Baptist & Reflector

Telling the Story of Tennessee Baptists Since 1835

2020: A YEAR TO REMEMBER

Ministry created by tornadoes, pandemic dominate year’s top stories

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…]

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TAKING THE GOSPEL’S HOPE TO ITALY

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…]

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MISSIONS, LOTTIE MOON AND LEADERSHIP

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…]

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TBMB FACEBOOK LIVE EVENT TO PREMIERE GOTM VIDEOS

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…]

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PANDEMIC HAS FORCED MISSIONARIES, CHURCHES TO ADAPT

By Lonnie Wilkey
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org

hand,Bible, world, missions, map, globeFRANKLIN — “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…]

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LEADERS URGE CAUTION, COMMITMENT TO MISSIONS

By Leslie Peacock Caldwell
IMB News Office

Through Send Relief, Southern Baptists have helped more than 900,000 people worldwide affected by the coronavirus.

RICHMOND — International Mission Board senior leaders are urging Southern Baptists to use extreme caution if they are considering overseas missions travel for the remainder of 2020.

As many countries continue to require quarantines or have not yet opened their borders, travelers could face unexpected circumstances, including quarantines upon re-entering the U.S. The future threat and spread of COVID-19 also remains an unknown factor.

The IMB decision also impacts volunteer missions through the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board. [Read more…]

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TENNESSEANS REFLECT ON END OF WORLD CHANGERS

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org

-LifeWay photo

FRANKLIN — Though World Changers began as a program of the former Southern Baptist Convention Brotherhood Commission, it made a lasting impact on Tennesseans who both participated in the hands-on missions ministry and those who benefited from the work of countless teenagers and sponsors. [Read more…]

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LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE PANDEMIC OF 2020

By Phil Young
Director of Missions, Knox County Association of Baptists

Last month I shared with you a quote from Tod Bolsinger regarding the rapidly changing culture we live in. Bolsinger writes, “The world in front of you is nothing like the world behind you.”  Without question, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world we live in.  We have all made adjustments in our lives – some we like, some we don’t, and some we never dreamed possible.

As the time period extends, our thoughts and efforts are beginning to shift from “how do we get through this” to “how do we emerge out of this better and stronger.”

[Read more…]

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PRAYERWALKING DONE A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY

Tennessee WMU ‘travel’ to Denver church planters without leaving home

By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org

FRANKLIN — For the past three years, Tennessee Woman’s Missionary Union prayer warriors have traveled to Colorado as part of the Send Denver partnership to meet and pray with church planters on their home turf.

Six teams which included 24 women were able to work with 14 church planters in and around Denver, said Vickie Anderson, executive director of Tennessee WMU.

Two trips were scheduled for April and May of this year before COVID-19 changed everyone’s plans. [Read more…]

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CHURCH SENDS TEAM ON VIRTUAL MISSION TRIP

By Shawn Hendricks
Contributing Writer, Baptist and Reflector

HENDERSONVILLE — For members of First Baptist Church of Hendersonville, the news that their church led 30 people on a mission trip last week to New York City in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis could have seemed a little shocking.

“That’s right. They traveled right into the hotbed of the COVID-19 virus,” Bruce Raley, executive pastor of the Nashville area church, announced April 23 in his afternoon e-mail. But he quickly clarified by noting, “they did so through our first Virtual Mission Trip.” [Read more…]

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