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The Mobile Baptist
September - November 2022
Volume 25 Issue 3
MBA Office Closings:
September 5 - Labor Day
October 3 - MBA office Closed (Day after Annual Missions Celebration)
November 24 - Thanksgiving Day
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Stay informed of news and events within the MBA by clicking here and signing up for the weekly email News Alerts.
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Annual Church Profiles/Reports (ACPs) were mailed to church mailing addresses July 27, 2022. Please look for your church's ACP and make sure the Church Clerk gets the packet. Completed ACPs are due September 6. This profile of your church is a very important task for your church statistics and leadership personnel to be properly documented for the Association, Alabama Baptist State Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention. If you have any questions, please contact the MBA office. Watch this video from Dr. Rick Lance about the importance of the ACP and why we do it. https://vimeo.com/282117957
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__________________________________________
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Authorized and assigned by action of the 2021 Southern Baptist Convention, the Sexual Abuse Task Force now reports to the 2022 meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention the following requests and recommendations for action. On behalf of the Task Force, I move the adoption of these requests to our broader SBC family: First, with respect to Baptist polity, the Task Force addresses the following suggestions and requests to cooperating state conventions, SBC entities, and other related Baptist bodies:
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Executive Committee Meeting
Monday, September 12, 2022
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Government Street Baptist Church
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A meal will be available for $5 p/person.
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Every MBA church member is welcome. Every senior pastor is a member of the Executive Committee. Join us to help communicate why churches support Associational Missions
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- Budget and Finance Committee report and presentation of the 2023 Proposed Budgets for study and discussion
- Enlistment Committee report of proposed 2023-2025 committee members
- Reports from the ministry areas
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***Our Executive Committee has overall responsibility for the directions, strategy, and processes of the MBA. It is composed of the general officers of the Association, the Executive Officer of each of the several Associational programs, the Chair of each standing committee, the pastors of the churches, and one lay member of each church in the Association having a membership of up to and including 1,000, and one additional member for each additional 1,000 members or fraction thereof, providing that no church shall have more than a total of four members.
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International Ministries News and Events
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In 2022, the Mobile Baptist Association (MBA) is celebrating 50 years of ministry to Seafarers visiting the Port of Mobile. In 1972, the MBA adopted the International Seamen's Ministry in cooperation with the Alabama State Board of Missions and the then Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
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Thank you for your continued support through praying, giving, and volunteering. This dynamic ministry does not exist without YOU!
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_____________________________________
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_____________________________________
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Christmas 2022
The 2022 International Christmas Celebration is Saturday, December 3 at Moffett Road Baptist Church. Begin now to pray about your involvement in this important outreach to the international community.
The goal for Christmas gifts for seafarers 2022 is 80 ships. At $275 per ship, plan now to become a ship sponsor. Join us in praying for this special outreach opportunity. Donate online today at mobilebaptists.org/international-christmas-celebration.
If you and/or your Small Group would like to help assemble and pray over the more than 1,600 gifts, please contact Gerald Burch at 251-433-7953, or gburch@mobilebaptists.org.
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Many DR volunteers continue serving in Eastern Kentucky following deadly flooding. Several states have sent teams including Alabama. Please be in prayer for all the volunteers who make sacrifices to go and serve. Thank you for your support and prayers, and please let me know if I can assist your church in preparing for a disaster.
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Volunteer Disaster Relief Coordinator
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Teddy Bears Needed for Teddy Bear Ministry
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Christmas Backpacks Collection Week October 22-27, 2022
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This Camp Relief Fund is essential for the camp to survive. If your church has not yet participated in the Covid related Relief Fund, please do so now.
THANK YOU to all who have given thus far.
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Children's Missions Winter Weekend
for ALL Children in grades 1 - 6
November 11-12, 2022
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Register for camps at campwhisperingpines.com or call
251-866-7868.
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Metro Mobile Baptist Campus Ministries
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Baptist Campus Ministries exists as a partnership between the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions and the Mobile Baptist Association. Baptist Campus Ministries (BCM) serves as the ministry extension of the Mobile Baptist Association’s Churches to the college campuses in Mobile County. We see the college students in Mobile County as our mission field. We exist to reach, develop and deploy collegians on these campuses, to help our Churches reach collegians from our Campuses, and to intimately connect collegians with church life within our Associational Churches. We hope to see each Mobile Baptist Association Church involved in Collegiate Ministry to the students in their congregation and in their community.
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EACH Mobile Baptist Association Church can be involved in college ministry!
