I began serving as editor of the MMB Paper in the late part of 1989 after serving a short time as the editor of the Meramec Banner and following a few years as editor of the Midwest Banner in Michigan before moving back to Missouri.

I truly appreciate all the encouragement I have received over the years as people have read our publications. Some of the most encouraging things have been the comments of appreciation from our senior citizens who are no longer able to be active in their church or have moved out of our area to be with family. Many of them look forward to receiving the monthly news about what is happening in our churches across the state.

I am also thankful for the cooperation of our department directors who keep us informed by sending news items and announcements. We have some great people in our churches who serve as reporters and send monthly articles for print. Your help has kept us going over the years.

The publishing ministry is not always easy, and it takes a lot of patience and courage at times to get the job done. I could write a book about the experience of being a religious editor, and the stories would show how God has worked to keep us going when it looked like our ministry was finished! God has been faithful to make sure we had the support needed in so many instances.

I also want to thank my wife, Mary, for all her encouragement and help she has given over the years. She has put in many hours proof-reading, searching for material, and running errands when there was a deadline to meet! Her assistance was necessary, and has been appreciated over the years!

It is now time for me to step down and slow down. Health issues and other factors have shown me that someone else needs to take over, and I believe we have an assistant editor that has already shown his capability. Pray for him as he serves the Lord and His churches.

Camp Garwood Report – October 2022

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Our 2023 camp dates are July 31st through August 4th. Jordan Bowen has been invited to be our speaker next year. He is excited and hopes to give us confirmation soon. When I get confirmation or another speaker set, we will get word out through the MMB and on our Facebook page.

Camp theme will be Gateway to God. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me,” (John 14:6).

We have paid off the tractor debt, and I’m certain we will begin some upgrades soon.

Our 2022 camp had 233 campers, with nearly 20 professions of faith, one rededication, and a series of events that will not soon be forgotten. Those include our speaker shuffle, dorm antics, service disruptions, a fight, and a severe thunderstorm followed by a worship service that could only be described as heavenly. If you had asked me on Tuesday night how camp was going, I probably would have hung my head and walked away. At that point we were asking, “Okay, Lord, what’s going on?” But by Thursday night we were praising Him for a great week.

The financial report at the close of the year shows a balance of $6,300.50. Total received was $73,226.79; total dispersed $68,422.12. We spent $9,582.90 on food, $6,857.30 on electricity, and $7,539.00 on insurance.

This year Bro. Brian Whitlock rolls off the Camp Committee. We would like to thank him for many years of service, as he has served multiple terms.

MISIÓN BELÉN (Bethlehem Mission) BMAA Missouri Hispanic Mission

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(from Bro. Juan Fernandez’s October newsletter)

Prayer Network
Every day we pause to prepare for a season of prayer at 12:00. We believe that prayer will continue blessing our missionary effort for protection, purpose and peace to trust in God’s timing and leading to every man of peace.

Bible Reading
We have a daily live production with some of our contacts that are willing to listen to God’s Word. As of next week will be reading God’s Word available to the public in general. Feel free to like and share the Facebook live video during the noon time. God’s Word must be proclaimed.

Discovery Bible Groups
New Discovery Bible Group is beginning 10/9/2022. We have had several opportunities to start 10 series of Discovery Bible Groups. The response to the Gospel is not always received as good news. That’s why we continue praying for men of peace that will embrace the Gospel.

Building up Our Community
We are pleased to have met new families in our community from countries like Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras. My lovely wife Hannah is utilizing her talents and education background to prepare two lessons per week to teach English to these families. We are expecting them to bring their children on these days and develop our children outreach while parents are learning English. I will be teaching these children about Jesus and having activities. These children are our hope to a new generation of Hispanics that will grow with a relationship with Jesus as his/her personal savior. Praise the LORD!

