Missions Reports

This year we have had two major projects underway: the church planting effort in Smithville, MO and the church revitalization project at Stony Point Baptist.
Let me begin with the church revitalization project. Our support ends this month toward the salary support for Stony Point Baptist Church because the church feels it has real self support status with their pastor, Claude Evans. I received a letter from the church and it reads as following:

April 28, 2010
Dear Brethren,
Stony Point Missionary Baptist Church wishes to thank the Churches of the BMA of Missouri for the financial support for the past year.
We believe that the time has come for us to assume the full financial responsibility of pastoral support. Your help has enabled us to reach this point much sooner than we could have on our own.
It is our prayer and hope that this program will be the instrument which will allow other churches in the BMA of Missouri to reach full time support for pastors.
We ask that you remember us in prayer as we work in the Master’s vineyard.
In His Service,
Pastor Claude Evans

We rejoice with Pastor Evans and the good people of Stony Point Baptist for God’s blessing upon their ministry here in Mineral Springs.

The North Lake mission project in Smithville, MO continues to be blessed of God. Jamie and Rebekah Jones are doing a great job in reaching out to their community and disciplining the families that God has given them. Our mission advisory committee along with members of the Meramec Association advisory committee made a trip to Smithville this past month. We were impressed with the progress that is being made and were made to realize that this is truly a field ripe unto harvest. Let’s continue to pray for the Jones family as God works through them.

Our finances continue to hold steady. Our average monthly offering since October has been $3173 while our average expenses have been $3913 per month…a $740 deficit. We are appreciative of the special mission offering this year and ask that your church would consider increasing their offering to state missions.

Pastor Evans and the good folks at Stony Point Baptist did a wonderful job hosting the mission symposium and the midyear meeting. During this meeting, the association voted to help out two of our missionaries. A $1000 love offering was given to Missionary Sam Hussier to assist him with personal family/medical expenses. We also approved a $2000 offering to Bro. David Dickson for his work fund. The Mission Symposium offering for State Missions has reached nearly $2600. Thank you for your love and care for missionaries who serve both us in Missouri and for those who serve elsewhere. May God be glorified.

I am looking forward to our annual Mission Symposium at Stony Point Baptist at Potosi on Friday evening, May 14. Pastor Claude Evans and Stoney Point has put together a great program with Bro. Sam Husser, Tony Crocker, and Jamie Jones as some of the evening speakers. On Saturday morning during our semi-annual meeting, we will hear from Missionary David Dickson. I really want to encourage you to attend this meeting. Some have asked me if we need a mission symposium. In recent years we have only had about 30-35 people in attendance at the symposium and it does make you wonder if there is a strong interest. Please consider making a special effort to attend the symposium and the semi-annual meeting for we are spending extra funds in providing traveling expenses for our speakers.

Within the next few weeks, the special missions committee will be visiting with Pastor Claude Evans to evaluate the progress of Stony Point Baptist as they attempt to reach full time pastor support. We will also be traveling to Smithville, MO to visit with church planters, Jamie and Rebekah Jones. You can read his article elsewhere here in the paper and you will find that God is at work in Smithville.

In the first week of May I will be involved in church planting training in Little Rock, AR. I will be teaching some of the DCPI church planting essentials to potential church planters and state mission directors from the BMAA. Pray for a good time of learning and planning to expand our mission endeavors.

I read the sad story the other day of a 26 year old flight attendant who was fired from her job for posing for Playboy Magazine. What was interesting was the reason for doing something that would cost her job. She stated that she had a lung disease that would require surgery and that the outcome was not good. She decided to pose for the magazine so the world would remember her.
The world is filled with people who desperately wish to be remembered. Many are inclined to build monuments to themselves in one way or another. This is why the account of Babel, found in Genesis chapter 11, is so important for us. It exposes the underlying cause for building monuments.
And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:4
What lessons are in this story for us today?
1) Man’s plans will never thwart God’s purposes.
God had commanded mankind to “fill the earth”. Man preferred to cloister rather than to comply with God’s command to spread out. In spite of man’s greatest efforts, God’s purposes prevailed.
2) Unity is not the highest good, but purity and obedience to the Word of God.
At first glance, we may commend the people for wanting to be of one voice and to be together in one place. Unity is a great virtue. Psa 133:1 states, “ BEHOLD, HOW good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”
This is a good thing, but the Bible also says: in Amo 3:3, “Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?” Ecumenism is the watch word of religion today, but it is a unity at the cost of truth. Some regard unity as a goal worthy of any sacrifice. God does not.
3) The Word of God, and not the works of our hands, is the only thing worthy of our faith.
The men of Babel began to look at work as the cure rather than the curse. They believed that the work of their hands could assure them of some kind of immortality beyond the grave. Here, I suspect, is the driving force behind many workaholic. He cannot ever rest because he (or she) is never certain that a large enough monument has been built. Human endeavor is never satisfying, never fulfilling. Only work which is done for the Lord and in His strength brings lasting satisfaction.
The work of missions and church planting is labor that can bring satisfaction to our hearts for we know it is the great burden of our Lord. When we give of ourselves to the cause of sharing the gospel with the world, we are content with making our Savior famous and the Kingdom of God larger.

In recent days I have been doing some research on the three wise men or magi’s that search for the Christ child that they may worship Him and present gifts. The visit of these mysterious men from ancient Iraq would cause quite a stir in the small hamlet of Bethlehem. Some scholars feel there may have been more than three and these very important and powerful men would have traveled with a huge entourage of hundreds. Perhaps the dark silhouettes, that we often see printed during this season, of three lonely men riding camels really doesn’t capture this momentous event.
The Bible record tells us that these men had three gifts to give: And when they down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh- Matthew 2:11. The gifts had a great deal to say about the Child and about His future ministry. The gold was a fitting gift for a King and the wise men realized that they were standing before royalty, the King of Kings. The frankincense, a wonderful fragrance used for incense points to the priestly and prayerful ministry of Christ. Myrrh was the perfumed resin or sap of a particular tree that was used in ancient times to prepare a body for burial. Of course this gift, given to One so young, prophesized His coming death for the sins of the world.
As I thought about those gifts…really perfect gifts, I realized that they are in a sense Christ’s perfect gifts to us as well. Consider the following three gifts that Christ gives to us:
1. Our lives are always better when we live obediently under the umbrella of the Lordship of Christ.
2. It is a joy to know that we can come boldly before a King who is also our great high priest. How encouraged we can be in this life knowing that Jesus offers intercessory prayers on our behalf.
3. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death…that will never change. But for those of us who believe in the gift of God’s Son, Jesus became our payment for sin.

Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift. 2 Cor. 9:15

It is Carolyn’s and my wish that you and your family will experience the Christ of Christmas in a very special way this season. We thank you for the generous Christmas offering. May God bless our association in the coming new year!