IT’S TIME…to be on the lookout for what God may do

Even as we are now in the midst of our IT’S TIME journey, our spirit, vision, and mind must be looking beyond these eight weeks of IT’S TIME.  When we reach October 30, will you be changed as a disciple of Jesus Christ?  In what ways will our church be changed by immersing ourselves in this conversation?

Our hope should be set on discovering at least one (if not more) new, significant mission opportunity to be a part of.  It should be a God-sized task, one that is obviously bigger than our abilities.  It should be the kind of missional undertaking that requires faith along with our giftedness and resources. 

What will that new ministry look like?  I don’t know yet, but I know the one does.

IT’S TIME…to consider that we are Christ’s ambassadors to the world

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹ God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:17-20, NIV)

Before we begin IT’S TIME this Sunday, consider these verses (they will come up again on Sunday night), give the following questions some time to take root in your mind and heart:

• In what ways has God made you a new creation?
• How does that change or define your purpose and identity?
• What does it mean for you and for us to be given “the minsitry of reconciliation”?
• What’s the weight of the statement “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”?
• What are you personally doing to act as an ambassador of Christ?
• What are we doing as a congregation to act as ambassadors of Christ?

I am happy to be on this journey with you, and to wrestle with deep questions of mission and calling alongside together.

IT’S TIME…to put action behind the faith we profess

I have spoken and written about placing an emphasis on celebrating missional faithfulness in the past, active missional engagement in the present, and expectantly looking ahead toward new missional opportunities in the future.  Today, I want to highlight opportunities for missional engagement in the present. 

On Sunday, September 25, from 2:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M., we will host a Community Health Fair.  Nurses, a pharmacist, and healthcare professionals in our congregation and community will be on available to provide services, screenings, consultations, and screenings.  Our local EMS and Fire Department will have vehicles on site for display.  Local individuals and businesses have donated toothbrushes, toothpaste, hand sanitizer, and other items to hand out.

Saturday, October 8, beginning at 9:00 A.M., we will serving out in the community with our Make a Difference in Olde Town Day.  We have arranged several service projects in Olde Town such as window washing and yard cleanup to help our neighbors nearby.  On the same day, the Olde Town community will be hosting a yard sale on our upper parking lot.  We are heading in the right direction when on the same day, we are both hosting the community and heading out into the community.

Our Community Fall Festival is on the evening of our final day of IT’S TIME, Sunday, October 30.  This annual event allows us to again, invite the community to with us to celebrate, and allows parents to have a safe place to bring their children during the Halloween season.

One ongoing ministry we hope to begin during IT’S TIME is Backpack Buddies.  Many children at Madison Heights Elementary School come to school hungry on Monday mornings.  For many of them, the only meals they eat are the meals provided at school.  With Backpack buddies, we would provide a backpack filled with food to be sent home with children on Friday afternoon.  After the backpacks are returned on Monday, we will then re-pack them, ready for another weekend of nourishment for a child who needs it.

I want to thank each person that has helped to plan and prepare for these ministries:  Mary Ellen Bryant, Lesley Clark, Bonnie and Jerry Mayberry, Loretta Ragland, and Ellen Saunders.  If you would like to be involved, please contact any of these wonderful missionaries.

As IT’S TIME…a Journey Toward Missional Faithfulness approaches, I hope you are already prayerfully preparing for this missional journey we will go on together.  I hope you will consider getting involved in any or all of these missional opportunities.   God bless.

IT’S TIME…for encouragement from some of our fellow Baptists

I wanted to share with you all, a letter to you all from my friend and fellow pastor, Tony Lankford.  Tony serves as pastor to Park Avenue Baptist in Atlanta, GA.  Park Avenue began their missional journey several years ago with IT’S TIME. 

Dear Madison Heights Baptist Church,

I know you all are preparing to embark upon the It’s Time journey.  As a pastor that has led a church through the series I just wanted to encourage you to be wide open to how the Spirit may work in powerful ways.

