Updated Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Baptist Men sell out annual conference

By Norman Jameson

BR Editor

They squeezed to the center until there was no more pew to hear Anne Graham Lotz, gypsies, South Africans, Canadians, music, testimonies and to do a little business. Then they held their places through the end to laugh with Mark Lowry.

Fueled by a wave of involvement in disaster relief approaching tsunami proportions, the North Carolina Missions Conference and Baptist Men's annual meeting actually sold out weeks ahead. After registering 2,263 for the event Feb. 29-March 1 at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, Baptist Men closed registration and turned away an estimated 1,000.

Those numbers would have put attendance at this event far ahead of even the Baptist State Convention annual meeting. And there was a $10 registration fee.

Mark Abernathy, partnership director for Baptist Men, suggests interest in the annual meeting is prompted in part by the enormous number of volunteers involved with the Gulfport project, in which 30,000 volunteers helped rebuild 716 homes over 28 months.

During a volunteer's dinner Baptist Men President Dale Duncan surveyed the packed dining hall and said, "We're growing because we're doing what God wants us to do. We're following His leadership and we will continue to do so."

Partnerships

Although Baptist Men has 14 areas of work, partnerships received the spotlight during the conference.

From Europe, Ivan Jonas, pastor of a Gypsy church; Sandor Szency, founder and president of Hungarian Baptist Aid and Bela Szilagyi, vice-president of Hungarian Baptist Aid and interpreter, told about ministry and opportunities in their areas. In Ukraine, a former KGB listening outpost that resembles an American big box store has been made available for a gypsy church.

They are asking North Carolina Baptists to help transform the building into a church. The large building stands in such stark contrast to its surroundings that it will be a dramatic Christian presence in the region.

So many mission opportunities exist in current partnerships with Baptists in Eastern Canada, Vermont, Armenia, India, Montana and Wyoming, Cuba, Honduras, Hawaii and Pacific nations, Kenya, Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Pennsylvania that "We need hundreds, maybe thousands of volunteers to walk through these open doors," said Gene Kirby, a Baptist Men's volunteer.

Special interest sessions covered such topics as Africa for Christ, Appalachian Regional Ministry, Campers on Mission, starting a Baptist Men's group in your church, sports and recreational missions, Operation Inasmuch and a host of others.

Already 750 churches have signed up for the April 19 Operation Inasmuch. That could be the largest single statewide effort by Christians reaching out to their communities North Carolina has ever seen.

"God is turning the graveyard of missionaries into the vineyard of missions," said Indian pastor Bijou Thomas. Thomas is founder of the Transform India Movement and coordinator from the Indian state of Bihar, a North Carolina Baptist effort to drill wells and adopt villages.

He said 10,000 to 15,000 "are receiving Christ every day in India," but the population is so large that "every minute five people die in Bihar without ever hearing of Jesus."

Personal holiness

Anne Graham Lotz, who has led "Just Give Me Jesus" revival meetings in 25 nations, said she has "never been so proud to be a Baptist and to be associated with Baptists" as she was while following the news of Baptist response to Hurricane Katrina victims. "The first symbol of hope in that area was a big old truck with North Carolina Baptists on it," she said to applause.

Such disasters and others are "alarms going off in our world today," through which God is saying to Christians, "wake up; there is a world that needs to know me."

"Heaven is just a breath away," said Lotz, daughter of evangelist Billy Graham. "When my death comes, what will I leave behind that will make a life altering difference in someone else's life?"

She said Americans are "escape artists," always looking for someone else to blame. She urged hearers to "stop claiming to be a victim and admit you are responsible for the choice of sin in your own life."

South African leader Terry Rae preached on the lessons of the Good Samaritan and said, "It is sad when what we believe about God keeps us from touching the untouchables."

He talked about the high crime rate in South Africa and said every house is surrounded by a security fence and has a burglar alarm. When an alarm goes off, he said, most neighbors put the pillow over their head waiting for it to stop, rather than going to see if their neighbor needs help.

"We're all like that," he said, "passing by on the other side of the street, not letting anything disturb our day."

Given the evidence of North Carolina Baptist volunteers' involvement in the lives of many across the world, they may be the exception to that generalization.