Missions
At First Baptist Church we endeavor to be an Acts 1: 8 church. What this means is we strive to have a local, national, and global outreach. Our ministry philosophy is to see every member involved in the ministry of the church through prayer, giving, and going.
Here is a sampling of the missions efforts we are involved in.
Native American Women’s Retreat
We are working with Ron and Alpha Goombi, a Native American missionary couple with the North American Mission Board. Our involvement with their ministry began when they attended our Missions Conference in the Spring of 2006. We’ve just returned from the 2nd Annual Native American Women’s Retreat entitled “Be Astonished” which was held in Fremont, Nebraska. Fourteen members of our congregation formed the team that provided the retreat for the Native women. We explored some of the attributes of God, provided small group sessions on God’s faithfulness, prayer, living a life of integrity & putting your faith into action. The theme verse was Daniel 11:32b “…the people who know their God shall be strong…” We had crafts & fellowship with the 29 Native American participants. Thirteen women made a recommitment to Christ and there were several decisions to accept Christ (6-8). As we are encouraging more Native American leadership for future retreats, Alpha is interested in leadership training for the women possibly in the Fall of 2008.
Builders for Christ
Builders for Christ is a network of volunteer teams who offer to assist Southern Baptists in building Churches in locations which appear to be in significant need of Evangelism. Some of our Teams have been active in this Ministry for over twenty years; the association of our Teams, focused with a coordinated effort towards a specific project, began in 1983. Forty-one projects have been completed in Oklahoma, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, New Hampshire, Maine, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Missouri and Indiana. Our focus is New England and the upper Midwest.
First Baptist Birmingham has participated with this group since 1990.
Ahom People of India
Since August of 2006, First Baptist Birmingham has been involved in reaching the unengaged, unevangelized Ahom people of Assam, India. We have served as the missionary to the Ahom, serving as the Strategy Coordinator with the goal of starting a church planing movement among the Ahom people. Parky Allen, Harry Jeffcoat and David Taunton have been leading our efforts in India.
In 2008 First Baptist has been sending more teams to India. In May of 2008 the team of Parky Allen, Harry Jeffcoat and David Taunton went back to Assam and showed the Jesus film in several villages. Over 200 adults accepted Christ through that effort. The next step in this ministry is to have partners who are living in that area to begin to disciple the new believers and form house churches in those villages.