Our Indiana Baptist ladies retreat is this weekend, and 800+ ladies will be coming to Indianapolis for a wonderful, inspiring weekend. It’s always a big highlight of the year. Will you pray for safe travel as they travel across our state? Snow is predicted!  

My breakout class:  The topic for my breakout class this year is “Terrycloth Christianity.” It’s a class for Christian leaders about Jesus’ style of leadership: servant leadership.  It begins with a fun “towel” fashion show. 

Ministers’ Wives Breakfast: One highlight of the retreat is a breakfast especially designed for pastor wives in our state. I’m delighted that we have one hundred pastors wives registered for our Ministers Wives Breakfast this Saturday! Pray for these important leaders who will attend–that God will use the event to encourage them, help them find new friendships, and inspire them.  I’ll get to recognize ten church planters’ wives, too.  Can’t wait! 

Enjoyed a wonderful retreat with Hope Community Church last weekend. Here’s an idea they used that was amazingly enjoyable:

“Speed Friending”

Set up a long row of tables and ask all the ladies to be seated along the sides.

A leader will pose a question, and ladies will respond by discussing their answer with the person seated across from them.  They begin their chat by stating their name.  Questions can be designed to help them know one another better, and should be simple to answer, stimulating conversation.  After a short time, time is called and all the ladies on one side of the table move one seat to the right before the next question is givenn.

Questions might be about where they grew up, their siblings, their hobbies, etc.   You might ask about their most embarrasing moment, their favorite family tradition, their favorite room of the house. Alternative: questions could address the retreat topic in some way. 

Keep the activity moving, and get ready for a great time!

Sharing Jesus with Spiderman

by Diana Davis 

A three-foot-tall Spiderman and his parents are driving past your church, looking for a safe, fun Halloween alternative. Need fresh ideas for a community outreach event?

Free Family Foto. Create a beautiful lighted outdoor photo site on your church lawn with pumpkins, mums, hay bales and autumn leaves. Advertise well. Enlist amateur photographers to quickly pose and photograph families who stop by. On Sunday, display photos in the church foyer for pick-up, or mail them to families as a postcard with a personal note on the back.

A Community-Wide Costume Parade can be staged in your church parking lot, with an emcee, spotlights, Christian music and free hot chocolate. Prepare a gift and church invitation for onlookers. Chalk the parade route, designate a staging area for the children, and decorate a golf cart for your parade marshal, the Pastor!

A “Trunk or Treat” Event can attract hundreds to your church parking lot. Joyful, costumed church members circle their cars in the parking lot, open their decorated trunks, and pass out candies, tracts and invitations to church. Oakhills Baptist themes its event each year. 

Fall Festival. Some churches plan a free festival, with carnival games, tractor rides, box mazes, pumpkin carving or cupcake walks. Others rent bouncy games, feature a Christian band or do a Noah’s Ark party.

Hallway Parade. Ask children from your church to meet at a local nursing home for a pre-arranged costume parade down the halls. Distribute large-print tracts and pre-approved treats for residents.

Reverse Trick-or-Treating. Teens or families deliver homemade cookies to neighbors, along with a packet of information about your church.

Make a goal that each guest for any event will receive two verbal invitations to church along with a tract (such as atsTracts.org) and a printed invitation to worship.    

Leave the Light On. If church members stay at home that evening, challenge them to give out big candy bars or treats along with a tract and church invitation.   

Paul challenged Christians to “make the most of every opportunity.”  There’s a little guy in a Spiderman costume in your town who needs Jesus. 

Fresh Ideas

I Know a Missionary

by Diana Davis

[Note: This article is written to encourage Southern Baptist churchesto make personal connections with missionaries; other churches will find usable suggestions, too.]

 You are part of the world’s largest missions-sending agency. Your Southern Baptist Church voluntarily contributes through the Cooperative Program and special mission offerings (Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon) to support your Southern Baptist missionaries—5,629 international (IMB) missionaries and over 5,500 North American (NAMB) missionaries.  What a privilege!

