Newsletter

January Newsletter

Happy New Year!

Anson County Crisis Ministry Needs

Anson Crisis Ministry need for January is soup (Ramen noodles, any flavor). They also need funds and volunteers, especially during this time with more people in need because of the pandemic. Margot Barnes is director. Hours: MTWF: 8:00 AM - 1 PM. You may contact the ministry at 704-694-2445 or ansoncrisisministry@gmail.com. For more information see: www.ansoncrisisministry.com.

Feed My Lambs Crisis Ministry also needs funds and volunteers, especially during this time with more people in need because of the pandemic. You can learn more about them or contact them at: PO Box 91, 2290 US Hwy. 74 W., Wadesboro, NC 28170. Phone: 704-695-1820,

The Anson Domestic Violence Coalition needs cleaning supplies to provide for their clients. If you would like to donate, please contact them at 704-690-0362.

HOPE Pregnancy Resource Center

Hours are Monday-Wednesday 11 am - 5 pm, Thursday 3-7 pm. Donations of diapers, wipes, baby lotion, shampoo, wash, diaper bags are always appreciated. Phone 704-690-6689 for information or assistance. Rebekah Carpenter is director.

To find out how your church can participate in this year's baby bottle drive, contact Rebekah Carpenter at 704-690-3213.

A Message from our Associational Missions Strategist

From David’s Desk

ONE in 2021

“Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."(Luke 15:10)

One is an important number. You can’t even start counting if you don’t have a “one!” One is an important number when that number represents you or someone that you love. Your world is affected when sadness or tragedy affects someone that you love dearly. One, it is an important number. What if one of your significant “ones” were seriously hurt, diagnosed with cancer or even died? Wouldn’t that upset you? Wouldn’t you do whatever you could to help the one that you love? If our “ones” are that important to us, shouldn’t we care about their salvation and their walk with God? Shouldn’t we care about where they will spend eternity or how the sin in their life is hurting them? Stop depending on someone else to do what God wants you to do. Be the one who will love your one enough to pray for them, invite them to church and to witness to them. You are the right one for the job because you are one of those who cares the most about your one.

COVID-19 has made it very hard to gather in groups, but many of us are still talking to and even visiting with the ones who are most important in our lives. Let me challenge you in 2021 to:

Pray for your one
Witness to your one
Serve your one
Invite your one to church
Invite your one to study the Bible with you or at church.

Share your salvation testimony with your one. Tell them about how you received Christ as your savior.
Share with your one what your faith in Christ means to you.
Share with your one how Christ has made a difference in your life.
Give your one a gospel tract, a Bible or a Christian book that explains how to become a Christian.
Invite your one to listen to an online message perhaps from your church or a favorite speaker.
Go to to find resources to help and inspire you as you seek to share Christ with the one that you care so much for.
And if you are blessed to reach your one for Christ, choose another one to love, serve and witness to for the Lord. Which one of your friends and family needs the Lord? Start with one in 2021. May God Bless and Guide you in the New Year!
I love you in the Lord!
David

Join us in praying for an unreached people group and a pocket of lostness each day with our 30-day prayer guide. As we pray together, we must also go together and take the gospel to the unreached and least reached among us.

God is opening our eyes to see the unreached and least reached across our state. Unreached people share the same ethnicity and language and are less than 2 percent evangelical Christian. Of the nearly 1.5 million foreign-born, we have identified 165 unique people groups, most of whom have never heard the gospel.

Think of a pocket of lostness as a gospel desert — a small geographic area with a large percentage of lost people. North Carolina has 250 pockets of lostness, where the general population is growing or changing faster than the church, which is creating barriers to gospel ministry in those areas.

January Prayer Prompts

To receive daily prayer prompts either by text or email, text the phrase PrayandGo to 474747 to register.

Prayer Guides

Download a digital prayer guide here or you can also download other resources to coordinate with this emphasis by clicking here.

Download a sermon guide, small group guide or or prayerwalking guide to use in conjunction with this emphasis.

