Sicily, Italy | “The goal is to get the gospel out,” said Steve Brown, a missionary in Europe serving as a team leader through the International Mission Board (IMB) for 22 years, the last five based in Palermo, Sicily.
He recently came up with a new strategy for doing so, specifically designed to appeal to members of smaller and rural Southern Baptist churches.
“The majority of our ministry has been in major metro areas,” Brown said. “Over the years we’ve noticed and grew a heart for rural people, where there aren’t many evangelical churches.
“We can still minister in the city we live in,” Brown said, “but we want to also take our heart and a real burden for people to hear the gospel who live outside the major cities. This grew out of being aware of a lack of churches and of a gospel presence in rural areas.”
The IMB has approved the concept of smaller churches in the U.S. connecting with rural areas in Europe, Jeff Clark said. Clark is the IMB’s strategist for its Rural Network. “This is our first real initiative to involve rural churches in the U.S. and Europe,” he said. “Since 2019 we’ve been strengthening rural churches worldwide.”
At least 45% of the world live in rural areas, Clark said, giving credit to Brown for his proposal to connect smaller churches in America with churches in non-urban areas in Europe.
“Often rural churches don’t think they can be actively involved in missions,” he said.
“They go, ‘I’m just a farmer; how can I be involved?’ We already have missionaries who farm, who train farmers.” With Brown’s proposal, members of smaller churches in the U.S. can be involved hands-on in missions.
Leaders in smaller churches in several states are making plans to travel to Europe in late summer to connect with IMB missionaries and churches in non-urban areas. Wyoming Baptists plan to go to Spain, where 84% of the land is rural and where 16% —nearly 800,000—of the nation’s 48 million people live in 53 towns classified as rural, according to the European Union’s Rural Pact Community Platform.
PARTNERS—Small churches in the U.S. are supporting similar-sized churches in Europe through CP funded ministry. (Stock photo)
“I have always thought Spain would be the one country I’d like to go to,” said Bill Harvision of Victory Baptist Church in Powell. Harvison is in his first one-year term as president of the Wyoming Southern Baptist Mission Network. “This opportunity opened for a vision tour…. I think it’s going to be cool.
“I hope my church people see the need and opportunity of missions – whether in Spain or in Pinedale, and get more involved in missions and doing more, ” Harvision said. Pinedale is a Wyoming town where Victory church plans to help with a church plant this fall.
Spain is another “opportunity to take the gospel to the lost,” Harvision said. “I see Spain as place our people can say, ‘Let’s do this!”
Church-to-church
Oklahoma has already started partnership work in Slovakia. There 78% of the nation’s land is rural and 45% of the nation’s 5.3 million population live in towns of less than 5,000 residents, according to the U.S. State Department.
In what perhaps was a pre-launch of the rural churches’ U.S./Europe partnership, Scott Melton, pastor of Northeast Baptist Church in Ponca City was one of seven Oklahoma leaders who went on a vision tour of Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic a year ago.
“In Slovakia we met with six area pastors and saw the unity they had,” Melton said. “That struck a chord with us. They were all small churches trying to make an impact in their communities and wanting to start work in other communities. We’re not a large church, but we too want to make an impact.” His congregation recently concluded a four-year partnership with Bangladesh.
Melton meets online every month with the group of Slovakian pastors he met last year. One of them visited Melton and his Oklahoma church in February. The church has plans for a mission trip to Slovakia in July to do VBS, a three-day youth rally, and canvassing in neighboring towns with an eye towards starting Bible studies.
Person-to-person
“We could go [to rural areas], do a block party and hand out information,” said Brown, who is spearheading partnerships of smaller American churches with smaller European churches, “but the key to long-term effective ministry is a permanent presence, my wife and I realized. That led us to look for like-minded churches in these areas of rural Sicily to partner with.
“We cultivated relationships with a few churches and took 10-to-15% of our time to encourage the body of Christ there and also get encouragement from them. We began to also sort of dream with the pastors and say, ‘What can we do? What do you want to do? Can we do this together?’
East Cooper Baptist Church in Mount Pleasant, S.C., has been a four-year partner Brown’s rural ministry.
“The church of East Cooper has loved the people so well the [Slovakian] pastor asked them if his kids could go there for a visit!”
Ministry to children is proving to be an effective connection. In Sicily, “the church sits on the grounds of an orphanage. The church is now growing and extremely encouraged to serve their community. They realized, ‘What these Americans are doing we can do as well!’ Now they are effectively engaging with their community,” Brown said.
“What we want to see ultimately is effective ministry and disciples made by our IMB teams in partnership with local European churches and SBC churches working hard together, mutually encouraging one another, and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ among rural peoples of Europe,” Brown said.
“I like that.”
─Karen Willoughby for Baptist Press