A little about Park Avenue Baptist Church.  PABC is a historic church in the Grant Park neighborhood of downtown Atlanta.   Grant Park is a neighborhood that went through great demographic change beginning in the 1970′s.  The church (they will admit this), however, did not respond very missionally to the demographic change.  Park Avenue slowly declined from a church of 500+ to a church averaging 8 older adults upon my arrival 7 years ago. 

Around a year into my pastorate we went through an intentional discernment process using It’s Time as our guide.  The process was life changing for us.  We came out of those months with a renewed vision and passion to use our resources in creative missional ways and seek to intentionally develop a ministry that connects with the current residents of our community. 

Six years later we still have lasting results of our It’s Time process. After It’s Time  we partnered with a community member to open a non-profit preschool.  This preschool not only gives us an opportunity to connect with families we may never see, it is a practical way to help support the very real cost of our facility.

Grant Park is a very multi cultural area.  Our worshipping congregation has grown into a very racially, economically, and generationally diverse congregation where the Spirit is moving.  We give all praise to God that we have baptized seven people so far this summer alone.

Knowing we could not minister to everyone, after It’s Time we decided to give our chapel to a Hispanic church plant, a congregation that is also growing and successfully ministering to the large Hispanic population in the area. 

Perhaps the greatest outcome of It’s Time has been our Lydia’s House ministry.  As a direct out growth of the It’s Time process we decided to renovate a portion of our building to host and encourage mission groups to come and serve in downtown Atlanta.  We had no idea if anyone would even respond to our willingness to host, all we knew was that through the It’s Time process this is were the Spirit was leading.  Well, since its inception, our Lydia’s House has hosted groups that have given over 40,000 hours of ministry service within the city of Atlanta.

We give God all praise and honor for these things.  Though I am proud of the Park Ave. congregation and the hard work and sacrifices they have made, I do not write to uplift them.  I write to uplift you and with every fiber of my spirit encourage you to be open and willing to follow the Spirit of God into the missional future God has in store for you.   If God can take a church of 8 people and do what God has done here….I can hardly imagine how God could wonderfully work with a church that has all the blessings of Madison Heights. 

In Christ,

Rev. Tony Lankford, pastor

Park Avenue Baptist Church- Atlanta, GA

IT’S TIME…to See What’s Coming Up at Madison Heights Baptist Church

September 11   An Urgent Call to Christian Mission

September 18   It’s Time…For Spiritual Formation

September 25   It’s Time…To Pray

October 2            It’s Time…For Churches to Discover and Fulfill Their God-Given Mission

October 9            It’s Time…To Have a Passion for The Great Commission of Jesus Christ

October 16          It’s Time…To Do Justice and Mercy

October 23          It’s Time…To Rediscover the Baptist Heritage and to Renew the Baptist Witness

October 30          It’s Time…For Hope

Not only will these themes give us a framework for worship and Bible study during September and October, but also prompt our continuing journey in the months that follow.  Imagine spiritual formation and giftedness inspiring our calling to be on mission.  Picture members of our church family undergirding our missional journey with continual and committed prayer.  Consider that a deeper understanding of our Baptist roots affects our missional vision in profound ways.   All of this and more will part of our journey together.  God bless you.

IT’S TIME…for a missional past, present, and future

As a family of faith, preparing to journey together towards a deeper faithfulness, I hope we can begin to place some very significant markers along our path.

First, with our worship, let us celebrate the faithfulness of days gone by.  Your personal testimonies of missional faithfulness provide us with inspiration for the present and future.  We want to hear stories from your journeys.

Second, with our actions, let us engage in active, hands-on mission.  Mission faithfulness demands that we actively serve as the hands and feet of Jesus Christ.  During September and October, we want to begin telling new stories from our collective journey.

Finally, with our hope and the expectation that God is doing something new, let us vision new and relevant ways to be the church on mission.  Let us enter this sacred conversation about missional faithfulness with the desire for God to use us in fresh ways that have a significant impact on Madison Heights, Amherst County, and beyond.  We want to be a part of God writing brand new stories.

IT’S TIME begins Sunday, September 11 and continues through Sunday, October 30, but those eight weeks are only the beginning of our journey.  It is a journey that I am excited to be on with you.  God Bless you.