For more information or to download the resources discussed here go to: https://ncbaptist.org/prayandgo/

(copied from: https://ncbaptist.org/prayandgo/ )

Share the Good News!

Have a special service that you would like to invite your sister ABA churches to? We would be glad to share it in our ABA newsletter. Just have the information turned in to us by the 15th of the month.

Calling All Pastors!

Wed. Jan. 20th at 10:00 a.m. Zoom meeting with Dr. Eric Mullis, Strategy Coordinator, Strategic Focus Team, Metro Charlotte, NCBSC. He will be back with us to talk about "Aligning Your Church to God's Mission, taking a missionary approach in our communities," Part 2. You can join the Zoom meeting from anywhere that has an internet connection! You can even join me at the MRC and to take part on my personal computer.

January

Calendar

Every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Pastors Prayer and Fellowship time at the MRC! Join us in person or online via Zoom!

Sun. 17 Sanctity of Life Sunday

Wed. 20 at 10:00 a.m. Pastor’s Zoom Meeting with Dr. Eric Mullis, NCBSC.

Tues. 26 at 6:00 p.m. ABA Executive Council Meeting. Let’s get going for the new year! All team leaders should contact their team members even if they can’t have their first meeting before our Executive Council meeting.

February

Calendar

10-16 Focus On WMU/ Heck Jones Offering & Week of prayer

Sun. 14 Valentine’s Day

Sun. 14 Racial Reconciliation Sunday

Tues. 23 Region 6, NC Missions Rally, Prospect Baptist Church, Albemarle

23-24 Re-imagine Disciplemaking Conference Friendly Ave. Baptist Church, Greensboro.

Pray Anson!

Join us in praying for the lost, the leaders and the churches of Anson County. Prayer opens the doors to the power of God. Let’ pray for God’s power to be revealed in reaching the lost and unchurched of our county. We will be producing a helpful “Pray Anson” prayer guide to assist those who would like to use it to pray for the lost in our association. We also encourage each church to do a prayer walk or prayer ride around their local church community on Saturday March 20, 2021. This will help us to see who really lives in our community, help us to grow in our awareness of community needs and inform our prayers. Plan now to join us! Please let us know if your church will be participating.

Love Anson!

Serving and Reaching our Community

for Christ.

We plan to follow up the praying for our association in the month of April with a mission blitz on May 1st!. We will take some of the ideas of Operation Inasmuch and adapt them to our church and our community to “Love Anson.” Each church can decide if they want to participate and what kind of mission and evangelism projects that they want to use to touch their community with the Love of Christ. While it is an association wide emphasis, it is really a local church activity! There is more strength, excitement and resources available when we coordinate our mission blitz together! Let’s show Anson County that Jesus loves them and we do too! Love Anson is one great way to do that! Our mission blitz date is May 1, 2021. I hope that your church will join us in loving Anson for Jesus!

Free!

We still have these signs here at the ABA Mission Resource Center They are available free of cost on a first come first serve basis.

He Got up!

And He’s

Coming Back…

We have 2 Corn Hole Game sets that are available free too. They need to have legs and bean bags. They are available free of cost on a first come first serve basis.

Advancing the Vision with Ronnie Floyd

Yes, 2020 had COVID happen,

but look what

Southern Baptists did!

While COVID-19 continues to reshape and affect everything across America and the world in 2020, I want to share a few wonderful things God has done through our work together as Southern Baptists despite a global pandemic. In our fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, Southern Baptists gave:

< >$467,073,000 through the Cooperative Program, which is the financial fuel that funds our Great Commission work statewide, nationally, and internationally.$159.5 million to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, which is the second-highest offering in its history.$49.3 million to the Annie Armstrong Missions. Following three record-breaking offerings, this remains and despite the onset of the pandemic at the time this offering was being collected.

When you add that up, it means more than $675,873,000 has been given by our churches to our Great Commission missions and ministries during this year of uncertainty. Beyond this amount, millions of dollars have also been given to other Southern Baptist needs beyond these three major financial priorities.

Even in the midst of this global pandemic year, we have appointed 416 new missionaries to take the Gospel to the nations.

