On Easter Sunday, seven
people will be baptized at Kellum Baptist Church — about as many as the church
baptized all year long in 2009.
The difference for this
congregation has been an effort to ramp up the focus on being intentionally
evangelistic. Kellum Baptist was one of the first churches to sign up to
participate in the statewide evangelism emphasis called Find it Here. Pastor
Jody Yopp said just the name of the emphasis grabbed his attention and he
thought it would spark the interest of others, too.
The Find it Here emphasis
asks pastors and churches to do four things on or before Easter Sunday, April
4: pray for the salvation of non-Christian family, friends and neighbors; invite
non-Christian family, friends and neighbors to Easter services; preach an
evangelistic sermon and extend an evangelistic invitation Easter Sunday; and
baptize new converts Easter Sunday or the following Sunday.
“I’ve been promoting it very
much from the pulpit,” Yopp said. “I asked our people to just try it. To see
what Easter can be like.”
The congregation got behind
this effort and they are taking it seriously. About a month ago members
received in the mail a letter from Yopp and an invitation card including the
times of the Easter services, map to the church and the words “Find it Here.”
Yopp challenged the church to invite friends, family and neighbors to church.
Since then, 10 people have
joined the church and seven of them are new believers in Jesus Christ. About a
month ago Yopp started the “Kellum 101” class for anyone wanting to learn more
about the church or church membership, and as many as 17 have attended.
This rural community church
located just north of Jacksonville has also seen its highest attendance ever in
recent Sundays.
“To get to Kellum you’ve got to find Kellum,” Yopp said. “People
have got to drive to us. And they are.”
The congregation is being faithful to
invite and witness, and the people are coming.
Kellum is not stopping at
Easter. They plan to continue using Find it Here for special evangelism
emphases on other Sundays of the year, like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. “We
can use this all year long,” Yopp said, “and that’s what we intend to do.”
Easter is still a few weeks
away, which means it is not too late for churches to participate in Find it
Here. More than 600 churches are signed up at www.finditherenc.org. The web site also includes Find it Here resources
such as sermon outlines, evangelism videos and prayer guides.
For more information call
(800) 395-5012 ext. 5557 or e-mail [email protected].