But…do you know some Southern Baptist missionaries? Oh, you can’t know all eleven thousand, (and many serve in areas where security is an issue) but your church can personally encourage a few. Need ideas to make personal connections with missionaries?

• Establish a connection with a missionary who came from your church or your state.  Contact the missions department of your State Convention office for names of missionaries from your state. For North American Missionary, apply online or call 800-634-2462.  For international missionaries call 800-999-3113 ext 7826.
• Connect with an IMB missionary in a country where members of your church travel for business or pleasure. Call 800-866-7826 or www.imb.org. One of the best ways to connect with an IMB missionary is to attend a Summit.
• Connect with a NAMB missionary near your church, such as a church planter, collegiate minister, denominational leader, chaplain, etc. To make a connection, contact your state convention office or apply online or email missionaryencourager@namb.net or call 800-634-2462.
• Consider buying and furnishing a house for furloughing IMB missionaries. Our church’s mission house was booked years ahead and each occupant became a “face of missions” for our church.  Register your church’s mission house with WMU and minister to a missionary.
• Plan short-term mission trips to assist an IMB or NAMB missionary.
  • For international trips, contact your regional missional church strategist or 800-999-3113 ext 7826.
  • For mission trips in North America, see NAMB missions opportunities site or call your state convention office.   Check out Family Mission Trips, Baptist Builders projects, Campers on Mission, Disaster Relief, New Orleans Operation Noah Rebuild,  Appalachian or Mississippi River Ministries, or browse The Bridge for hundreds of mission trip opportunities across America. 
  • Your state convention or association may also plan mission trips, both national and international. 
• Help students or adults in your church go as a short-term, summer or career missionary. What greater connection could your church have?!
  • For info: North American Missions, click on Sojourners, summer missionary, semester missionary, innovator missionary,  US/C2 missionary,  Mission on Short Term missionary,   Missions Service Corps missionary,  apprentice, associate or a career NAMB  missionary.
  • For international missions opportunities— for 2-3 year missions such as ISC, Journeyman (young singles), or Masters (age 50+), many different missions projects and plans for youth, college and seminary students , volunteer missions assignments, or career  missionary. Email your IMB mobilization specialist or call 800) 999-3113 ext. 7826.
• If your church adopts an unreached people group, a regional missionary will assist you. Encourage that missionary. This is an amazing opportunity for any size church!! Please contact your IMB regional missional church strategist  for info, and order the free DVD titled “Touch YourWorld, Reach the Nations” at 800-999-3113 extension 7819 or email imb@imb.org . 
• Invite furloughing missionaries to speak at your church and get to know them.
  • Contact your regional mobilization church strategist for IMB missionaries or call 800- 999-3113 X7826.
  • For NAMB missionaries, call (770) 410-6000 or make an online request.
• Study SBC websites for great connection resources. www.sbc.net, www.imb.org, www.namb.net, www.wmu.com.
  • Order free monthly missions fliers for church bulletins.
  • Display SBC missions magazines – examples:
    • IMB’s “To the Ends of the Earth” (free) and “Kids On Mission” (free)
    •  NAMB’s OnMission Magazine
    • WMU’s Missions Mosaic
• Use missions videos and video clips often. You’ll be in awe of the quality video resources available to you:
• SBC’s free downloadable videos
•  NAMB’s  missions videos and video clips and podcasts (all downloadable free)
• IMB videos and videoclips (inexpensive; many free)
• Plan a Missions FilmFest and invite viewers to write a featured missionary
• There are dozens of other free or  inexpensive booklets , posters, maps , prayer calendars, missionary spotlights and more.
• Show church members how to subscribe to free e-newsletters about our missionaries: 
• IMB has over a dozen excellent topical e-newsletters and many of our missionaries have websites or regular email newsletters for updates.
• NAMB’s OnMission e-magazine is informative and inspirational and there are a dozen topical e-newsletters, too.
• Study the websites for lots more ways to connect with our missionaries. 
  • There’s a Last Frontier Clock, email subscriptions, and lots more. You can receive a daily list by email of all those IMB or NAMB missionaries with a birthday that day, and pray for them by name. Education and personal participation in SBC’s missions will excite and enliven your local church!

