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DRINKING COFFEE WITH A MINISTRY PURPOSE

April 30, 2025

By Chris Turner
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

Chris Turner

Jeff Vanlandingham is not the mayor of Lawrenceburg, but I’m pretty sure he could be if he wanted. 

I recently sat at a table close to the door of Co-Work Coffee Shop with Jeff and he knew every person who entered. There was a greeting, a handshake, a question about family, or school, or a job, or something else, and then we’d resume our conversation until the door opened again. People came and went, and the process repeated itself for 90 minutes. 

Jeff has been pastor at First Baptist Church of Lawrenceburg for 16 years, so in a way it seems obvious that he should know a lot of people in a small town over that period. But Lawrenceburg isn’t that small, and it’s growing. 

After interviewing one of his church members for a story, we went to lunch elsewhere in town. Again, a handshake, a greeting, a question, a comment, a joke, a word of encouragement with people walking past our table. Some might call him Mayor Vanlandingham, but that doesn’t fit him. He’d rather be known simply as pastor.  [Read more…]

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BF&M: 100 YEARS OF FAITHFUL GUARDRAILS

April 29, 2025

By Randy C. Davis
President & executive director, Tennessee Baptist Mission Board

Yale University was founded because Harvard University was deemed too liberal. 

How ironic is that, considering both universities are light-years away from their founding principles. My wife, Jeanne, and I were touring Yale last year with a young tour guide who used the word “secular” more than a dozen times during the 90-minute tour. It felt like an intentional effort to position the brand. 

In a moment away from the group, I asked if he knew about Yale’s beginning. He wasn’t sure, saying that maybe it was founded by some Jewish people. Actually, Yale was founded in 1701 (renamed Yale in 1718) by Protestant New England pastors, along with businessman Elihu Yale, as a reaction to their concerns over the secularization of Harvard. 

Harvard launched with the mission of being a place for students “to be plainly instructed and consider well that the main end of your life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ.”  [Read more…]

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TBMB’S HARVEST FIELD STRATEGY SERVES CHURCHES FROM MEMPHIS TO MOUNTAIN CITY

April 24, 2025

By Danny Sinquefield
Harvest Field One Team Leader, TBMB

Sinquefield

Our beautiful state of Tennessee has more than 3,000 partner churches spreading across the farmlands, metropolitan areas, and small communities from Memphis to Mountain City. In our attempt to get as close to our churches and associations as possible, we have six regional Harvest Field Team Leaders and one ethnic/language Harvest Field Team Leader who relate directly to the churches, pastors, and associational missionaries in their region. 

I’m a “player coach” in that I am the Harvest Field 1 Team Leader (15 counties in West Tennessee) and I have the privilege of serving in a supervisory role with the other Harvest Field Team Leaders. The men that the Lord has assembled to serve in these various regions are amazing.  [Read more…]

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PRAYER MATTERS: A PERSONAL JOURNEY AND NEW BEGINNING

April 22, 2025

By Nancy Duggin
Team Leader: Prayer

Duggin

When I received the call to serve as prayer catalyst for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board’s new “Prayer Matters” initiative, I couldn’t help but feel God’s hand in this new chapter of my life. After 24 years as an educator and decades leading Bible studies and prayer groups in my hometown of Murfreesboro, this role feels like a natural extension of my lifelong passion. 

Prayer has always been a hot button for me. I’ve spent my life being active in church, but I remember a time when I felt totally overwhelmed with my prayer life. I felt like such a failure. That changed when I heard Anne Graham Lotz speak years ago and adopted her structured approach to prayer journaling. 

Now, I organize my journal by days of the week, which has helped me become more focused in my prayer life. I don’t feel so overwhelmed anymore because I know that all the things I feel God is telling me to pray over, I will address at some point during the week.  [Read more…]

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BECAUSE OF THE RESURRECTION

April 18, 2025

By Jay Hardwick
President • Tennessee Baptist Convention

Hardwick

It’s Passion Week. Good Friday and Easter offer followers of Jesus Christ a great opportunity for ministry, reflection and celebration.

Seasons like this are always tricky for church leaders. We’re excited about the celebration of the cross and the empty tomb, but we also feel the pressure of additional ministry events, opportunities and adjusted schedules.

And of course, we want our Easter sermons to be the best, most creative, most powerful sermons we’ve ever preached. In all we do, we want it all to be perfect for church members and guests, and most importantly we want to see people come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. [Read more…]

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OBSERVE EASTER AS A FAMILY

April 17, 2025

By Carolyn Tomlin
Contributing writer, B&R

For Christians, Easter is the most important festival of the church. During this time, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus who died on the cross and rose from the dead. 

Parents have many opportunities to establish traditions for their children in remembering this important event. Read the story of the crucifixion, Christ’s death and resurrection in Matthew, chapters 27 and 28. Use some of the following ideas for your family this Easter season:  [Read more…]

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LIFE-AFFIRMING GENEROSITY

April 16, 2025

By Randy C. Davis
President & executive director, Tennessee Baptist Mission Board

Here’s a bold, yet certain resolution.

Resolved: Tennessee Baptists are pro-life from conception to the grave (and we are certainly pro-life beyond that).

The two greatest gifts God offers us are life itself and Jesus as the only way to reconciliation and eternal life. Why would He do that? Love. The Heavenly Father does it because He loves each of the eight billion individuals He created who currently populate the planet He created. And as believers, He calls us to love them too. [Read more…]

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WHO IS YOUR ROB PHILLIPS?

April 16, 2025

By Chris Turner
Editor, Baptist and Reflector

I have a friend and former boss, Rob Phillips, who has the misfortune of knowing even less Spanish than I do. Because of that, he was easy to dupe — at least on one particular occasion.

We were on a remote backpacking mission trip in Honduras. We had just dropped our gear when our guide asked if someone from our group could preach to the villagers in an hour.

“What did he say?” Rob asked.

“They want you to preach to them in an hour,” I replied. [Read more…]

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FACILITATING HEALTHY CHURCH PLANTING

April 8, 2025

By Lewis McMullen
Team Leader: Multiplying Healthy Churches

McMullen

As the multiplying healthy churches team leader, I work with churches to help facilitate the starting of healthy multiplying church plants and replants.

One of the key things that I do for churches and associations is identify areas/people groups that are underserved and under-reached with the gospel. This information is gathered through community analysis, demographic research and what I like to call “boots on the ground” investigation. This last approach is particularly critical.

Church planters must immerse themselves in the community, listening deeply to understand its unique needs and culture. Once these areas are identified, they are shared with our churches where they can begin to pray and see the need of our state for new churches.

My job entails working closely with churches interested in church planting through an integrated approach of active recruitment, partnership development, and church planting coalition building. [Read more…]

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INVITING EVERY CHURCH INTO A FRESH ENCOUNTER WITH GOD

April 7, 2025

By Daryl Crouch
Team Leader: Church Strengthening

Crouch

The church at Ephesus was birthed out of movement of God’s Spirit that threatened to put idol makers out of business. The silversmith union rioted because the church became a powerful disrupter of evil as it proclaimed Jesus as Lord.

And yet, not too many years later, Jesus said, “But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Revelation 2:4-5).

In the original language, the word for “repent” is “metanoia.” Jesus called the church at Ephesus to its “metanoia moment,” and now He calls us to ours. [Read more…]

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