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WEB DESIGN
Does your churches website need to be freshened up, or does your church need a web presence? Please fill out the questionnaire and submit it to iba@interstatebaptist.org and let us help you find the best solution and pricing.
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MISSIONARY MOMENTS
May 22 - May 29, 2011
Mott Haven was once ranked as one of the worst neighborhoods in New York City to raise kids. However, through a series of afternoon programs, Graffiti 2 Church and North American missionary ANDREW MANN provide kids a safe place after school where they hear the Word of God, get loved on, and in return they are affecting the lives of younger kids. Community ministries such as the ones in Mott Haven are made possible because you pray, because you go, and because you give to missions through the Cooperative Program. Pray that even more young lives will continue to be reached with the Gospel.
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DAVID and CLAUDIA JOHNSON have lived in Bangkok, Thailand, for 20 years. David has served primarily in finance and business services for personnel serving in Thailand and surrounding countries. After years of teaching her children at home, Claudia started teaching at an international Christian school. Most of the students are Buddhist, Musllim, or Hindu, giving Claudia a great opportunity to share her faith openly to both the children and parents. "There's no better feeling than having a student ask for a Bible and invite Christ into her life," Claudia says. David and Claudia partner with Thai Christians in various outreach programs to people in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces. The impact of cooperation on all areas of missions is amazing. The Johnsons are thankful for your commitment to reaching people through CP and request that you pray for them, their family, and the Thai people this week.
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The M Factor
The Millennials are America's newest generation, 76 million strong and ranging in age from 10-30. Who are they and what makes them tick?
- They are the most ethnically and racially diverse cohort of youth in the nation's history. Among those ages 13 to 29: 18.5% are Hispanic; 14.2% are black; 4.3% are Asian; 3.2% are mixed race or other; and 59.8%, a record low, are white.
- They are the least religiously observant generaton since survey research began charting religious behavior. One-in-four are unaffiliated with any religion.
- Milennials are the first "always connected" generaton. 90% are connected to the Internet. Nearly three in four of those who go online use social networking sites. One-in-five have posted a video of themselves online.
- Milennials are on track to become the most educated generation in American history.
- More than three quarters of young adults (76%) agree there are absolute standards of right and wrong. More than half of young adults (55%) say that houses of worship should speak out on social and political matters.
Source: Pew Research |
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OUTLOOK
Wow, with deep feelings of gratitude and humility I need to say thank you for selecting me as the new Director for the Interstate Baptist Association. I look forward to continuing in the efforts of assisting our churches as they strive to reach their God given visions and goals. I also look forward to assisting our churches as they come together to help one another. Together we can accomplish what we would never accomplish alone. In keeping with the spirit of teamwork that has defined Southern Baptist work, I will also strive to develop strong partnerships outside of the IBA. Remember what I shared earlier this year; if we are striving to work together for the purpose of advancing the Kingdom of God we must be mindful of the following three things:
1. Collaboration - Great challenges require great teamwork, and the quality most needed among teammates, amid the pressure of a difficult challenge, is collaboration. Notice I did not say "cooperation" because collaboration is more than that. Cooperation is working together agreeably. Collaboration is working together aggressively. Each person brings something to the table that adds value to the relationship and synergy to the team.
2. Commitment - Commitment is often associated with a person's emotions. True commitment is not an emotion it is a character trait that will enable us to reach our goals. Emotions go up and down, commitment is rock solid.
3. Communication - Without communication the Association breaks down. The result is a loose collection of churches. We must not isolate ourselves from each other. We must give attention to potentially difficult relationships. Good follow-up and follow-through in verbal and written communication is essential.
Keeping these three things in front of us will make it possible for us to reach our purpose of serving and strengthening our congregations by gathering and sharing resources, and to aid churches to mobilize themselves in the process of planting new churches. We are going to need to be proactive, flexible, focused, and collaborative.
The churches of IBA are very special to me and I will do all I can with the Lord's leading and help to stay true to our mission, the mission of being "Church Driven!"
