Nate Adams pays it forward • 4 | Missions giving check-up • 10-12
Volume 108, No. 7
IB Insider
When in Baltimore: Crabcakes, cupcakes, Annie Armstrong page 2 What repentance has in common with nausea page 5 The littlest lobbyists page 7
Our monthly bread page 6 Tool for worship, or tool of the devil? page 15
News and updates
MAY 05, 2014
5 church plants sprout in 9 days
Growing trends among second-generation and multi-site congregations By Eric Reed
Across Illinois | Five new churches held their “grand opening” events during the two weekends before Easter. The congregations couldn’t be any more different: They are Hispanic, Korean, Anglo, and multicultural. They meet in the inner city, in new suburbs and older neighborhoods, and way out in the countryside. Yet their worship services are remarkably alike: all in English, all contemporary, all enthusiastic, and mostly loud. Collectively they show how some important ministry trends are reaching both main roads and back roads in Illinois: ➢ After decades of planting ethnic language churches, English-language ministries may be the next wave as the grown children of immigrants aren’t feeling comfortable in their parents’ churches. ➢ Starting new churches is getting more complicated and expensive and harder for planters to do solo. That is resulting in more multi-site churches
Starting Point in Chicago: Pastor Marvin del Rios of Iglesia Bautista Erie (right) prays for the new congregation his church is sponsoring, led by Pastor Jonathan de la O and his wife, Emely, surrounded by leaders from Chinese, Korean, and Romanian church plants who attended the April 6 launch service.
and in new networks among church leaders. ➢ And in some situations, starting from scratch may prove a better strategy than reengineering a faltering ministry. Jonathan de la O was born in the United States, but his parents are from El Salvador. He is the product of two
Throughout the week:
Continued on page 8
New tactics in culture war Summit shows
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countries. “I wasn’t 100% Latino or 100% American, at least in the eyes of those around me,” he said. “It made it difficult to identify with a people group.” When called to pastor a church, he asked what kind? “I didn’t know where I fit in,” he said in a video.
WORTH CELEBRATING – Sarah Schultz rejoices with Skip Leininger, associate pastor of FBC O’Fallon, after being baptized at the church’s March 29-30 crusade.
‘The joy of my salvation’ Church baptizes 103 in spring crusade By Lisa Sergent
O’Fallon | Over a single weekend, more people were baptized at First Baptist, O’Fallon, than in all of 2013. The church’s crusade March 29-30 resulted in 103 baptisms, 17 salvation decisions, and 15 rededications. Tom Dawson, FBC’s minister of
adult education who helped organize the crusade, described it as “a wonderful event.” He called Texas evangelist Ronnie Hill “electric. He brought God’s Word straight to peoples’ hearts.” Continued on page 3
Nashville, Tenn. | Southern Baptists’ generals in the culture war demonstrated their new strategy at an April meeting for church leaders. But the tactic, softer in decibels but not doctrine, was met by criticism from opponents using modern weaponry – social media. Moore “The way that we are going to be able to speak to the people in our culture…is not by more culture war posturing, but by a Christshaped counter-revolution,” said Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. The conference on sexuality and the Gospel was the ERLC’s first major event since Moore assumed leadership from Richard Land, who served as the denomination’s main voice on issues such as abortion and first amendment rights. The event came with a sort of confession: the culture war as we knew it is over. Continued on page 7