IT’S TIME…to celebrate your stories of missional faithfulness

As I listened to Rev. Dr. Tom Stocks (Field Stategist with BGAV and former pastor of Rosiland Hills Baptist in Roanoke, VA) talk about his experience with IT’S TIME while serving Rosiland Hills Baptist, I hoped to learn from their story.  I heard stories of individual and congregational faithfulness.  It was inspiring, and I hope during our journey you will have the opportunity to hear Tom share some of those stories.  I also heard one regret.  Take to heart Tom’s words below.

The “It’s Time” journey for our church family supplied us with multiple “kingdom moments.” We enjoyed numerous stories of success for our church members, small groups and the church at large who experienced “being the presence of Christ” in a new and exciting way. One of the things we failed to do along the way was to highlight and celebrate these stories. Missional faithfulness was breaking out all around us and if we had it to do over again I would be intentional about “capturing” and celebrating those stories in a variety of ways (pulpit testimonies, newsletter, Wednesday night fellowship times, web site, blogging, etc.).

As we begin our missional journey, one hope of mine is that we will be very intentional about celebrating what the Kingdom work God has already done through you, and set a precedent for celebrating missional faithfulness in the future.  Either in spoken, written, or electronic form, Madison Heights Baptist needs to hear your story of missional faithfulness.  Do you have a significant mission story that has truly affected you?  Please share and let us celebrate with you.  As you share your story, your story in way becomes part of ours and encourages us to create new stories to celebrate.  If you have a story you are willing to share, let me know, and let us celebrate the God who calls all of us to mission faithfulness.

IT’S TIME…for me to share one of my stories

In the summer of ’04, I took a group of high school students from First Baptist – Clinton, N.C. to Corbin, K.Y. for a week of nursing home ministry and a backyard Bible club on the playground at an apartment complex. 

In the picture to the right, you will see two of the kids that came to our backyard Bible club.  Only four kids came all week, two brothers and their sisters who are pictured here.

Numerically, we were rather unsuccessful.  We did however, have a lot of time to invest in those four children.  By the end of the week, the girl standing in front of me had attached herself to me.

I confess that I do not remember the names of the other three siblings, but I remember Julia.  As we packed our things on the last day, she insisted we wait so she could retrieve something from the apartment.  When she returned she gave me the star off of her Superstar Barbie. 

As I wrote, we were not very successful numerically, and I wish more children had come.  I hope we were, most of all, missionally faithful.  I hope I was the presence of Christ for Julia and siblings that week.  She was that for me.  I can’t wait to hear some of your stories.

IT’S TIME: A Journey Toward Missional Faithfulness

“Each church is called, gifted and indwelt by the Spirit to continue God’s redemptive mission in the world. Therefore, nothing is more crucial and critical than for each church to discover and discern how it will be a continuing incarnation of Christ in its setting.” Dr. Daniel Vestal, Coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
Missional is a new word. According to spell check on your computer, it may not be a word at all. Missional is not a new idea however. It is a perspective and vision that has been around since the apostles began the first house churches that we read about in the New Testament.
To be a Missional church is to faithfully and actively embrace the belief that the church can be the hands and feet of Christ, a community of believers who are devoted to being a reflection of Jesus.
Listening to missionaries share about their experiences is wonderful, but it is not by itself, missional. Doing mission projects is what we should do, but an occasional project for the needy does not mean we are missional. Collecting mission offerings to support our missionaries here and abroad is important and vitally necessary, but those offerings do not make us a missional church. If these mission engagements only scratch an itch that will go away or absolve us of a little mission guilt for a brief time, then we will not really be changed by it.
If these and other ways of being involved in the larger kingdom work of God are images that begin to create a larger mosaic of the transforming power of God and God’s people, then we are starting to understand. If our mission involvement, prayer life, and discipleship begin to change the way we view the world God has called us to, then perhaps we have begun the journey.
Our missional journey begins on Sunday, September 11, and I am looking forward to traveling with my Madison Heights family.

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