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Missions Reports

June 2022 – Mission Director’s Report

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Dear BMAMO churches,

I hope all is well for you this month of June. I am sure you are aware of our need to lift our editor, Bro. Jim Hoffman up in prayer for his recent health concerns, I am grateful to the Lord for answered prayer for two successful procedures.

Also, please continue to pray for Bro Juan Fernandez’s father, who has had serious health concerns. I am also grateful for answered pray for Juan’s father and safe travels for the Fernandez family.

This is the first article since our missions symposium and mid-year meeting at Bethel. Everyone was so gracious of our attempt to treat you well. Special thanks to the folks of Bethel for rising to the challenge. I was especially appreciative of your acceptance in the late change of the program due to Bro. Larry Woods’ news about His wife’s health concerns. Bro. Juan brought an energetic and exciting message and update from His field. I also want to thank Bro Claude for his report on how Stony Point has responded, and as a result been blessed by raising the bar of awareness of missions in their local church. Again, I do not see the BMAMO assessment as a necessity, but as a tool that God can use to raise the bar of awareness in your local church. I am very excited about a meeting I have tonight with a professional in the area of evaluating businesses to see what improvements can be made in the assessment itself.

If I may, I would like to take this opportunity to share how the Lord put this all together. This professional, you see, is not meeting with me in his professional capacity. Instead, he’s meeting with me because he and his partner help charitable organizations with their tools and evaluating systems. I met him at a wedding reception through our mutual friend, Dr. Gavin Hooks. We started with small talk at the reception, and I basically asked his profession. When he shared it with me, I asked if he would mind reviewing the assessment to get his opinion if it is hitting the mark. He scrolled through the assessment, looked at me and said, “This is what I do! I can absolutely help you and let’s meet soon.” About two or three months ago I got the news from Gavin that Joe had had a devastating stroke and the doctors did not think he would make it through the night. Joe is a believer. Praise God, Joe did survive the night and in fact did much better than anyone expected, but he was still “not out of the woods.” So, on my tractor a few days after the stroke I just said, “Lord, You know what this man’s plans are, and You know what Your plans are. If You still have plans to use him I pray that he will recover completely. I know that I was not the only one praying, but I’m telling you God has answered those prayers! So much so that about two weeks ago out of the blue I get a text from him, “Hey brother Ben, do you still want to meet?” I said, “Joe, I’m just thrilled to hear from you!” His response was hilarious: “Well, I knocked on heaven’s door and they said not yet, so I’ve still got to work to do.” I just wanted you, the BMA churches of Missouri, to be aware of how God is working! I praise Him for it! You’ll probably be hearing the continuation of this conversation in next
month’s article.


Lastly, I would like to follow up on my challenge from the Missions Symposium. How is your tomato doing? If you’re reading this and you were not at the symposium, I will explain! I had several tomato plants laid in my lap right before the symposium, so I decided to share this caveat with the
people that were in attendance. I asked if they took a tomato plant, to transplant it and take care of it and try to bring it to full fruition. Then, save a few seeds from one of the fruits and then plant another plant the following year. This is essentially mirroring the discipleship process. God has not just called us to win people to Christ. He’s called us to win people to Christ AND TRAIN them to win people to Christ to train them to win people to Christ, etc. The ultimate goal of any seed is not fruit for that season. The ultimate goal is seed for the next season, and so on, and so on. As a result, I challenged the people that night to take that tomato plant home and do just that, All along, asking God to teach them lessons of discipleship as they care for this tomato plant. I’ve already had some interesting conversations with people and I’m excited about what God‘s going to do in teaching us how to truly reproductively disciple others.

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

PS this from Bro Larry Wood about his wife’s current health situation: After a series of tests and scans the doctor decided to do a biopsy this past Saturday. The results will take 7 to 10 days. We are rescheduled to fly out on June 28 and will keep this schedule if everything is good. If not, we will adjust our plan. If the biopsy is good, then her issues can be treated with medication. If not, she will have to have surgery and possibly some type of treatment.

So please add these needs to your church’s prayer list.