As your church connects with missionaries, spotlight them. Pray faithfully for them. Stay in contact. If appropriate where they serve, send personalized care packages and birthday cards. Read their e-updates and respond with a note. Do a Skype video-interview. Email an occasional Scripture, encouraging word or prayer. Discover specific tangible ways you can help. Display their photo and a small flag with a plaque stating “These are some of the 11,126 missionaries supported by our church.”

Your tithes and offerings already support them monetarily. Will you “put a face on missions” and personally encourage an SBC missionary? 

Bonus: SET A RECORD GOAL FOR YOUR CHURCH’S LOTTIE MOON OFFERING this year. A few ideas:

• Relate your goal number to the number of IMB missionaries – 5,239. For example, challenge the church to give a total of $1 for each missionary – goal of $5,239; or $10 per missionary—goal of $52,390.   
• See more ideas for setting goals here.  

©Diana Davis is Indiana Baptist executive director’s wife and author of several books. www.keeponshining.com

My husband can cook a mean pot of chili! He made chili for the whole crowd at the Crossroads Baptist Association’s annual meeting this week. Here’s a photo of him and the pastor’s wife, Kelly, who cooked white bean chicken chili for the event.

Doesn’t the apron make him look adorable? (Kelly’d just removed hers.) 

Here’s a small idea you might use at your church:

 If your church has a Wednesday night church dinner or a special church-wide dinner event,  why not add aprons?  Deacons at our church served Wednesday night dinners, and they wore personalized aprons each week.  Oh, they were quite a sight, wearing those aprons, and they had a blast chatting with church members as they served them.  Another church has printed several dozen matching aprons with their church logo on the front. Any event looks more “official” when those working in the kitchen are attired like that! 

Read these rocks.

I love seeing all the ways our churches find to remind people of God’s love. 

Here’s a little surprise I discovered alongside an out-of-the-way sidewalk at First Baptist Church in Griffith IN.

Someeone went to a lot of trouble to brick the word “FAITH” in that gravel,but what a nice surprise! 

Little things matter.

 Last Sunday, I  saw fire in church.

First Baptist in Vernon had a note-burning ceremony  to celebrate the early payoff of their mortgage on their beautiful family life center.  Pastor Don Moore and the church family planned a touching ceremony.

He summarized the many ways the church has been able to minister in the community by using that building. They have an archery ministry with fifth through twelfth graders and an elementary age basketball ministry.  God has brought many to know Him through those ministries. They have a large gathering of senior adults from the community who meet for fellowship, and the pastor shares a devotional from God’s Word. They have a wild game dinner next month, and the list goes on and on. The building is not only used to enhance fellowship within the church, but to show God’s love to the community.

  He thanked the church members for their sacrificial commitment to pay off the debt.

Then the Pastor asked the four members of the original building committee to join him for the note-burning.

 They had built a wooden frame to hold the mortgage paper (or maybe it was a copy of it.) As those four lit the paper, it burned in just seconds, but the applause went on for minutes.

God’s people celebrating His blessings. 

Paper afire. Hearts ablaze. Oh, it’s such a joy to see God’s church in action.

Congratulations, First Baptist Church of Vernon IN.

ROCKING INDIANA FOR CHRIST!

“Praise the Lord who is my rock!” Psalm 114:1a

Looking for a good retreat theme? I thought you might like this one:

“Rocking [your town's name] for Christ.” 