Southern Baptists have the third largest disaster relief organization in America, only following the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Through the ministries of Southern Baptist Disaster Relief:

< >753,977 meals prepared for survivors of national disasters668,687 hours of work were given by volunteers7,975 recovery jobs were completed by volunteers, which includes chainsaw jobs, as well as flood, fire, and debris removal6,813 gospel presentations were made 875 people made the decision to follow Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord

Send Relief is a partnership between the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board that inspires, equips, and trains people to meet physical needs on the ground in dozens of countries, sharing the hope of the Gospel across the world. Send Relief is about meeting needs and changing lives. For example, in 2020:

< >More than 700 projects took place this year across North America and in 77 countries around the world228,000 N-95 masks and protective suits were donated to hospitals and first responders in 13 states304,000 meals were distributed through Send Relief ministry centers throughout America.

While facing extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances, our six Southern Baptist seminaries were able to prepare and equip:

< >25,023 students for Gospel ministry3,287 of those students graduated this year.

In addition, Mission: Dignity, a ministry of GuideStone Financial Resources that assists retired Southern Baptist pastors or their widows, is on track to set a record for fund-raising, having raised more than $1 million on Mission:Dignity Sunday and almost $900,000 on the nationwide #GivingTuesday emphasis.

This is not a comprehensive list of all we were able to do together as Southern Baptists. Each of our national entities, 42 state conventions, and 1,200+ associations can tell their own story of all God has done through our work together despite this COVID-19 global pandemic.

Everything we do is only possible because of the work God is doing through our Southern Baptist churches across this nation. If each of our 51,000 churches and congregations could tell their own story, we would hear thousands of stories that would astound us and greatly increase our faith in God.

Be encouraged: God has done so many things this year and He is preparing each of us for even greater things in the year to come.

Great is God’s faithfulness to each of us and our churches. Each day, remember these words: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV.

Now is the time to lead,

Ronnie Floyd

(Copied from: https://mailchi.mp/sbc.net/a-statistical-analysis-of-growth-in-sbc-congregations-by-race-and-ethnicity-1990-12217702?e=e1a5f81343, accessed 12/16/2020)

NC Baptist Foundation

Educational Scholarships

The NC Baptist Foundation has four educational scholarships available for NC Baptist students. Applications for these scholarships are online, and are open as of January 1, 2021 and will remain open until the close of business on February 15, 2021. More detailed information can be found on each scholarship at:

The Bullard Family Scholarship: For students preparing for full-time Christian ministry.

The Luther H. Butler Scholarship for NC Baptist Students: For full-time enrollment in a degree program at one of the following schools: Campbell University, Chowan University, Gardner-Webb University, Mars Hill University, Meredith College or Wingate University

The Mildred Frances Thomas Music Scholarship: For students who are music majors with an interest in piano and/or organ as their medium.

The Martha Watson Scholarship: For full-time enrollment in a degree program at any institution of higher education.

ATTENTION SENIORS AGE 65+

North Carolina Baptist Aging Ministry (NCBAM) has been awarded a $40,000 Fire Prevention and Safety Grant from the Department of Homeland Security / FEMA.

NCBAM will use grant funds to enhance its Priority #1: Prevention outreach to make aging adults safer in their homes. Trained volunteers will install long life, battery-powered smoke alarms, at no charge, in the homes of individuals 65+ who do not have working alarms and replace alarms that are more than 10 years old. In addition, the ministry will have carbon-monoxide alarms to provide in homes with appliances that burn fossil fuels as well as a limited number of Lifetone alarms for deaf individuals.

Properly-identified volunteers will canvass neighborhoods and ask permission to check residents’ smoke alarms. When alarms need to be replaced, new alarms will be installed in the proper locations at no charge. To follow Covid-19 safety precautions, volunteers will wear masks and gloves and maintain social distancing. Residents will also be asked to wear masks during installation.

Individuals may contact the NCBAM Call Center at 877.506.2226 to request smoke alarms. Alarm recipients must be 65+, not currently have properly working smoking alarms, or have alarms that are more than ten years old.

CONTACT US