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 Technically what I am offering is not an annual report. As I write this, I am on the verge of completing six months of serving in ministry with you. So it is not really an annual report in that I am not the best person to report on what took place before I came. I leave that to those who were active and involved in the ministry during that period, our president, Rich Schweissing; Larry VanSpriell, the Interim Executive Minister; Mike Oldham and Mary Tellis, our capable and effective Congregational Coaches; and Karen VanValkenburgh, our Regional Administrator. These people can give you a picture of what took place in the months before I came. But I want to share just a bit of what I have seen since coming to unite in ministry and mission with you.
In my six months of ministry with you, I have seen:
Excellence In Ministry
I have seen an excellence in ministry in a number of places during my travels and my quest to become familiar with the people and the congregations that are the American Baptist Churches of the Rocky Mountains. I have seen this excellence in the ministries of many of our local congregations as they strive to be Jesus’ hands and feet in their local communities. Some of these ministries are wonderfully creative, like the Guns and Bibles Fellowship that took place in Flagler. Others may seem less creative but still meet the needs of their community in significant ways, like the Senior Adult Luncheons at Harvey Park. It is exciting to see our congregations reaching out to meet the needs in their community. It is even more exciting to be able to come alongside a congregation and share in their efforts to love their world in the name of Christ in a bigger way than they could do on their own. We have been able to do that with True Light Baptist Church as they ministered to their community with the “Gospel on The Green” event and with a few other congregations. But still, the most significant excellence in ministry occurs not through special events and program, but through the regular, ongoing ministry of the local church.
One of my mentors in regional ministry once remarked that the most important letter in the name of any region and of our denomination is the “s” in “churches”. It reminds us that we are an association of churches who come together to cooperate and share in mission and ministry. That is important both theologically (look at the “churches” in revelation, not the “congregations”) and operationally. We excel in ministry as an association of churches when the individual churches excel in their ministries. But we also excel when we come together to ministry that we cannot do by ourselves. One example of this is our camping program.
I was able to visit and share in a day of Front Range Camping this summer. This was not a new experience for me, in that I have attended, counseled, pastored and directed camps throughout most of my life. I know the importance of coming away from our daily routines and spending time dedicated to the study of God and God’s word and in Christian Fellowship. I know the joy of bonding with a group of other Christians and Seekers over the course of several days in the sacred places that our campgrounds become. And I was pleased to see that at our Front Range camp, all these things were happening. I am also pleased to have heard testimony that the same is true of the camps at Grand Mesa, that are done by our congregations on the Western Slope, and at WYOBA, that are done mostly by our congregations in Wyoming. It is not my place to share the statistics of these camps, I trust you will find those numbers elsewhere in this report. But it is enough to say that there was excellence in the cooperative ministry that took place in all of them. I wish to commend all of the staff, the volunteers and the congregations that made these ministries possible this last year and that are already looking ahead to see that this excellent ministry will continue in coming years.
I have also witnessed an excellence in Ministry in our Missions Program. While I have been unable to participate personally in any of the mission trips that were sponsored by our Region this last year, I have witnessed the excitement and the changes in those who have participated. I know myself the changes in my own life that have taken place as a result of my opportunities to be involved in mission trips to other cultures. My understanding of who God is has grown and my commitment to living for Christ in my own culture has been deepened by these experiences. I am excited that we are able to offer these opportunities for our churches to have first-hand mission experiences. Once someone has experienced this type of ministry, they will catch the fever and want to go again and again. So we know that we will be continuing these mission experience trips in the coming year, but it is my hope that we will be able to take a significant number of first timers on some of these trips, not just old hands. In fact, it is my hope that some of our churches will consider sending their pastor on one of our mission trips this year to see first-hand the work of our ABC Missionaries. Most of these trips can be done for around $3,000. This is a small investment in the excellence of your pastors ministry, cause I guarantee they will come home changed and on fire for Christ.
These are but three areas in which I have seen an excellence in the ministry of our Region. There are many more areas where excellence in ministry occurs. And, in addition to this excellence, I have also seen..
Gifted Leadership
I have been impressed with the leaders I have met and have had the opportunity to work alongside of during the past six months. These gifted leaders are serving on our Board, pastoring and leading our congregations and even working alongside me as colleagues on the Regional Staff. It has been a treat to work with Rich Schweissing and the other officers of the Region since coming on board and to know that they genuinely care not only about our churches but also about our staff. I have come to value their wisdom and their counsel as I know many of you do as well. And then there are our pastors.
It has been a joy to learn of the connections that already exist for me with so many of our pastoral leaders (please understand I include pastor, chaplains, associates, seminarians and seminary professors in this category as well). Some I have had the opportunity to minster alongside of in previous ministries, others have been contemporaries in my theological education and others are simply Brothers and Sisters in the Spirit that God seemed to have been preparing for our coming together here. It is a pleasure to work alongside these pastors in the ministry that we are called to do and to know that God intends to do great things through these men and women in the years ahead. It is a joy also knowing the quality of people with whom they work.
As I have had the opportunity to meet with individual congregations, I have come to understand the quality of leadership that resides within our congregations. There is so much talent and giftedness in our local congregations that is as of yet not being utilized to its fullest potential. I trust that in coming years we will find ways to better utilize these gifted people beyond their own congregation. That is truly the purpose of the cooperative ministry of the region, when one congregation is able to share with others for the good of the Body of Christ.