Family United Celebration LLBC
We are prayerfully hoping for a prosperous spiritual harvest as result of prayer and gospel presentation with friends and family in Florissant, Missouri and surrounding areas.
Pray for meaningful relations developing for kingdom laborers in our Hispanic friends. Also for meeting new brothers and sister in Christ to continue expanding the Gospel, discipleship and missions among our new contacts. Our discipleship process is simple: Discovery Bible Groups meet 3 weeks in a month. The 4th week will be gathering to share testimonies and celebrate God’s grace and mercy. This month we plan to join Pastor Brian Meade and the families at Lindsay Lane for opening their doors for a bilingual service. We pray this will be the first of many gatherings where Christ is glorified to continue spreading his plan and compassion to our community.

Prayer Requests
• Men of peace. We have 3 Discovery Bible Groups and are praying for 5.
•Volunteers for the children’s program for Monday and Wednesday, 6-8 p.m.
• Daily divine appointments to share the Gospel and learn how to minister better to our families in the area.
• BMA Seminary classes for myself. I am taking two classes, Church Management and Theology.
• Nahum and Ermilanda Discovery Bible Group, multiplication.
• Liz and Lucas Discovery Bible Group, provision for new status.
• Discovery Bible Group Sunday 8:30 a.m. Adan and Milos.
• ESL Class. Thanksgiving; monthly evaluation and fellowship. The last Wednesday of the month we have a potluck and students have presentation of their improvements on their English language studies.

WMA Retreat 2022

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A month has passed already. To say that this retreat was one of the best is an understatement. It was well attended, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. After some had to cancel attending due to unfortunate circumstances, we had approximately 95 ladies present, along with 3 men. There were 22 churches represented.

Our key-note speaker, Lori Cline from Little Rock, AR did an exceptional job speaking on areas that are relevant to all ladies, no matter their age. Several have suggested that we have her return in the future.

In keeping with the idea of having “younger” women involved, we asked Jessica Kempfer from Loyalty, Sparta, IL and Molly Kingston from Bethel, Lonedell, MO to be our music worship team. They didn’t know each other prior to this event but did an excellent job in leading us with a variety of songs (some old and some new). We thank them for their willingness to serve.

We were blessed to have Mrs. Prakash attend. She spoke about their work in India and was able to visit with ladies individually throughout the retreat. We continue to pray for them as they serve in a difficult area of the world. We thank the Zion Baptist WMA for paying for their hotel room and the Ohlman Baptist WMA for paying for their meals at the retreat. I understand that some others may have given them love offerings as well.

It was planned to have Caitie Cox, National GMA President, speak and we were going to collect a love offering for her to use as she travels promoting the GMA program or to use for a mission trip that she may go on this summer. However, she had to cancel due to a death in her family. During her time slot we had Connie Reifsteck speak about the current National WMA project, Janet Widger spoke about the changes in the format for the 2023 National GMA Camp, then Tanya Hutton spoke about Caitie. After that we did collect the love offering. Our ladies are always generous. The amount collected was $1,130.35.

The “silent” auction for Camp Garwood was a success as it has been for many years. There were close to 500 items, with the total amount of money raised $2,013.00. We cannot say enough about how generous our ladies are when it comes to Camp Garwood. Of course, there is always a down-side to this. But it is a good problem. We need about as much room for the silent auction in a facility as we do for the meeting room. This means larger facilities and of course more expensive facilities. However, as we grow, our ladies remain faithful in their willingness to pay. For that we are thankful.

Having table decorations that were used as attendance prizes was a great hit again, one that we will probably repeat in the future. The committee is already planning for 2023. Watch for announcements in this paper as well as on the WMA of Missouri Facebook page.

Brotherhood: Men’s Fishing Tournament

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Greetings Brethren,

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for the brethren to dwell in unity! The Brotherhood is growing strong and more active in the Lord.

On September 17th, the Brotherhood held its first annual fishing tournament. The men had a great time fishing and good food afterwards. Bro. Butch Wilkinson (Ozark Heights) took 1st place, Bro. David Hays (First Baptist, Potosi) took 2nd place, and Bro. Hunter Moorman (Central Baptist) took 3rd place. Congratulations to the winners! I suppose I didn’t have enough faith in us so I brought fish to cook for the men. Thank you to Bro. Chris Dicus for helping cook all of that fish for the men and to Bro. Don Burke for coming out to take pictures. We were able to raise some money for missions and enjoy time together.

