By Brian Koonce
Staff Writer
JEFFERSON CITY – Easter Sunday and record attendances have come and gone, but God’s Plan for Sharing (GPS) is just getting warmed up.
A group of approximately 40 pastors, evangelists and directors of missions gathered May 11 at the Baptist Building to evaluate the first response to the first phases of GPS and fine tune the next steps in the effort to reach every household in Missouri with the Gospel in the coming years.
In the past year, the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) purchased 800,000 door-hangars and Gospel tracts to be distributed by churches across the state. Churches were encouraged to prayer walk their communities in the days leading up to Easter, and coordinated TV commercials and billboards reinforced the GPS message.
Gary Taylor, evangelism director for the MBC, said the feedback and ideas for fine tuning he received during the meeting will be key in taking the next step, in which no home in Missouri will be left behind.
“The biggest thing that I’ve seen in our evaluations is the value of prayer walking,” Taylor. “Churches are seeing that as key to what’s been going on in their churches as a result. There’s also an excitement in the churches of doing something so simple and getting so many people involved that have never done anything like this before. That’s huge.
“The other thing I’m seeing is that people are excited about what’s next,” he said. “They don’t want this to stop.”
One suggestion was that the GPS materials could have been made available to churches earlier in the process. Others praised GPS for helping foster cooperation among churches for “Kingdom Cooperation.”
Taylor said he hopes to have the next manual for GPS ready for distribution to churches by the MBC annual meeting in October.