“Be the Church” Training With Both Baptists and Cowboys

Good morning everyone!

Bill Burrows and I have enjoyed conducting a couple of “Be the Church” events this past month. The first week of March, my wife Nola, Bill, and I were at First Baptist Church of Mountain Home, Arkansas, to lead a 4-day “Be the Church” Conference. And then just this past weekend, Bill and I went to Western Way Cowboy Church in Altamont, Kansas, for a “Be the Church” Men’s Retreat. To those of you from Western Way who are joining us for the first time on our updates, “Welcome!”

I imagine that some of you who have never been to one of our “Be the Church” events might be curious as to what we do. So before I share about our trips to Arkansas and Kansas, I’d like to summarize what we do when we train. In these events we attempt to answer these questions:

What activity gives us the most leverage to grow our love for God?
What habits will empower us to expand our love for all people?
What simple activity would make our mission to make disciples doable for every believer?

In a “Be the Church” event, we focus on relational connections. We train and equip followers to engage in:

Daily life-giving conversations with Jesus
Weekly soul-connecting conversations with other disciples
Weekly soul-connecting conversations with non-disciples

If you boil it all down, we want to help people have these three spiritual conversations, and by doing so consistently, we fulfill the essence of what we are to be as the church.

“We believe that there are way too many people just going to church and a shortage of men and women BEING the church.” (Bill Burrows quote at a “Be the Church” training).

“Be the Church” Conference in Mountain Home

To talk about our time in Arkansas, let me start by telling you how we connected with Tad Rogers and First Baptist Church of Mountain Home. It was a little over one year ago, on March 12, 2022, when Pastor Tad and I stood together on a frigid snowy morning to officiate at the graveside service of my Aunt Willie Duprima, who was a member at First Baptist for many years. Tad and I hit it off and wondered aloud if maybe we could do something together. Once I introduced him to Bill, everything just clicked for us to do a “Be the Church” conference. Now that it’s done, I can’t tell you how wonderful it was for me. My only regret was that I wish Aunt Willie could have experienced the fun we had with the folks from her home church!

Tad Rogers, pastor of First Baptist Church of Mountain Home, Arkansas, introduced us at the Sunday morning service by sharing how we met and how Ms. Edith Mitchel, one of their long-time members, had been praying for our family since Mom and Dad went to be missionaries many years ago.

This is Ms. Edith Mitchel. She is 101 years old and one of the most vibrant prayer warriors I have ever met. Besides praying for my parents for many years, she was a great friend to my Aunt Willie. Ms. Edith is such an encouragement to all and is still going strong! She attended every one of our training sessions and delighted us all with her comments.

For the Sunday morning service, Bill and I did a tag team approach to the message and prepped folks for what we planned to do in the coming week.

The first night of the training, people were a little unsure of the seemingly chaotic placement of the chairs in the gym. We call it the “wagon wheel” process, and participants sit in a cluster of chairs that face each other. They practice short, minute drills of having conversations with a partner before rotating to get a new partner.

Inevitably, once people get started talking with one another, many begin to enjoy the interactions.

Between drills, we teach different concepts before we practice again. Here I’m talking about how we can treat people as objects and not as people. Bill thought I was taking a little too long to make my point!

After getting up from the floor, Bill seemed to take his abuse fairly well! He talked more on how we can see the value of all persons and avoid being at war in our hearts—even when we have different interests, opinions, concerns, and expectations.

Besides making some great friends in Mountain Home, since being down there, we have been thrilled to hear reports that many who went through the training are using several of our conversation starters on Facebook and with their small groups. I must admit that the week together was very meaningful to us as well, and we look forward to going back to have some fun and maybe even hit the White River for some world class fishing!

Western Way Cowboy Church Men’s Retreat

Western Way has been a generous partner through the years for our ministry outreach to cowboys in Guatemala. So it was good for us to have a chance to return the favor and serve them a bit this weekend. Again, we made some great friends and had a fantastic time. Bill and I also spoke to the church on Sunday and were impressed by their winsome witness in that region of Southeast Kansas.

As you can see, we got the guys doing the conversation drills.

Even some of the jokes they had to tell one another got a few laughs!

On Saturday, for a fun break from the action, Bob Courtney (far right) got the guys doing a golf cart race through an obstacle course. The driver was blindfolded, and the partner had to call out directions from the microphone. There were some near disasters in the process, but thankfully no insurance claims had to be filed!

Folks gathered for the Sunday morning service.

Pastor Les Green (center) leads the congregation in a few songs.

During the weekend, we teamed up with Bob and Alta Courtney. Here they are singing a special song for the Sunday service that they plan to record on their next album. During the retreat they also gave us lots of laughs from their music and comedy routine.

To commemorate our time with Western Way, we gave this plaque to the church to thank them for inviting us and to serve as a reminder to pray for us and our other friends in ministry all over the world.

Thanks so much to all of you at both Western Way and Mountain Home. What a joy it is to partner with you!

Coming up, I’m preparing to head out to Norfolk, Nebraska, and then to Guatemala with a team from Lenexa Baptist for the soccer tournament that I described in the last update. Stay tuned!

The Easy Button to Invest Now

10:02 PRAYER

(Pray Luke 10:2 each day at 10:02 am or pm that the Lord of the harvest will send out laborers into his harvest fields.)

Please pray for our friends in both Mountain Home, Arkansas, and Altamont, Kansas. Pray that God will continue to use them in great ways to “Be the Church” in their necks of the woods.

Continue to pray for the upcoming soccer trip April 10-17 with our Lenexa Baptist team. Currently, we plan to be in three towns, and as of today, they say that there are 90 teams scheduled to play! Pray that the logistics of our travel and ministry will go smoothly and that many will come to know Jesus as their personal savior during this time.

ENGAGE

This Friday, March 30th, I will be speaking at the Spanish Bible Institute at Northern Heights Baptist in Norfolk, Nebraska. Then Sunday, April 2nd, I’ll be speaking to the whole church. If you are nearby, I’d love to see you!

INVEST

We continue to be blessed by your partnership with us. Thanks to you, we have been able to do more than we could have imagined even a few months ago. From the bottom of our hearts we want to say, “Thank You!”

Please keep us informed of your prayer needs.

Love y’all!

Steve

PS…If you like hiking in beautiful places and having great conversations, you would love the Ozark Mountains, a short driving distance from Mountain Home, Arkansas. Here are a couple of pics from a day we got to hike near there.