We are already looking forward to the next tournament, and we are looking forward to other fellowships as well. Some things in the works include: a spring fishing tournament, the Brotherhood retreat, and a fall golf tournament.

Please pray for the Brotherhood as it grows. Remember, your church does not have to have a local Brotherhood to participate. Let us encourage and pray for one another to be the men God has called us to be.

Your humble servant in Christ,
Brotherhood President, Bryan Buckley

Camp Report – September 2022

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Greetings from Camp Garwood! Now that camp is over, what should our next camp event be? I’m hoping we get a retreat in before the freezing weather. We’ll have more info in the October paper. We are waiting until after the fall school activities slow down and, hopefully, before the fall hunting/holidays pick up. That only leaves a couple weekend options.

Since camp week we have been working on some closing down projects, including closing the pool by covering the entire pool area with a large tarp. The hope is to reduce the start-up efforts. We are also working on the tabernacle screening and some other things that need attention before winter.

We are so grateful for all the help over the summer, for all the encouraging words and words of gratitude. Speaking for my family, we love this ministry. Please continue to pray for us as we serve in this capacity.

Chris Polk • PO Box 271 • Matthews, MO 63867 • Cell: 573-380-1975

September 2022 – Mission Director’s Report

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Dear BMAMO churches,

What an exciting time of year! A special shout out and thanks to Stony Point at Potosi, Bethel at Sikeston, Mt. Olive at Salem, and Loyalty at Sparta, Illinois. Dawn and I were blessed to be with these churches this summer to share the BMAMO Missions effort.

I would love to schedule your church for next summer! Please contact me and let’s fill the summer up with Wednesday appointments. I appreciate the pastors of all of our churches in Missouri doing their best to put the emphasis on missions in our churches.

We are so thankful to Bro. Gary Longstaff and SW MO BMA in voting in their local Association meeting to send a one-time gift of $2,000 to Bro. Juan Fernandez and a monthly support of $200. What a blessing they are and will be to the Fernandez family and the missions effort to reach the Hispanic population in St. Louis.

Please remember and make plans to attend our annual BMA of MO meeting on October 8th at Ozark Heights Baptist Church beginning at 9:00 a.m. Please be in prayer for this meeting as we continue to seek the Lord’s direction and power to launch a church growth and church planting movement through BMAMO Missions.

May the Lord richly bless you is my prayer,
Bro. Ben

August 2022 – Missions Director’s Report

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Dear BMAMO churches:

I hope this article finds you basking in the glory and blessings of the Lord. It has been a great month of church camps for the State as well as the Meramec. We have seen souls saved and saved souls dedicated. What a thrill these ministries are to our association! If we do not have youth, we do not have a future. God has truly blessed us with a great amount of youth.

One evening, I noticed a particular group of young ladies that I know to be attuned to the Gospel and I made up my mind to challenge them to a list of questions to evaluate through the month of August.

Here are the questions:

What are you doing?
Who are you being?
What are you praying?
What are you sowing?
How are you cultivating?
How are you worshiping?
What are you saying?
What are you thinking?
What are you refusing… To do? To see? To accept? To
acknowledge?

Now, these are meant to be answered both positively and negatively, because they have both positive and negative answers. If our negatives outweigh the positives, then we have a lot of work to do. These answers can show an accounting of our daily actions, but ultimately it is for the use of evaluation to see where improvements can be made and possibly what the
next step in our Christian life needs to be.

Let me take the first question as an example so that you know exactly what I mean. “What are you doing?” Your answers from the positive, spiritual side might be praying each day, reading the Bible each day, trying to share the gospel each day, etc. On the negative side, your answers might look
like: thinking bad thoughts, watching bad things, listening to bad music, etc. We know we do some of these things even on the same day, and they are obviously counterproductive to each other. But again, this is for the sake of evaluation.

If you discover what you’re doing on a spiritual level is just basically to “mail it in,” to say that you did it, then the rest of the day you’re living less than Christianlike, then we have some drastic, serious changes to make!

This brings me back to the challenge that I gave the association at the mission symposium. I handed out tomato plants with the goal to save
seeds from the plant and replant successfully next year, all along asking God to teach us the lessons of discipleship along the way.