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We are excited about what God is going to do on our campuses in Mobile County this fall. It finally feels as if things are getting back to normal after a couple of years affected by a pandemic. BCM is excited that incoming students are excited, looking for ways to plug in to campus life and are looking forward to an active school year. We are praying for spiritual openness in the lives of those who do not have a relationship with Jesus and a passion in the lives of believers.
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Contact us to learn how to partner in this vital ministry.
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Rev. Jerrod Brown, Senior Campus Minister, JBrown@alsbom.org
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Beth Gardner, Campus Minister, EGardner@alsbom.org
251-344-5904
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, August 15, 2022
For interview requests contact: David Roach; droach229@gmail.com; 502-751-0237
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Religious liberty & LGBTQ agenda draw
focus at Baptists’ meeting with Mobile mayor
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MOBILE, Ala.—Mobile Southern Baptist leaders have urged Mayor Sandy Stimpson to protect religious liberty as he considers policies related to the LGBTQ community.
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Six representatives from the Mobile Baptist Association (MBA) Executive Committee met with Stimpson Aug. 15, presenting him a resolution “on the LGBTQ+ agenda and religious liberty” adopted by the Executive Committee Aug. 1.
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The resolution notes that Stimpson “recently appointed two individuals as LGBTQ+ liaisons” to the city, citing an AL.com article. “Liaisons who were appointed to advise officials in other cities later were given the authority to enforce ordinances and levy fines on any groups who refused to celebrate pro-LGBTQ+ ordinances and activity,” according to the resolution.
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The resolution “implores” public officials “to protect religious liberty by rejecting any attempts to compromise the longstanding Judeo-Christian and biblical convictions of the majority of our citizens.”
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MBA Moderator Scott Griffith, pastor of Cypress Shores Baptist Church, was among the leaders who met with Stimpson. “Our ethnically diverse group of pastors had a cordial meeting with the mayor,” he said. “We assured him of our support for any efforts to protect Mobile residents’ liberty to hold and live out biblical convictions regarding human sexuality.”
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The MBA representatives who met with Stimpson were Griffith; Vice Moderator Kevin Cobb, pastor of West Mobile Baptist Church; former moderator Mack Morris, retired pastor of Woodridge Baptist Church; former moderator Charlie York, pastor of Highpoint Baptist Church in Eight Mile; MBA executive director Thomas Wright; and David Roach, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland.
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The Mobile Baptist leaders also proposed to Stimpson a city ordinance that would prohibit “any adverse action” against individuals who have “acted in accordance with a religious, moral, scientific, or philosophical belief” that marriage is “the union of one man and one woman.”
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The MBA comprises 114 churches in Mobile County that cooperate with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The SBC’s confession of faith defines marriage as “the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime.” It adds that Christians should oppose “all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography.”
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The full text of the resolution is linked here:
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Wright Word, September to November 2022
Thomas Wright, Associational Missionary
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Emphasizing Biblical Prayer, Evangelistic Ministries, Church Development, Church Planting, Partnership Missions
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Victory for Life
We are first introduced to Satan’s desire for murder in Genesis 4. Then we are introduced to child sacrifice in Lev. 18:21: “You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech ” (AMP). Child sacrifice to Molech also is referenced multiple times in 2 Kings (3:27, 16:3, 17:17-31, 21:6, 23:10).
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John 10:10 gives us Satan’s job description “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy.” Then the text contrasts Satan’s work with Christ’s work, “I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance .” (AMP).
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We celebrate ending 50 years of child sacrifice in the US. Note the victory required prayer and hard work. There are no secular solutions to spiritual problems and our influence in the secular culture is important.
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Resolution on the LGBTQ+ Agenda and Religious Liberty
The MBA Executive Committee approved a resolution on August 1, 2022 affirming religious liberty and raising awareness about the LGBTQ agenda in municipalities across Alabama and in Mobile County. It and the press release are available in this newsletter and online at LINK.
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Six of us had a cordial meeting with Mobile Mayor Stimpson and his staff on August 15, 2022 to present the resolution. Moderator Scott Griffith, Moderator Kevin Cobb, Former moderators Charlie York and Mack Morris, Pastor David Roach and I.
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We also presented a draft ordinance that protects the free exercise of religion and preemptively prevents the LGBTQ+ agenda from being implemented in Mobile.
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The resolution is a snapshot of the convictions of those in attendance on August 1. Individual congregations now can choose to affirm the MBA resolution, write their own resolution or take no action.
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Please review the year to date receipts report. Our ministries thrive through the sacrificial support of so many churches. Many church members are surprised to learn their church provides no, or minimal support, to the Cooperative Program nor the MBA.
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Mobile Baptist Association Emphasizing:
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