And that is one area where your gifted staff comes in. We are blessed with a staff that is gifted in the areas of leadership development and facilitating cooperative ministry. I am blessed by the colleagues you have called me to work alongside of and the gifts that each one brings to the table that compliments my own giftedness and my weaknesses. It is a blessing to work with people of God like Karen, Mike, Mary, Alyce and Jessica. I am trusting that God will lead us to the person we need to complete this ministry team.
But despite the many blessings, there are still…
Challenges and Opportunities
While I am mostly excited about the things I have seen and experienced related to our cooperative ministry during the last six months, I am aware of challenges and opportunities. These challenges can be summarized in three categories: Unmet Needs, Atrophying Congregations and Financial Concerns.
Unmet Needs
During the last six months of beginning my ministry with and among you, I have discovered a number of unmet needs that exist in our Region. One of those needs came to us quite literally as a result of the cooperative ministry of our International and National Ministries. It is the realization that we have a number of Karen Refugees who are being resettled here in our Region due to the political conditions that exist in their homeland (Myanmar – formerly known as Burma). The Karen People are a group with whom American Baptists have historical ties. It was one of the first people groups with whom our first missionaries, Ann and Adoniram Judson and their colleagues, George and Sarah Boardman, were able to have a successful ministry. To date approximately 1,000 Burmese refugees have been resettled in the Denver area, many of them Karen people and Christians. In the coming years approximately 3,000 more will be resettled here. These people need Christian Brothers and Sisters to sponsor and support them as they begin their new life here. We are challenged by how best to do that, but we are blessed in that we have the leadership of Crossroads American Baptist Church partnering with the region staff and board to address this need.
In addition to the needs of the Karen, there is a need for many new churches in our region. One only has to drive I-25 and see all the growth and development to know that there are lots and lots of people in our region who either do not know Christ or are unchurched for any of hundreds of reasons. As Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matt 9:37-38 (you plains folks should especially appreciate that verse). We need to be starting new churches in these areas. We need to be strengthening and transforming the churches that are in these areas so that they can be more effective in reaching these people. We have formed a taskforce to begin to plan how best to do this ministry, but one thing is clear, we will need God’s help and the help of all of our cooperating churches to be successful in this life-giving ministry if this need is to be met.
And closely related to this need, is the need for future leadership in the church. For many reasons, our young people are not feeling called to pastoral leadership. Many of those who feel called to ministry are pursuing alternate courses of ministry. Our seminaries are finding that the average age of those choosing to be trained for ministry in the local church are older, second career folk. Yet if the church is to continue to be a strong witness and presence for Christ, we must continue to disciple and train young leaders to serve the next generation. It is not okay to simply serve those who are already in the church, we must prepare and serve the whole world for whom Christ died.
Atrophying Congregations
Atrophying Congregations
A second area of concern for us is the number of atrophying congregations. By “atrophying” I am trying to reference a couple of concerns, the graying of our congregations and the weakening in numbers and available resources of many of our congregations. Please understand I am not blaming or pointing fingers, just acknowledging the reality that I see in many of our congregations. We have a number of congregations that lack the critical mass to support a trained and qualified pastoral leader. Others may have the financial were-with-all (that’s a strange word, isn’t it) to provide for a pastor, but they feel they don’t have the strength to do a significant ministry in their community. For many of these congregations, some support from a stronger sister congregation may be all they need to feel reenergized and to gain new insights for mission and ministry. Like with New Churches, a task force has been appointed to explore ways that we might better support one another. But our churches need not wait on the work of this task force. Regional ministry is first and foremost one congregation aiding and supporting another. We see this first in Scripture when the Church at Corinth was encouraged to give their gift for their needier brothers and sisters in Jerusalem (2 Corinthian 8:1-15). Our gifts need not be monetary. Sometimes helping another congregation with a workday or a visitation effort is worth more than large amounts of money.
Financial Concerns
I left this one for last. One of the things that we as American Baptist Congregations have covenanted to do is support the cooperative ministry with our gifts of leadership, time and talents and financially. Events of the last few years, financial considerations of some congregations and other concerns have caused our support of United Mission to fall by 33% from last year. I could go back and look at previous years and those numbers would be even more depressing. Of greater concern to me than the drop in giving is the number of congregations who give nothing to either United Mission or to any American Baptist Mission. Almost half of our churches had not given to United Mission in 2008 at the end of July. Just over a third had failed to contribute to any American Baptist Mission. Jesus said that where your money is there will your heart be also. So I am not just concerned about the financial impact on our mission efforts and missionaries, I am concerned about what it says about our heart for this cooperative ministry we have embarked upon.
I could spend a lot of time breaking this all down, but I’m not sure that is helpful in this format. Suffice it to say that we have some work to do securing buy in to our cooperative ministry, explaining the function of the endowment and how it is used, and assisting our congregations that are struggling financially with the teaching of stewardship.
The Sum of Things
So where do I end this long report to you. I end it on the note of hope. You see, despite all the reality checks… despite a society that has seemingly gone mad… despite discouraging giving reports and challenging economy… I believe our God is more powerful. I believe our God is not finished with us. I believe our God is preparing to use the congregations and the staff of the Rocky Mountain Region to do great things. And I believe that were are prepared to answer that call faithfully, joyfully and triumphantly. I believe this, and through the power of Christ’s Spirit, I claim that belief as a reality.
Rev. Steven C. Van Ostran, D. Min.
Executive Minister
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