Tennessee Baptist Mission Board leader Randy Davis offers a ministry update related to the coronavirus. He explains how the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board is serving churches well, also practicing social distancing, and also encourages churches to do the same.
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Chris Turner:
Hello and welcome into this edition of Video Radio BNR. We’re trying something new today, we’re going to do a video podcast with our executive director at the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, Randy Davis. Randy, thanks for being a part of it.
Randy Davis:
My honor. Chris,
Chris Turner:
Well, we’ve been on this Zoom a lot here lately, especially this week with a lot of changes that have come down all related to the COVID-19 coronavirus situation, and this has just become an important tool for us here at the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board. Just talk a little bit about kind of where we are as a Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, and then we want to talk about churches as well, but where are we as a Tennessee Baptist Mission Board in relation to the coronavirus?
Randy Davis:
Well, I think we’re doing all we can to serve our churches. That is our mantra, that’s our mission, that’s what we do. The Tennessee Baptist Mission Board is, it’s open, we are doing all we can to serve our people. You mentioned these Zoom calls, we have had Zoom calls, Dr.Steve Holt and West Jones and I with with every DOM in our state, we’ve probably touched base through Zoom calls or through my cell phone, we’ve touched base with probably 200 pastors already. Just myself and our staff is very geared toward touching base with all of our people and serving them every way that we possibly can. We have dispersed our staff to work outside the office, all of them, but the functionality of the CSC is as good as ever. Somebody calls our main number, we have somebody answering our phones, and so I would encourage our people to stay in touch.
Chris Turner:
Yeah. Emails, obviously we’re still receiving emails. I know that you even mentioned as late as this morning in our staff meeting, that just the need for our harvest field leaders, and our dispersed staff to really be checking in on his churches at this time.
Randy Davis:
Well, we’re not going 24 seven, but we’re available 24 seven. Our staff is working what seems to be over time. If anyone goes to the website and they just see at our Tennessee Baptist website, if they look at the helps that have been populated into our website for churches, very pragmatic, very user friendly, kind of helps, they’ll see the kind of work that our staff’s been doing over the past several days.
Chris Turner:
Yeah, and that website is TNBaptist.org/cvresources, so that’s a great resource for you. We’re updating that constantly, there’s some helps on there for everything from how to get your church online through a Facebook live to some other things, some great resources from Lifeway Christian Resources in addition to, you want to check out our Facebook every day, we’re posting multiple times a day with some resources as they come in, as we’ve come across some, wanting to pass that along.
Chris Turner:
Well, one of the comments that you made earlier this week in a video that we sent out through Facebook, and then also pushed out to pastors and directors of missions, was just the gathering together as a church body in a local church setting, and what your counsel was with that. Would you just recap that for us?
Randy Davis:
Yeah, I’d be happy to Chris. I got several calls from churches and they said, Brother Randy, what would you do? Now I respect the autonomy of the local church, and I really think our pastors and our church leaders have a great deal of wisdom, and most all of our churches are listening to the council of the medical community as we fight this virus. What they are discovering is the only way to stop it is to have social distancing, therefore, they have requested that churches not gather, they did not just ask churches to do this, the Simon Company, that is the property management for over 250 malls across this country closed their malls yesterday. Restaurants are not open. Everybody’s doing their part to stop this virus, and it’s very important that churches do the same thing.
Randy Davis:
Now what I do believe, Chris, is that you never waste a crisis, and what this crisis is doing, it is pushing our churches into avenues of ministry that they have not given this much attention to before. I’ve gotten probably five different texts or phone calls from pastors that are looking at equipping their churches to do a drive in theater type of broadcast in the parking lots of their churches, where the pastor goes out on a little platform, and they secure a radio wave, and the people pull up in their cars, they tune to an AM station and they listen to a message, they listen to worship in the parking lot of the churches without ever getting out of their cars. That kind of creative thinking is what I’m talking about.
Randy Davis:
I will reiterate that on Monday, talked to a pastor in the Knoxville area that did their streaming of their services from the sanctuary, nobody was in the sanctuary but the pastor and a few other people, and their audience was much, much larger than it would have been if they had met on campus that day. He had said they had many more people professing Christ as Lord and Savior on that day, and the pastor and the staff got the names and got the addresses and contact information of people making professions of faith. I think this is an incredible opportunity for the body of Christ to shine. But I would reiterate that for the near future, it would be best if churches not gather for worship, but they do everything they can to intentionally connect with their people and beyond.
Chris Turner:
Yeah. If you’re going through your church to the drive-in theater style church, it is bring your own popcorn for that. Don’t share popcorn.
Randy Davis:
You could pack a lunch and make it a picnic.
Chris Turner:
That’s true, you could take your lawn chairs and sit out front, but no sharing of popcorn. Yeah, that’s great. I actually saw one of our churches here in Tennessee, a large church that generally runs a little over 2000 in worship services on Sunday, saw a spike in their online audience to over 20,000 this past weekend. The early church was adaptable, they had to find ways to get done what they needed to do to, to be the church, and this is an opportunity for us to live the book of acts in the virtual world. That’s a great opportunity for us.
Chris Turner:
One of the things that has been a bit of a concern, especially for some of our smaller churches is just the aspect of giving, tithes and offerings, this is going to be a bit of an economic challenge for us nationally over the next several weeks. But so many of our churches, well, all of our churches, especially some of our smaller churches, are really dependent upon those tithes and offerings as we are here, about being able to exercise the ministries that we’ve been given. Just talk a little bit about the importance of churches continuing to find mechanisms where people can give, but also the importance of people continuing to give.
