Telling the Story of Tennessee Baptists Since 1835
Baptist and Reflector
KNOXVILLE — Applications are now being received for grants from the Baptist Hospital of East Tennessee Medical Missions Fund.
The Baptist Healthcare System of East Tennessee was begun by Tennessee Baptists soon after the end of World War II. More than $2 million was contributed by 800 churches in 32 counties of East Tennessee. The hospital began service on November 30, 1949. [Read more…]
By Trennis Henderson
WMU National Correspondent
Kim Cruse, who served as an International Mission Board missionary to the Philippines for more than 20 years, began serving last year as Tennessee WMU’s missions discipleship specialist. A strong proponent of missions involvement and support, she emphasized, “You want a missions call? Read the Bible. It’s in there. Jesus said, ‘Go to all the nations.’ ”
— WMU photo by Pam Henderson
KNOXVILLE — How can your church start a missions group like Love World to help young women develop a heart for missions?
Kim Cruse, a former International Mission Board collegiate church planter in the Philippines, insists the need is urgent. “If you can put missions into the DNA of a new believer or of a young believer early on in their Christian life, they will always see missions as important,” she emphasized.
Cruse, who began serving last year as Tennessee WMU’s missions discipleship specialist, poses the tough, thought-provoking question: “Where are the future IMB missionaries going to come from and where are the future mission supporters going to come from if we’re not able to engage and connect and get these younger women involved in missions?
“This has been a burden of WMU for many years,” she said, “so I love what has happened at Wallace (Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville).” Missions leaders there launched Love World in 2019 to reach and involve women from age 25 to 40 in missions discipleship and support. [Read more…]
By Trennis Henderson
WMU National Correspondent
Sunny Ikojoh, who serves as minister of hospitality for Welcome House Knoxville, came to the U.S. from Nigeria in 2015 to attend seminary. The Welcome House facility is a former missionary guest house that the ministry rents from a local church to provide short-term housing for refugees.
— WMU photos by Pam Henderson
KNOXVILLE — How can the crisis of an Iraqi refugee family’s house fire help churches engage young women in missions involvement amid their busy 21st century lives?
Several congregations in the Knoxville area are discovering the answer through hands-on interaction with such ministry groups as Love World, Welcome House Knoxville and Knoxville Internationals Network.
Kimberly Poore is a member of the Love World team at Wallace Memorial Baptist Church in Knoxville. The missions group, which launched in 2019, is geared toward young women age 25 to 40. She said the leadership team seeks “to educate and also provide mission opportunities for other Wallace women within our church.”
Love World’s missions focus includes ministering alongside Welcome House Knoxville, a nonprofit ministry that provides temporary housing for immigrant and refugee families in the Knoxville area. [Read more…]
Seth Polk (left), trustee chairman, joined the virtual IMB board of trustee meeting from West Virginia. IMB President Paul Chitwood participated from IMB’s studio in the Richmond home office.
-IMB photo
RICHMOND — International Mission Board trustees unanimously approved the appointment of 30 full-time, fully funded missionary personnel during their Feb. 3-4 meeting, and trustees applauded a report that cumulative international mission offerings have nearly reached a historic $5 billion.
The new missionaries will be sent to eight of IMB’s nine global affinities. A recent Sending Celebration recognized the 30 new appointees, plus two missionaries previously appointed, and one sent in partnership with the Canadian National Baptist Convention. Both the Sending Celebration and trustee meetings were held virtually due to COVID-19 safety considerations. [Read more…]
Baptist and Reflector
Randy Pool
TRENTON — For the past 20 years Mississippi River Ministry and Randy Pool have been synonymous in Tennessee.
A former pastor and Southern Baptist missionary for 11 years in Central America, Pool and his wife, Cindy, returned to the United States in 2000 for a leave of absence to deal with family issues. During that time they became caregivers for his wife’s mother. “It became apparent that we were going to be here longer than a personal leave of absence,” Pool reflected.
Within six months, Pool was selected and approved as coordinator of Mississippi River Ministry, a ministry designed to reach those affected by poverty in West Tennessee. [Read more…]
By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org
FRANKLIN — The year 2020 began on a positive note with giving through the Cooperative Program at a high level for the first four months of the fiscal year and after a record-breaking year for gifts through the Golden Offering for Tennessee Missions in 2019.
Then came March — and life turned upside down, not only for the nation, but for Tennessee Baptist churches as well. [Read more…]
Editor’s Note: Charlie and Shannon Worthy are the featured missionaries on Day 6 (Dec. 4) of the Week of Prayer for International Missions (Nov. 29-Dec. 6). The Worthys have strong ties to Tennessee with family in both West and Middle Tennessee. Charlie Worthy is a graduate of Union University in Jackson. They worked closely with Tennessee Baptists during a partnership with IMB personnel from 2010-2017. Two of their four children are attending a Tennessee Baptist university this fall — Micah at Carson-Newman in Jefferson City and Emma at Union in Jackson. They are currently on stateside assignment and will be living in the Woman’s Missionary Union missions house on the property of the Missions Mobilization Center in Mount Juliet until next summer when they return to the field.
IMB News Office
Shannon Worthy tells the Easter story to a group of classmates of Ben and Alessia Worthy. The Worthys are IMB missionaries in Italy.
MOUNT JULIET — The Worthy family recognizes the importance of developing relationships in the Italian culture. For more than 17 years, Tennesseans Charlie and Shannon Worthy have invested their lives and ministry in Italy as IMB missionaries.
They describe the spiritual climate of Italy as ambivalent towards religion. Italians are warm, loving and open people; however, most don’t know they need Jesus as Savior. Evangelical Christians in Italy number roughly 1 percent, and most Italians are nominal Catholics at best. [Read more…]
By Randy C. Davis
TBMB President & Executive Director
On Sept. 15, 1887, a diminutive woman named Charlotte Digges Moon, known to Southern Baptists as “Lottie,” sat at a rough hewn table in a modest hut in China and penned a letter that would forever transform the Southern Baptist Convention.
In that letter, Lottie called for prayer and financial resources that would ensure the advancement of the gospel. At the time, the Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board) had a limited number of global missionaries, but Lottie was thinking bigger — much bigger. She envisioned a day when Southern Baptists would present the gospel to the uttermost parts of the world, but she also knew it would take significant financial resources to do so. With prayer and generosity in mind, she wrote: [Read more…]
Baptist and Reflector
To help promote the launch of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board’s 2020-21 Tennessee Mission Emphasis, the TBMB will host a Facebook Live Premiere event on Thursday night at 7 p.m. Central (8 p.m. Eastern).
The event will include a viewing of all the 2020-2021 Golden Offering for Tennessee Missions promotional videos, and will be
available through the TBMB’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/tnbaptist.
[Read more…]
By Lonnie Wilkey
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org
FRANKLIN — “Flexible” has always been the watchword for mission volunteers no matter whether they were preparing for an international trip, a trip to another state or a mission project just down the road.
In a world turned upside down by the COVID-19 virus, the ability to be flexible and to adopt new approaches is more important than ever before, according to a group of mission leaders on a webinar — Missions in COVID Days — held July 7 and sponsored by the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.
The webinar was intended to help Tennessee Baptist churches find creative ways to be involved in missions while dealing with challenges caused by the pandemic, said Bill Choate, collegiate ministries director for the TBMB and host of the webinar. [Read more…]