Misión Bautista “Belen” STL MO

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“I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase” … 1 Cor 3:6 (KJV)

Home Bible Study:

Baby Isaac is here! Our friends Nahum and Ermelinda’s baby Isaac was born on 2/27 at 9:25 p.m. in the St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond’s Heights, MO. He is 6 lbs7 oz. and 19 inches long. Very healthy and strong baby. He arrived 3 weeks early surprisingly for his parents and all of us. I met him 30 minutes after his birth and stayed almost until 2:00 am.

Bible Study in Misión Bautista Belen: Sunday 9:00 am starting this 3/6 is called Discovery Bible Group. We are promoting it on Facebook page “Misión Bautista Hispana” and with our many contacts we have made since 3/2021 We are hoping to practice hospitality and offering coffee and doughnuts those who arrive early… in our community we are known for always arriving late, so some encouragement here. We promote this event through our FB page so if you have a chance to hit like and share that will help to spread the word and this unity to share will be a blessing to others who don’t know about Jesus.

Evangelism:

We are so happy that spring is around the corner, also we are so thankful for this opportunity to say thank you for keeping me and my family in your prayers. We continue reaching out to Hispanic families and individuals in this area of Missouri, Harvest is plenty! Continue praying for more laborers. It is a privilege to bring you an update on how God is leading us.

Bible contacts, every Saturday from 9:00 to 11:00 am we are partnering with local business owner where Hispanic spend time shopping and hanging out to connect and offer time to hand out a Bible and go over the basics of the gospel. This has been a huge learning curve about our community. Many of the people contacted don’t have interest nor have heard about passages like John 3:16. Harvest is plenty!

Prayer:

Prayer Network: Follow us @Belenprayernetwork every day 12:00 pm. We read a passage of Scripture and pray for Salvation for each one of our contacts and special prayer request for health and wisdom while life happens. Wednesday at 7:00 pm in Florissant we continue recording a lesson of discipleship on Facebook live.

• Prayer walks: Every day from 2:00 to 2:45 pm we walk in neighborhoods seeking for open doors to share the gospel and pray for people in need.
Special Training this Month!

Aligning every believer with the mission of Jesus. The Multiplication Workshop a Missional Challenge by Dr. David DeVries. I pray and hope you have had the privilege of going through this amazing, effective practical tool for you and your ministry. I was able to join this training a second time last week in Conway Arkansas. Bro. Larry Barker, Elvis Garcia and Eli did an awesome job training us with real life experience and this amazing workbook.

Applying the WIN acronym:
What are we doing WELL?
What do I need to IMPROVE
and finally
What is Next?

I was able to redefine our Vision and core Values as well adjust our ministry timeline. In the last couple weeks, we have lost contact with two families who were already planning to join our church plant and becoming significant part of the core team. We celebrated 18 worship services, then they stopped coming and communicating…well God knows we did the best to equip them with the gospel. Now is time to go back to the basics: Prayer, Evangelism and Bible Study. We are excited to start a Discovery Bible Study this coming Sunday. If you have not gone through this workshop, I highly recommend it. It will encourage, will energize and help you define better your purpose and reason to serve the Lord Jesus.

“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation”

2 Corinthians 5:18

Dios le bendiga! God bless you.

December 2020 – Mission Director’s Report

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A Page From My Heart…

Ben KingstonDear churches,
Most people know what someone means when they refer to a person as having a ‘Type A’ personality: self-driven, goal-oriented, strong leader, etc. While I would never refer to myself this way, I have heard a ton of people try to push me into this mold. So, let me say quickly that I see myself more as a person who wants to affect change and accomplish goals for the Lord’s kingdom. If that makes me an A-type personality, so be it! But, all this has been said to make a funny about the fact that my first two months as your director has been anything but earth-shaking and motivational!