Randy Davis:
Exactly. Chris, I think we’re going to see the unemployment rate skyrocket. You talk about malls closing, and restaurants closing, and factory shutting down, the natural result of that is going to be that unemployment is going to go up quite a bit, and on the flip side of that, you’ve got the stock market going down 30%, so the available cash and donations is going to be limited. However, those that do have gainful employment, those people that have ways to give, you can’t out give God, churches have got to step up to the plate and they’ve got to meet needs in their own communities, they’ve got to meet needs of their own people during these days of difficult time. As a denomination, we still have a nearly 4,000 missionaries around the world that need our support, we have got their children that need our support, we’ve got ministries going on at home and around the U.S that need support.
Randy Davis:
I remember in the last great recession when Doug White was pastor of First Baptist Oneida, their unemployment rate reached to 21%, 22% in Scott County, and First Baptist church Oneida said, we’re in the midst of a great economic downturn, but we’re going to step up what we’re giving through the cooperative program, and through Annie, and Lottie, and the Golden Hall from Tennessee Missions, and it was just incredible to see what God did in that church, their offerings actually increased during a time of great recession. I just know that you can’t out give God, and I would encourage our churches to really take care of their own, take care of their own communities, but the light that shines, the farther it shines the brightest at home.
Chris Turner:
Yeah. If churches do not have a mechanism by which they can collect money online, all those tithes and offerings, you can either contact us here at the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board and somebody would be willing to help you with that, and go to that TNBaptist.org/cvresources, and we just posted an article yesterday that has a number of different options on it for how to give. We here at the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board use easy tithes with our churches for them transferring money, it’s a one that we feel like is really reliable, but there are some other options on there, and that article will walk you through and you’ll see that on the research resources page.
Randy Davis:
Great resource.
Chris Turner:
Randy, last thing we want to talk about is, we just got blasted, which almost is out of the news cycle at this point about the tornadoes last week, week before, here in middle Tennessee. However, it looks like our disaster relief teams here in Tennessee are going to have another unique opportunity. Just talk a little bit about what our state director and disaster leaf Wes Jones has been talking with CDC about regarding coronavirus.
Randy Davis:
CDC contacted our disaster relief folks last Friday, they were on a group call from people around the country, and the CDC said that they expect the number of people that are quarantined to rise dramatically in the weeks ahead. In preparing for that, they asked us would we mobilize and help them with that. Studying all the logistics over the weekend, we came back to them on Friday when they wanted to know if we could help and we said yes we can. The officers of the Tennessee Baptist convention, as well as the chairman and chair elect of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board said yes, we absolutely want to help.
Randy Davis:
We don’t know exactly what all this going to look like yet, but we can envision churches that have large kitchens preparing meals and Dr.Steve Holt and Wes Jones have contacted all of our DOMs across the state, and talked to them about the opportunity to mobilize our churches, particularly our students, those that can, to take these meals and deliver them to people that are quarantined. The way that would pragmatically work is they take a meal to the front door, our meals, and they leave them on the front porch and they ring the doorbell and the people would receive them, they’re not getting in contact with anybody that has been quarantined, they’re just offering this incredible, incredible benevolent ministry. We’re gearing up for that through disaster relief, through our great DOMs associations across our state. I’m already hearing of ministries like that.
Randy Davis:
Our camp at Carson Springs conference center, we’ve had to cancel events to the end of April, but we are re-purposing so many of our resources, the Cocke County school system, there is a ministry group that is using our cafeteria now, and they are having schoolchildren come by and pick up meals that are being prepared with the school’s out, and you’re talking about one of the most impoverished areas in the Southeast, indeed in the whole nation, and sometimes the only square meal that many of our children get are in their public schools. We’re filling that gap. I know that down in Hamilton County at that association, they’re doing something similar. You’re going to find the church stepping up and ministering like this and sharing the gospel when they have the opportunity to.
Chris Turner:
Yeah, you had mentioned earlier this week in the other video that now is not the time for us to gather, it’s the time for us to scatter, and talking about gathering together in the building, exposing each other to possible risks, but to scatter, not only in some sort of virtual worship, whether that’s in the parking lot, or whether that’s through technology, but really that really is what we ought to be doing anyway as the church, is not staying gathered but staying scattered in our communities and serving in that way. You’ve also mentioned this, a great commission, a great commandment opportunity for our folks across Tennessee.
Randy Davis:
Absolutely. We can love our neighbors, we can practice the social distancing that’s been recommended, but that does not mean we hibernate, we go into Holy hibernation, that means we look for opportunities to safely connect. I think loving folks and paying attention to their needs and meeting those needs as safely and as best we can it’s going to be incredible. I’ve been saying since the beginning, I believe this can be the churches finest hour in our lifetime of really having an impact.
Chris Turner:
Well, Randy we’ll probably pop in next week. This situation with the COVID is changing on a daily basis, so we definitely want to keep putting information out. Two great ways for you to follow us is to be sure and check out that website TNBaptist.org/cvresources, and then the other way is again, our Tennessee Baptist Facebook page, which if you just type in the URL TNBaptist sorry, facebook.com/TNBaptist, and if you’re already on Facebook, just go out and search us. Just follow us that way you can get updates. Well Randy, we’ll look forward to touching base again sometime early next week and keeping our Tennessee Baptist informed.
Randy Davis:
All right. Thank you buddy.