Again, I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to serve you. Remember to keep the main things the main things; sharing the gift of forgiveness and eternal life with a lost and hurting world and encouraging believers to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. This too is our God-given mission!
God Bless,
Brent Pound |
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"Churches Coming Together To Help One Another!" |
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NJO MISSION OFFERING
Making old things new - we are headed in a new direction!
The Nelle Johnson Offering (NJO) was established to provide funds to enhance our serving and giving locally and to the world as an Association.
This year's offering will be used as follows:
Leadership Development -
Healthy, growing pastors are essential for developing healthy, growing churches. We would like to develop SALT (Strengthen Associational Leadership Team) to support and resource our pastors.
This team focuses on supporting pastors with practical needs during hard times as well as creating opportunities for training, mentoring, coaching, partner-ships, assessments, consultations, and whatever other means we can access to resource these men of God so they can continue to grow in their ability to lead, equip, preach, and impact their community for God; keeping in mind every pastorate is unique.
IBA Continuing Education Fund - Provides scholarship funds that benefit Northwest Pastors, Pastor's Family and Ministry Leaders to attend seminary, complete under-graduate studies, and etc.
Offering Goal for 2011:
$7,000.00
This offering can be collected and turned in year round. This week (May 15-May 22) is the North American Mission Board's designated time for emphasis on Associational Missions.
Click Here for bulletin insert
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"Churches Coming Together To Help One Another!" |
MISSION OPPORTUNITIES
NORTH TO ALASKA
Due to the economy, we have not had the response we anticipated or have had in the past for summer mission volunteers. Here are some of our urgent needs:
A Summer Missions Coordinator (couple with a tow vehicle, primarily assisting with Block Party trailer)
- 8 to 12 JAM Camp Adult Leaders (children's music and worship camp)
- A Registered Nurse - July 23 thru 28
- A Lifeguard - July 23 thru 28
- At least one evangelism team August 31 thru September 5 (Alaska State Fair)
All of these volunteer missionary requests are currently listed on the NAMB Bridge, but I need your help! Please, please help me get the word out about all of these mission volunteer needs. Thanks very much for your help!
Gary Bearce, Associational Missionary
Hatcher Pass Baptist Association
PO Box 2650, Palmer, Alaska 99645
Cell: 907 982-0133 Home: 907 746-7467
Email: gary@hpbaak.org Web: www.hpbaak.org
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JAMAICA AND/OR MYRTLE BEACH, SC
We are inviting you and your member Churches to come on mission with us to Jamaica. Trips are scheduled for August and October/November. We are now in our 15th year of mission trips to Jamaica. We are also extending an invitation to Churches to come on mission to Myrtle Beach, SC this summer and fall to help us reach our community for Jesus Christ.
Dr. Tom Sees, Pastor
Rising Sun Community Church
Myrtle Beach SC
For more information:
Jamaica trip, click here
Myrtle Beach, SC, click here
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It is amazing how individuals especially students love to serve if they are given the opportunity. With projects that are a worthy causes and deserving of their time and effort. So, I say let them serve in tangible ways!
This summer SWEAT Ministries has two opportunities to serve:
- The first being an Intrastate Service Project in Vernonia, OR; where we will be assisting a church that has been affected by the past floods.
- The second will be time of assisting Evergreen Community church in Washington with some building repairs and maintenance.
Both of these opportunities will be a great learning experience for all that participate! If you are interested in becoming a part of SWEAT Ministries Service Projects please contact Crystal Miller- crystal@sweatministries.org.