We had an amazing start to it with a wonderful meeting with Juan Fernandez and both missions committees from the Missouri State and the Meramec associations. More to be said on this soon. Please pray for Juan and our Association as we prepare this project to present to the churches.
Then, November 9th I was quarantined until December 1st! The quarantine started with taking care of Dawn and Molly, and then Tony. As of this writing, God has spared me from contracting the virus, for which we are very thankful, since I am diabetic. Dawn, Molly, and Tony all had mild cases, for which we are also very grateful.

Thank you to all who prayed for me and my family. Bethel has been amazing in their support of their pastor during this time.

And lastly, you may have heard that my father-in-law Ken Burnett passed away November 22nd, so you can see it’s been a difficult month. As of this writing, we do not have his arrangements settled yet.

A word of honor and memorial: Suffice it to say, Ken is easily in the top three of the most influential men in my life. He had reached 90 years of age, and his death date was also his 68th wedding anniversary. He married Joan Hoff 68 years ago and it was clearly his best decision. God then blessed him with Debbie, Diane, Denise, and Dawn, who are definitely his greatest accomplishments. He loved, supported, and mentored His sons-in-law: Jerry Grodie (whom he is reunited with in heaven, and who was a faithful husband, father, and worker in Ken’s heating and plumbing business), Gavin Hooks (who has followed Ken’s footsteps as a faithful and successful husband, father, and business owner), and myself.

Ken was most proud of his daughters and their accomplishments. He was a faithful child of God, church member, deacon, treasurer, business owner, school board president, St. Clair citizen, and that’s just to name a few of his accomplishments. He was also very involved on all three levels of the BMA.
So, to come full circle, I am still studying our missions program and trying to prayerfully shape my approach on how to design, teach, and grow the missions effort in the BMAMO. Please pray with me in this effort.

Please Note:
Stacie sent out an e-mail to all our pastors, clerks, and/or missionary committeemen last week to ascertain the viability of holding a Missionary committee meeting via a conference call in December. So far, I have gotten all positive feedback but if you are the missionary committeeman of the church you attend and didn’t get this e-mail, please contact us and get us your information so you can be part of this conference call.

We will discuss the meeting that was held with Bro. Juan and the motions that the special missions committee made regarding our support of him as a missionary in the St. Louis region. (I was asked by Bro. Claude Evans, our missionary committee chairman, to set up the conference call, and then he will conduct the meeting when it is arranged.

Here are the best ways to communicate with me:
My Cell • (636) 629-2526
My E-mail • Bethelbaptistchurch@live.com
Bethel Church Office • (636) 629-2978

May the Lord bless you and His churches,
Bro. Ben

May 2020 – Mission Director’s Report

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Learning is an on-going part of life. This is so very true at this particular time as our churches and departments, along with most of us as individuals, are learning a lot of things we never thought about before. Many are finding that we can do some things differently than we imagined and sometimes different is better but sometimes it makes us long to get back to where we were!

It is hard to make some decisions, especially those that affect others, and our leaders are doing the best they can with the knowledge they have.
One thing that stands out is that when we have meetings scheduled and must make changes giving people time to make adjustments it is helpful to get the information out quickly.

For this reason I asked our associational clerk about setting up a Facebook page for the BMA of Missouri. He graciously offered to take care of it.

Now that we have a Facebook page you are encouraged to check it from time to time get information that we might post between the monthly editions of the Missouri Missionary Baptist.

Just go to Facebook and type in BMAMissouri to visit our page. We need you to join our group and tell others to check it out.

We also appreciate the work of Bro. Brad Miller who maintains our BMAMissouri.org website. He posted the cancelation of our meetings as soon as we notified him.

We are trying to make sure we keep our people notified of changes that occur.

It has been encouraging to hear about, and sometimes see the many ways our churches have continued to minister in their areas during the last several weeks. The use of technology has enhanced several ministries and has opened doors for future possibilities of communicating God’s Word to the World!

I am sure there are some questions, and a lot of opinions about what to do since we are not having our Missions Symposium and Mid-Year Business Meeting. Those involved in making the decision (the host pastor, our President, our Clerk, and Missions Director) agree that everything can be taken care of at the Annual Meeting in October without causing any problems and only a slight delay in transitioning to a new Missions Director who will be elected in October instead of now.