I’d planned a brief program for the spouses of our Baptist state convention’s executive board yesterday, and it was such fun. It could easily be expanded to plan a retreat for a church group. Here’s what we did. Take the topics, tweak them to your event, and you’ve got a memorable retreat.

Introducing “rock stars” – Just intro game preceeded by Scriptures about Jesus as our Rock + how we must shine for Him = rock stars

“Rock” music – Jesus is the Rock; Rock of Ages; Ain’t No Rock; Praise songs with the word “rock

• Prayer Rocking – Used the porch rocking chairs for meaningful prayer time

  

• Rock Hound Adventure – a photo scavenger hunt around the retreat center

Rocking Tea Time

• Prayer to the Rock of our Salvation
• Rock Solid Testimonies – each person used a different Scripture containing the word “rock” to illustrate how God has been the rock in their life.
• Rock Formation – a simple rock craft project and devotional

Challenge to “rock Indiana for Christ” – closing devotional.

Here’s a recent “Fresh Ideas” article:

Fresh Ideas

Ten Thousand Steps. Ten Thousand Prayers.

by Diana Davis

“Pray constantly.” I Thessalonians 5:17

My friend wears a pedometer to count the number of steps he takes. His healthy goal is to take ten thousand steps daily.

Let’s suppose that each of us wears a pedometer and makes a goal to pray for people in our life’s path. We pray silently for neighbors as we pass their house, for associates as we go by their work station and for players at the ball game. God’s Word instructs us to “pray constantly,” so we pray as we go wherever our ten thousand steps take us.

A church-wide prayer walk is a simple, effective way to inspire members to pray. It can be an hour, day-long or ongoing event. The prayer walk could launch a church plant, revival, or new church ministry. It could target a subdivision or campus. Your city streets will be filled with church members—some strolling, some jogging, some with a walker or wheelchair or baby stroller—praying as they go, talking to God about people who need to know Him. Need a few starter ideas for planning a church-wide prayer walk?

 “Circle the City” Prayer Walk.  On a large city map, make a circle of 1” stick-on paper dots spaced around the parameter of the town (or a one-mile radius of your church.) Members sign a dot to commit to prayer walk from that dot clockwise to the next dot on the circle, surrounding your city in prayer. 

 “My Zone” Prayer Walk.  Each member selects a specific area to prayer walk, such as their street, neighborhood, apartment complex or office building. My son’s church charts prayer walk assignments online or you can simply use a highlighter and a map.

 “To the Heart of Our Town” Prayer Walk. On a large master map, members put a stick-on dot where they plan to begin their prayer walk toward the church. Directionally-challenged walkers can use a GPS. Some walk a block; others walk miles, but all paths lead to the church building where prayer walkers will rally for snacks and celebration.

Permanent Prayer Walk Path. A North Dakota church built a lovely prayer walkway around their church’s acres. Members walk and pray for church ministry and outreach.  

A church-wide prayer walk can open members’ eyes to ministry and witnessing opportunities around them. Read Sprinkle’s Follow Me, ibsaprayer.blogspot.com and nppn.org for prayer-walking instructions, and make a plan to fit your church.     

Ten thousand steps. Ten thousand prayers. It’s hard to fathom the potential impact! Maybe it’s time to go get your pedometer.

It seemed like they were everywhere!  There were hundreds of Indiana Baptists who attended the Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville. It was like a fun reunion! 

I found six full tables of Ministers Wives at the SBC ministers wives luncheons, plus lots of others at different tables.  It’s always such a celebration time, hearing all our missions reports and exciting challenges and Bible preaching and music, visiting with Christian friends, and missing out on sleep. We enjoyed the 150th anniversary for Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a tour of Kentucky Baptists’ gorgeous new facility, and more banquets and meetings than I can remember.

I had the privilege of doing my book signing beside Mrs. Joyce (Adrian) Rogers. What a delightful woman of God.  She has a wonderful new book for widows.

  Next year’s SBC is in Orlando. See you there.