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"Churches Coming Together To Help One Another!" |
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PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY
How to keep personal information secure whenever you go online
 Networking It's all well and good to take precautions when you're browsing, e-mailing, or using a social network. But if you're doing all that over an insecure network your privacy could still be at risk. SniffersThe Risk Any time you use a public network, someone else could be listening in: Nearby miscreants could be sniffing your network traffic or snooping on your visits to sites like Facebook to hijack your login. How to Protect YourselfFirst, don't use a public Wi-Fi network you don't absolutely trust. Second, think long and hard about the applications and sites you use on a public network; don't, for example, do any online banking. Encrypt your network traffic via SSL whenever possible. It's fairly easy to do in e-mail clients (see "Compromised Accounts", page 54). It's easy to do in Safari, too: Safari defaults to SSL on sites that support it. (Again, you'll know SSL is in effect by the closed padlock in the browser window.) For Firefox, try HTTPS Everywhere plug-in (free; macworld.com/6993), which forces SSL sessions for services that support it. Absent that, replacing http:// with https:// works on some sites. You can also use a VPN (Virtual private network) or Internet proxy service when connecting via public networks; either will make your traffic unsnoopable. Anonymizer ($80 a year; www.anonymizer.com); StrongVPN (about $5 a month; strongvpn.com); and PersonalVPN ($5 a month; www.witopia.net) are good ones. ISP and Network TrackingThe Risk Internet service providers or whoever manages the network you're using to connect to the Internet can see all of your traffic. A number of ISP's now track their customer's browsing and sell aggregated information to market analysis firms. As with some other privacy violations, this is more creepy than dangerous. How to Protect Yourself If your ISP tracks your online whereabouts, you might be able to opt out on its Website. As with ad networks, opting out of ISP Tracking means setting a cookie in your browser telling the ISP to ignore your traffic. If you clear the cookie, the ISP will resume tracking. However, you can't always fully opt out of the monitoring. If you're worried about your ISP or network provider sniffing your traffic, the only way to protect yourself is to encrypt the traffic (by using the same techniques described above for preventing snooping), or to use an anonymization service such as Tor (free; www.torproject.org). Tor encrypts your connection and routes it through a number of random servers on the Internet. Your traffic is still visible at the exit node, but it can't be tracked back to you on your local network or by your ISP.
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"Churches Coming Together To Help One Another!" |
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CHILDREN'S CAMPS
 Girl's Camp Staff Meeting will be June 4, 2011 at the Northwest Baptist Center from 10 a.m. to noon. The meeting will be a planning and informational meeting.
If you are interested in volunteering to help with camp, please join us.
Boy's Camp is also meeting on June 4 for a prep meeting at Camp WaRiKi. On the agenda is to repair the trail.
Camp flyers and copies of all forms have been mailed to the churches. You can also find general camp information and downloadable forms at www.interstatebaptist.org/serving/soulshapers. |
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"Churches Coming Together To Help One Another!" |
They call it Dignity. We call it a Mission.
GuideStone's Adopt An Annuitant ministry now has a new name - Mission:Dignity™
Since 1918, GuideStone Financial Resources has been on a "Mission" to provide "Dignity" to retired pastors or their widows. To more accurately communicate the essence of our ministry, we have changed the name of the Adopt An Annuitant ministry to Mission:Dignity.
These are men and women who have faithfully served God's people and now find themselves struggling to meet even basic needs. Many served small, rural churches that paid only modest salaries and couldn't afford to contribute to their pastors' retirement. Often, these pastors had to work extra jobs just to make ends meet.
Mission:Dignity currently helps over 2,000 people with extra money needed for housing, food and vital medications. It has also ensured a well-deserved dignity, independence and, often, the ability to continue serving.
Did You Know...?
The Mission:Dignity ministry spends approximately $6.5 million annually to help retired ministers or their widows.
Assistance from the Mission:Dignity ministry means recipients don't have to choose between food and medicine.
Approximately 60% of Mission:Dignity recipients are pastors' widows.
Your church and pastor will be receiving a letter with more information. |
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"Pressing Toward The Mark..." Philippians 3:12-14 |
Thank you for reading. If there is something you would like to see and/or would like to add to the IBA Encourager Newsletter please send it to iba@interstatebaptist.org attention IBA Encourager. We would love to hear and share how God is working in your churches and communities. 
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