When it comes to living the Christian life and fulfilling the Great Commission, pretty much every discipline that is required to successfully
raise and reproduce a tomato crop is present in sharing the gospel and ultimately planting churches that plant churches.

My hope and prayer is that this challenge will result in a better awareness of how to start a church planting movement among our Missouri Association churches.

May the Lord richly bless you is my prayer.
Bro. Ben Kingston

Revival

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“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” — 2 Chronicles 4:14

July 2022 – Mission Director’s Report

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Dear BMAMO churches:

Well, it seems like I just wrote an article for the paper! We are so thrilled that Bro. Jim Hoffmann is doing well, and I ask for your continued prayer for him. Bro. Juan’s dad seems to be improving or holding his own. We heard great news on Bro. Larry Woods’ wife Tammy this last week! They discovered that she does not have thyroid cancer, but instead a rare thyroid issue that takes care of itself over a few months’ time, Also, Bro. Larry’s nephew passed away during their delay of going to the mission field, which allowed Bro. Larry and Tammy to minister to the family during this loss. Please pray for the family during this difficult time. They are scheduled to leave for the field on July 12

Missions news about one of our very own here in Missouri:

Bro. Michael Quillman (missionary to Zambia) needs a vehicle. As a result of the sale of Charity Baptist church through Westview, a donation of $30,000.00 was given which we thought would be enough to complete the purchase, but due to the rising costs of everything these days, a $30k SUV in Africa six months ago is now $45k, so please pray for this additional amount to be raised quickly. If you are interested in helping as a church or individual, please contact Bro. Quillman or myself.

One of the expectations of the State for their director of missions is to visit with churches that request a visit from the director. Since I am a full-time pastor, I knew most Sundays were unavailable. Therefore, I made the special missions committee aware that I would only be available on Wednesday nights through the summer. I am pleased to report that on July 13 I will be at Stoney Point, August 17 at Bethel Sikeston, and August 24 at Mt. Olive in Salem. If any other Churches close to these venues would like to join in, I am sure these Churches would welcome that. I want to thank these Churches for inviting me and I look forward to sharing our missions effort and the BMAMO Benchmark Assessment at these Churches.

In closing, I want to share a pet peeve of mine. I love Christian music – all flavors! However, one issue I have is the groups that critique the church in their songs on the airwaves for anybody to hear it, and then we wonder why the world has such a sour view of the Lord’s church. I do not share the world’s view, much less the dissatisfied Christian’s view, of the Lord’s Church. Is there room for improvement? Always! But let’s keep the correct messages and songs in-house, please.

With that said, this is an article that goes directly to our churches. It is my understanding that it goes on our website also, but I would say that for the most part it is only BMA folks, and specifically BMA Missouri that avail themselves to this media. So here we go, I had a conversation with a young man that is helping me with the missions assessment, and we launched into a discussion on why some churches may struggle with change, new ideas, or new methods. And this word came up: autonomy. Autonomy is a beautiful word for our churches, because we are most definitely autonomous. What does that word mean for us? It means we do not have to bow to anyone except the Lord and His word on our faith and practice. However, what happens when a church needs to address change and ultimately embrace change to stay alive? Well, quite frankly, they need to not allow autonomy to become a stumbling block to the very thing they need to stay in existence. So this is what I am asking you as our BMAMO churches: please pray for and with me on how we can help any church struggling with any level of this issue so that for the glory of the Lord we can navigate these troubled waters to get churches to see the dangers when we allow our autonomy to blind us to reality.

Here are the questions I’m asking all of us to pray through and use to help us all truly understand autonomy:

What are you doing with your autonomy?
Who gave it to you?
Why did He give it do you?
What does He want you to do with it?
What good is it if you’re not using it for the intended purpose?

Autonomy is not for us to do what we want, but rather it is to do what we ought. It was never meant to be a shield for preferences.

I submit these questions with humility, trembling, and foreboding. I am not trying to do anything but hold up the mirror of God’s word and ask the question, “Is there room for improvement?”

Let’s enter into prayer together, ask our loving Father this question, accept the answer, and ask for His assistance to change for His Glory

May the Lord richly bless you is my prayer.
Bro. Ben Kingston