News

Announcements, prayer requests, up-to-date info on Liberty, and more.

Announcements:

 

Wednesday Evening Activities: Our Wednesday Evening Meals will start again in the Fall. During the Summer months, we will have Bible study at 6:30 P.M.  As usual, the monthly Business Meeting will take place the second Wednesday of the month. 

BVC SIGNS AGREEMENT WITH ENID’S GOLDEN OAKS VILLAGE

Baptist Village Communities (BVC) and Golden Oaks Village have announced their plan for BVC to acquire the Enid campus. BVC is Oklahoma’s largest not-for-profit provider of senior adult housing and services and currently operates eleven communities and home health across the state. Golden Oaks Village, a Christ-focused 501(c)3 organization, was founded in Enid in 1988 and is one of the largest providers of senior adult housing in Northwest Oklahoma.
For more information visit baptistmessenger.com/bvc-gov

Online Giving: Our "GIVE" page on this website (http://libertysouthern.org/give) is up and running. Click the link, or click the Give tab at the top of this page. 

UPDATE FROM NEW WORK IN WAUKOMIS

Pastor Matt Miles, who is seeking to start a church in Waukomis, says, “A church becomes a church and truly a house of mercy when Jesus is present. Such is the teaching of John 5:1-9, and such is my prayer for the new work in Waukomis called Houses of Mercy.” [Picture above is the newly created logo.]
 
His vision is to plant a church of house churches that will seek to dot the landscape of Waukomis with house churches. Their goals will be to love God, to love their neighbors, to love one another, and to make Jesus-followers. They will pursue these goals through house church gatherings, a large group gathering, and ministry partnerships. Cherokee Strip Baptist Association is one of their partners. They have one house church and have identified a building to use for a large group gathering.

Matt is still about $5000 short of the funds needed this year for the Waukomis church plant. If you would like to contribute to the work in Waukomis, please contact Matt at (405)612-0863 or email drjmmiles@gmail.com. Our association plus several churches and a number of individuals are partnering financially in this endeavor. Funds are being channelled through Liberty Southern BC, primary sponsor church for the new work.

MESSAGE FROM MATT
 
The above is the title of an article written by Associational Mission Strategist Josh Ellis, who serves the local churches in the Houston area. I'll draw some from Josh's article in giving the answer. 
 
I'll admit that I was surprised when I learned the answer to this question. Though I grew up attending Southern Baptist churches, it wasn't till I was planting churches in Florida and had to put together a church budget that I understood how these things worked. Somehow I had the impression that when our church gave to the Cooperative Program (CP), it was a "catch-all" that would help to fund entities from the local to the international level, from the association to the foreign mission field. 
 
I was surprised to find out that's not the case--the Cooperative Program and associations are funded separately. In other words, Southern Baptist churches generally decide on a percentage of their offerings that will go to the Cooperative Program and a percentage that will go to the local association. I say "generally" because some churches choose to go with fixed amounts rather than percentages. 
 
So what's the background for this pattern of funding? Back in the early 1900s, funding missions in Baptist life—things like sending missionaries overseas and providing training for ministers—was done primarily by individual churches giving funds directly to those causes. There were also state conventions and groups (called societies) that helped finance missions. So each church decided—as they were regularly visited by missionary couples, colleges, societies, orphanages, and any number of other ministries soliciting funds—to whom to give a portion of their offerings. These good causes were generally outside the church's local context. 
 
Missions efforts within the church's local context were carried out by the church and also by cooperating with other churches in the area—through the work of the local association. The local association was where churches engaged their context by working together. That continues to be how things work today. 
 
So how does the Cooperative Program work?

  • The Cooperative Program was created to form a unified budget through which churches could support a number of missions efforts outside their local context. And from it, missionaries could be sent, churches could be planted, colleges could be started and maintained, disaster relief could be done, and a wide variety of ministries could be shared. 
  • The Cooperative Program was created to be administered through the state convention. Churches in Oklahoma send their missions offerings to the state convention (Oklahoma Baptists). Oklahoma Baptists retain a portion to fund their ministries here in Oklahoma. They send the other portion on to the Cooperative Program, where it is divided up according to certain percentages. 
  • The CP was devised with the assumption that churches would always primarily focus on their local context and, by proxy, support their local Baptist association directly. The local association should be an asset to churches wanting to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ in their local context. Our association gets a tiny portion of our budget from Oklahoma Baptists, but we receive no other funding from any Baptist entity. While it might appear that associations are part of the CP system, in reality churches must support them directly.  

 
But what about the special offerings Southern Baptist churches give on an annual basis? The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering benefits the North American Mission Board. The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering benefits the International Mission Board. In Oklahoma, the Edna McMillan State Missions Offering is given directly by churches to the state convention. These are given directly by churches to supplement the funds these entities receive through the CP.
 
You hear me talk a lot about how Together Everyone Accomplishes More (T.E.A.M.) At all levels, we're better together and accomplish more than we could alone. The Cooperative Program works much as it has for the last 100+ years, asking churches to give sacrificially so that all kinds of things can get done for the cause of Christ. And at home, CSBA operates on the same principle: we're better together. CSBA is planting churches, revitalizing churches, equipping pastors and ministers, and providing resources to churches—all for the good of our local churches. We're better when we do all those things together!

Matt Spann
CSBA Mission Strategist

Please Remember in Prayer

Randall Oswald; Clint Thrasher; James Carter; Cody Belcher; Debbie Brock; Robert & Julie James; Kathy O'Hair; Marge Zentner; Brandon Carter; Cleta Shafer; Chris, Elizabeth, & Barbara; Kerry Grisham; Kathy Strohmeyer; Faith; Leah Muhle; Marty & Billie Peckonis; Pastor Matt & Ruth Ann; Milton Jones and mom, Becky; Doug Riggs; Rosalie and son, Tommy; Diane Lasky; Brian Rash;  Don Turner; Randall Riggs; Victims of gun violence; Those with Cancer; Nursing Home Bound; Pastors & Church Leadership; Our Church; Our Youth; Missionaries; China's Imprisonment of Pastors; Persecuted Christians; Our Nation; Our Government; Our Military; Firemen and Police Officers; Israel; Unspoken requests.

Summary of September 3, 2023:   

           General Budget Offering:    $282.89