There was no nominee for the position of Editor so that will be addressed in October.

My resignation as Missions Director was to be effective October 1, 2020, so the committee will have recommendations about extending that until the newly elected Director can make the transition.

All other committees will give their reports and recommendations in October.

Thanks for your patience and prayers!

James Hoffmann

Ben Robinson and His Missionary Heart

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Ben and His Mother Kim Robinson drop o? contributions at BMA Global Ministry Center

Ben and His Mother Kim Robinson drop off contributions at BMA
Global Ministry Center

Editor’s Note: This article arrived too late to be printed in last month’s issue but I am printing it anyway hoping it will inspire our readers to face the challenges of life with faith and enthusiasm that will bring victory!

If you ever have the privilege of meeting Ben Roberson, you will never forget him. One of the frst times I saw him, he was at a football game cheering on one of his favorite teams, the Conway Christian Eagles. When things didn’t look so good on the field, he decided to do something about the quiet, unmotivated fans: He walked up and down the bleachers yelling, “Come on everybody! “Let’s go!” Of course, we all did what he told us to do and supported the team…he’s Ben. Nobody can say no to Ben.
Fortunately for us here at Lifeword, people still can’t say no to him. Ben learned about the media ministry he came to love when his family joined a BMA church (Antioch) in Conway, Arkansas, where he became friends with former Lifeword Executive Director Steve Crawley. His mom told him that Lifeword spreads the gospel through media, and when he heard about how he could
raise money for media missionaries by walking, he asked if he could do that.

Nobody can say no to Ben, so, of course, she agreed. Having a missionary heart is in his DNA. His mother Kim lived on the
mission feld where her parents were IMB missionaries in Cali, Columbia. He knows about missionaries and what they do, so the
question about raising money came as no surprise to his family. Every year since that frst one, he has practiced, trained and gathered sponsors before the mid-October walk. This year his mom announced on Facebook that Ben would be walking again. His goal? Ten miles. But they would do it differently because of his health concerns. Ben would walk one mile each day leading up to the Walk, then the last mile at the Central AR Area Walk on October 10th. Contributions had already begun pouring in weeks before the event, and each time he asked his mom if he could hand deliver the checks and cash to our ofces. Leading up to October 10th, we saw him quite a bit, and it was a blessing every time. With almost every visit, someone in the ofce asked to take a picture with him. His determination has humbled all of us on the Lifeword team, and he is a celebrity at the BMA Global Ministry Center.

The night of the walk, his mom was out of town on a mission trip, but his dad and two of his adoring aunts walked with him for support. Ben came through the entrance gate that night with his entourage, sturdy walking shoes and new therapeutic
socks someone had donated so he could walk more comfortably. He did it. The training paid off. Now, it’s our turn to “cheer
from the stands” just like Ben does at football games when the fans are not doing their jobs. With funds still rolling
in, his most recent count is $3300. He’s challenging all of us: “Come on, people! Let’s go reach the world for Christ!”

If Ben can do it, so can you, and nobody can say no to Ben Roberson. Lifeword Sunday was October 21st but it is not too late!
Go to: lifeword.org/donate and make your donation today!

October 2015 – Assistant Mission Director’s Report

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Please let this be a last minute reminder that our annual state association meeting is upon us and we need your presence and participation (input) in this important meeting. See the time, place and date below. It has been a joy to preach and represent our state work at Lindsay Lane Baptist Church in Florissant for two Sundays in July. They are presently without a pastor and desire our prayers as they seek new leadership. It was also a blessing to fill the pulpit at Ozark Heights near Potosi as Pastor Brian Meade and his wife took a few says off to attend the Pastor’s Oasis the fist weekend of October.

I trust that all our churches have taken advantage of “Pastor Appreciation Month (October) to express your love and appreciation to your pastor and his wife. Just a few kind words, a meaningful card or note, a dinner out, a gift from the heart, or other acts of appreciation can make a great difference in the life of those who are serving the Lord as shepherds of His Flock. It is still not too late for you to do this.

