SIKESTON – More than 100 people professed faith in Christ during a LIFE Initiative outreach here last month.
Nine churches in the area joined together to organize the outreach, which resulted in 101 recorded professions of faith and 30 other recorded spiritual decisions.
Roughly 1,700 people from the community gathered at a school gym to watch bike and motorcycle stunts, but they also heard a clear presentation of the gospel.
Though the outreach culminated in this large evangelism event, efforts to make an impact in the Sikeston community began much earlier. More than 150 volunteers from nine area churches were trained in evangelism and disciple-making prior to the event, and their churches worked to prepare the community for gospel outreach. Also, churches continue to follow-up with those who made decision during the outreach, so they can help them grow as followers of Christ.
Brad Bennett, making disciples director for the Missouri Baptist Convention, said that it is by design that the LIFE Initiative is much more than a one-night evangelism event.
In a Q&A with The Pathway (here), Bennett called the LIFE Initiative a “a holistic approach to disciple-making for churches and associations,” and he explained that even the week of the main evangelistic event involves much more than a one-night gathering.
“The LIFE Outreach model is designed around a Sunday through Wednesday,” he explained. “On Sunday the community of churches are equipped in the biblical foundation and framework of disciple-making. Monday through Wednesday character-based school assemblies are held. The assemblies meet the needs of local schools and have an opportunity to invite students and their families to a community-wide evangelistic event that culminates that Wednesday night.”
The LIFE Initiative “is a great way for churches to see Kingdom advance” in their communities, Bob Houchins, pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church, Sikeston, told The Pathway. The outreach ministry’s powerful impact on hundreds of lives was “a reminder … that God still wants to draw the lost to come to faith in Christ.”
“The schools need this,” Houchins said. “We had a middle school teacher who testified that one of her kids came to her a couple days after the event and said, ‘I went to the event, and I have Jesus in my heart.’ … It was such a renewing moment for her to realize that God could do that kind of work in people’s lives, especially with her own students.”
Houchins encourages other churches across the state to take advantage of the LIFE Initiative, offered through the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC). He also encourages churches, when possible, to partner with other Southern Baptist congregations in their regions to organize the outreach. The opportunity for his church to work alongside eight other churches was a blessing, he said.
“From the Kingdom standpoint,” he added, this partnership “is going to make our association of churches stronger and healthier” for ministry.
Roger Graham, director of missions for the Charleston Baptist Association, agreed.
“I believe this event was so successful,” he said, “because it was led by the pastors of the churches themselves. They met together several times to do planning and to assign different tasks to be accomplished.
“This event was a big success not just for the number of people that were reached with the gospel, but also because so many of the association churches worked together to make it happen.”
One key aspect of the outreach ministry, he added, was prayer. Volunteers from the churches did prayer walks around the schools where assemblies – featuring the MBC’s Brad Bennett and his team – would take place during the week. Then, on the day before the main evangelism event occurred, they gathered together to pray in the gym where the event would take place.
“The prayer times,” he said, “were more important than all of the logistical tasks that were needed to pull off the event.”