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Baptisms, Church Attendance Increase Following Find it Here
05/11/2010
BOWLING GREEN - Five people who accepted Christ on April 4 were baptized immediately at Hillvue Heights Church in Bowling Green, joining 28 others who came to Christ in the weeks leading up to Easter.
However, that isn’t the full story behind the church’s Find it Here initiative. Those 33 baptisms were followed by 40 more the next three Sundays, a wave of activity that staff member Jeff Reynolds said symbolizes the campaign’s most exciting quality.
“I really believe that through this effort God has awakened people to the power of His Holy Spirit and awakened people to His reality and love for them,” said Reynolds, associate pastor of adult faith development.
With approximately 1,700 churches participating, volunteers distributed 1.4 million gospel brochures as part of the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s Find it Here evangelistic campaign in March and April. That represents 88 percent of the state’s nearly 1.6 million homes.
A $182,000 media campaign backed the distribution. According to KBC Communications Director Robert Reeves, the campaign was estimated to have reached 85 percent of Kentucky’s adult population, with more than 2.8 million adults seeing Find it Here television advertisements an average of 3.5 times.
Nearly 4,000 people visited the Find it Here website during the campaign, and 405 Kentuckians called the national Evangelism Response Center for spiritual guidance, said Reeves.
By late April, more than 2,000 people had returned response cards from the brochures, with 553 indicating a profession of faith and nearly 900 expressing a desire to rededicate their life to Christ.
The response has increased attendance at many churches, including Hillvue. Reynolds said the church plans to follow up on this excitement in several ways.
First, it is encouraging volunteers to revisit neighborhoods. This summer, members of its men’s ministry will do maintenance and repairs at various homes to show Christ’s love in tangible ways.
“I believe we’ve only begun to see what God’s going to do with this effort. Regardless of results so far, every home in Warren County has been touched by the gospel, whether face to face or by reading the (gospel) brochure.”
Hillvue is also discussing potential cooperative projects with Jeff Crabtree, director of missions for the Warren Association of Baptists.
Similar planning is underway at First Baptist Church of Barbourville, which baptized 12 converts in late April.
Pastor Shane Nickell said the congregation will hand out brochures and other church information throughout the town in September.
“Our people got really excited about going out,” Nickell said. “We had people who got involved with Find it Here who had never gone on visitation or been involved in door-to-door outreach.”
One reason people are interested in repeating this activity is the sense of empowerment they gained, the pastor said. Though some were hesitant about exploring scripture or sharing their faith, they felt capable of passing out material and praying, he said.
A member of the KBC mission board, Nickell also praised congregational participation, saying it has provided a heightened sense of awareness of Baptist churches.
“It really encouraged me to see a large percentage of our churches getting on board,” Nickell said. “I think it reflected good leadership and showed the KBC is not just about us as a church—that we can work together.”
The baptisms at Barbourville were among 65 reported during March and April from churches in southeastern Kentucky’s Knox County Baptist Association.
Director of Missions Seymour Wattenbarger quoted one pastor who said Find it Here has breathed a fresh breath of life into his church.
“This is the best thing that’s ever happened,” Seymour said. “Several churches are so excited about this they set up visitation programs. I’ve got pastors who want to do it next year whether the KBC does or not.”
At High Point Baptist Church in Mayfield, Pastor Rick Hatley will soon start a Sunday evening class for eight new converts and others who have joined the church in recent times.
High Point’s emphasis included a late March revival featuring evangelist (and KBC president) Don Mathis the week after its brochure distribution.
“The first day of the revival our Sunday school director told me we had 17 first-time visitors,” said Hatley, the KBC’s second vice president. “He said, ‘I’ve been here for years and I’ve never seen 17 first-time visitors in one day.’”
Its brochure distribution helped stir this excitement. Although Hatley had hoped to reach 1,000 homes, so many members responded that it wound up doing 2,300.
“The excitement and the fact it got our folks to work together,” Hatley said of the greatest things God did through Find it Here. “For me, that was worth it all.”
The Kentucky Baptist Convention is a cooperative missions and ministry organization made up of nearly 2.400 autonomous Baptist churches in Kentucky. A variety of state and worldwide ministries are coordinated through its administrative offices in Louisville, including: missions work, disaster relief, ministry training and support, church development, evangelism and more. For more, find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