Your Special Missions Committee has met with the Assistant Director of Missions and have some important recommendation for you to consider at our annual meeting. Please come, ask questions, make suggestions and help us as we seek God’s will in our state work. Perhaps you have an idea that we have not considered and can be an inspiration to all our churches.

Remember that your church needs to be represented by messenger (each church is allowed three) or letter (if no one
is available to represent you) and each church is allowed one Committeeman to serve on the Missionary Committee. Offerings are needed to help pay for the recording and printing of our Minutes and can be turned in at the meeting. Charity Baptist Church is ready and looking forward to hosting our meeting this year. We also need invitations for the Mid-Year Meeting and
Missions Symposium in May of 2016 and the Annual Meeting is 2016. Mark the meeting you want to host in the box on the church letter to extend your invitation or just ask to host the meeting when the time for selection comes up in the meeting.

Pray for our officers as they lead the meeting and for the host church as they prepare to welcome the churches of the BMA of Missouri. Let’s gather with high expectations of what God can and will do as we seek His will.

by James Hoffman

Mission Director’s Report – April 2012

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During the first week in March, I spent three days with Jamie and Rebekah Jones in Smithville, MO. It is always great to spend some time on the field and observe what God is doing with our church planters. I also had the joy of assisting Larry Barker, Operational Director of North American Missions, in an assessment of a potential church planting associate to help in the North Lake Church. After a battery of tests and surveys, we spent a great deal of time assessing the candidate’s calling, spiritual gifts, strengths, and areas where further development is needed. Most of this work was done in a face to face interview process with the candidate and his wife. I must say that the assessment process does work and we were able to help Bro. Jamie and the candidate with discovering the will of God concerning their future working relationship.

May 18-19, our association will come together at Landmark Baptist in Desoto for our annual mission symposium and semi-annual meeting. This year we are going to highlight the two projects that we have been supporting this past year. Bro. Jamie Jones will be our primary speaker for the evening and Bro. Brad Faulk from Pasco, Washington, will be making a video presentation of his work. I tried my best to get Bro. Brad here in person, but flight arrangements could not be made that fit our schedule. The Mission Symposium will begin at 7 PM and this later time schedule should help make it possible for more of our messengers to arrive in time.

If your church desires to bring or send a special Mission Symposium offering, please consider giving to the building fund of the Abundant Life in Christ mission in Charleston, MO. God has blessed them with an excellent piece of property and
they are in need of funds so they can, one day, build an adequate building for their future growth.

I know that gasoline is expensive, but I hope that your church will make it to our May meetings so we can celebrate God’s goodness together!

by Danny Kirk pastorkirk@gmail.com

Upcoming Missions Symposium

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Our annual symposium meeting will be held on Friday, May 14 at Stony Baptist Church near Potosi. Pastor Claude Evans has been hard at work to put together a wonderful program for us. The national theme for missions has been, “Across the Street – Around the World” and we are going to echo that theme as well. We will hear from Tony Crocker- Foreign Missions, Bro. Sam Husser- North America Missions, plus from a local missionary. On the following Saturday, during our semi-annual meeting, Bro. David Dickson, our church planter from Puerto Rico, will preach the message and share about his new assignment within the states to our Latin American population. I believe it is going to be a great symposium and you will not want to miss it! If you have questions concerning motel accommodations, please contact Pastor Claude Evans at 573-562-7036.

I must sound a warning about our mission offerings. Despite our cut backs in missionary support and Director’s salary, the offerings from our churches are not keeping up with expenses. Please consider increasing your monthly offerings to state missions and giving generously to this year’s mission symposium offering.

As a member of the committee that arranges the annual Men’s Retreat, I am sad to inform you that we have suspended the Men’s Retreat for this year. The attendance of our pastors for this event has dropped off in recent years and the committee has called into question the need for this king of retreat. In addition, we count on the generous support of our state association and the Meramec association to fund this event. In light of the decreasing balances in both mission’s accounts, it is difficult to justify spending this amount of money. We would love to hear your comments concerning the continuation of this event.