Heartland Baptist Association

I have been returning to my childhood lately. I was notoriously shy growing up. That shyness caused me much pain (prime candidate to be bullied). I always feared the time when it came time to select baseball teams in school. I heard more than once, “I guess I’ll take Palmer” as the last person is selected (almost always me). I guess this makes being selected first that much sweeter! As you are probably aware, I have at my very core missions. I am so excited to see what is happening in Heartland right now. Eight of Heartland’s Churches participated in our recent GPS project. Our Evangelism Team has recommended (and was approved at the April Semi-Annual Meeting) for Heartland Baptist Association to develop an Evangelism Strategy to parallel NAMB’s 10 year Project, “God’s Plan for Sharing”. We are developing the first Disaster Relief Command/Communications Unit in the Missouri Baptist Convention. Our Block Party Trailers are already being used. (Better calendar your dates now. Open calendar dates for the Block Party Trailers are few during the summer.) Our Missions Projects this year will take us all the way to Kansas City, Missouri as we help Midwestern Baptist Seminary in building their new chapel. And, we are going back to El Salvador this November to complete the Pastoral Training project we began in 2009 along with training Children’s Workers. We will have a pulpit exchange this fall with Siouxland Association in South Dakota. Many exciting things are happening in Heartland! Back to being selected. As the front page states, Heartland Baptist Association has been selected by the North American Mission Board to be a pilot association for the Acts 1:8 Challenge strategy for Baptist Associations. Much more information will be coming to your church about what exactly this means. The main thing is that we will be helping to formulate this wonderful process for missions strategy. That means we will not only be helping our churches in Heartland, but associations across North America. The word has come, “We want Heartland!” We are thankful and humbled by being chosen. As always, I love being your Associational Missionary, and Linda & I pray constantly that God will bless each one.