Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptists celebrate outgoing director Endel
By David Williams, Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist
APPLETON, Wis. (BP) — Gathering for their 41st annual meeting, Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptists readied themselves for a year of transition as they began their long goodbye to retiring executive director Leo Endel.
Under the theme, “We Will Tell the Next Generation,” the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention’s annual meeting was held Oct. 25-26 at Valley Baptist Church in Appleton, Wis. A total of 173 attended, including 75 guests and 98 messengers from 48 of the convention’s 195 churches.
Many on the program took the opportunity to praise and thank their third and longest-serving executive director who the previous month had announced he will retire effective June 30, 2025, after completing 23 years.
When it was his turn to speak, Endel reminded the messengers that, despite all the farewells, he still had nearly nine months left on the job.
He reflected on how he came to be MWBC’s executive director. “The gospel brought us together,” he said. “The gospel made us family together.” He then personalized Philippians 1:8, saying, “For God is my witness how deeply I will miss all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.”
Daniel Goba, pastor of Ebenezer Community Church in Bloomington, Minn., used his Saturday morning president’s message to compare the change of leadership facing MWBC to the passing of Israel’s leadership to Joshua after Moses’ death.
“Leo is not dead, but he is leaving,” Goba said. “Minnesota-Wisconsin, Leo is leaving. I want you to be strong, be courageous.”
A native of Liberia, the two-term convention president said that when he came to the United States he found, “I have three strikes against me: I’m Black, I’m African, and I have an accent,” but he was never discriminated against in the MWBC family. “Leo was the first American who really hugged me and loved me authentically.”
Goba said he was distressed to learn of Endel’s plans to retire, but took comfort when retired MWBC staffer Steve Melvin told him that everyone had been worried when the previous executive director, Bill Tinsley, left, but then God sent Endel to lead them.
“How can I not know that God can give us another Leo?” he asked.
Goba told Endel he is moving from active duty to reserve duty for MWBC and should “always be ready, always be willing, and sometimes be available.”
Speaking to whoever would succeed Endel, Goba said, “Mr. New Executive Director, you have a tall order,” and urged that person to be available, to be color blind, to “help with our messes,” to “see beyond our view of ourselves,” and to be a man to character.
Jeff Iorg, guest speaker for the pastors’ conference that met during the morning before the annual meeting, fittingly used half his time to teach the pastors how to manage transition during change.
Iorg also spoke during the annual meeting about his own transition from an anticipated retirement to his new assignment as president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee. “I did not take on this responsibility for my generation or even for the next generation,” he said. “I did it for my grandchildren. That’s why I’m giving these years of my life to this task.”
His message centered on how “Southern Baptists, despite our shortcomings, are still a force for good,” and was an adaptation of his address to the Executive Committee when he was installed as president Sept. 16.
Messengers approved a 2025 budget of $978,525 which is a 3 percent increase from the 2024 budget of $950,025. The percentage of Cooperative Program giving forwarded to national causes remains at 20 percent.
Messengers re-elected to a second term President Daniel Goba, pastor, Ebenezer Community Church, Bloomington, Minn.; First Vice President Chris Phillips, associate pastor of children and youth, Trinity Baptist Church, Reedsburg, Wis.; Second Vice President Joseph Young, pastor, First Hmong Baptist Church, Coon Rapids, Minn.; and Recording Secretary Tim Amert, member, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Rochester, Minn. Elected as assistant recording secretary was Glen Slatts, member, Trinity Baptist Church, Reedsburg, Wis.
Messengers approved the three resolutions reported out of the resolutions committee by Trey Turner, pastor of the Church at Wazeecha in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.: (1) thanking the host church and pastor; (2) affirming the Cooperative Program upon its centennial anniversary; and (3) honoring Leo Endel upon his retirement.
The meeting closed at noon with the introduction of the executive director search team that had been elected at the executive board’s Sept. 13-14 meeting. The search team held its first meeting that afternoon. The group has been charged with the goal of presenting their recommendation for Endel’s successor at the April meeting of the executive board so that, if approved, there can be a month overlap of the outgoing and incoming executive director.
The 2025 annual meeting will be Oct. 24-25 at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Rochester, Minn. The annual sermon will be delivered by Chris Reinertson, pastor of Southtown Baptist Church, Bloomington, Minn. The following year’s annual meeting will be at Trinity Baptist Church in Reedsburg, Wis.
Wyoming gathers to encourage each other
By Karen L. Willoughby, Baptist Press
CASPER, Wyo. — About 586,000 people live in Wyoming, and 85 percent are on their way to hell, Bill Harvison told his listeners at the 41st annual meeting of the Wyoming Southern Baptist Mission Network (WSBMN).
Harvison, who later in the meeting Nov. 7-8 at College Heights Baptist Church was reelected first vice president of the state convention, is pastor of Victory Baptist Church in Powell, the former First Southern Baptist Church in Powell.
“Wyoming Southern Baptists are taking the gospel to the lost,” Harvison continued. “The Wyoming Southern Baptist Mission Network continues to share the gospel with everyone who needs to hear it.”
Over the last four years, at various outreach events across the state, more than 14,000 people have heard the gospel proclaimed by members of the states’ 95 Southern Baptist churches. At least 425 people made professions of faith in Jesus during the outreaches, “that we know about,” Executive Director Rondie Taylor told the 150 messengers from 41 churches present.
“Encourage” was the theme, with 1 Thessalonians 5:11 as its scriptural admonition — Therefore encourage one another, and build one other up, just as you are doing — for Wyoming’s gathering.
Not that the reminder seemed to be needed. Wyoming Southern Baptists call themselves “a family of churches,” and being part of the family was evident in the warm hugs and cordial conversations seen during multiple 30-minute breaks.
Worship led by a praise team from First Baptist Church in Alma, Ark., set the stage for celebration. In his sermon, convention president Ed Tharp, pastor of Boyd Avenue Baptist Church in Casper, preached from 2 Timothy on mutual encouragement and gratitude.
“We can be thankful for the things we see God doing in other people’s lives,” Tharp preached. “Commit to pray for each other. We are in this together. … There’d be a whole lot less complaining if there were a whole lot more praying.”
Amid reports from SBC entities was one from Matt Trombley of the Rocky Mountain Foundation, part of the Colorado Baptist General Convention. Wyoming dissolved its foundation last year and joined with Colorado’s.
The Rocky Mountain Foundation broke three records over the last year, Trombley said: It paid back $600,000 to churches in interest, up from $200,000 two years ago; the Foundation now has more than $11 million out in loans; and it serves 50 ministries in Wyoming and Colorado.
“More and more we’re seeing churches define areas they see where a church needs to be started,” Wyoming’s church planting strategist Don Whalen told messengers. The Send Network team is working with 18 church plants and replants, plus six potential church planters in various stages of the assessment process, plus seven plants in their initial stages of development in 2024. Reports from four church planters stood out among all the state convention reports. In addition to the larger towns of Casper and Sheridan, the planters were from Yoder, 12 miles west of the Nebraska border, and Pinedale, southeast of Yellowstone National Park.
Fred Creason, Northeast region missionary and director of the Wyoming campus in three cities of Gateway Seminary, reported that eight men graduated last spring from what is formally known as the Center for Leadership Development. In its 19 years, there have been 156 graduates from at least 15 states, Creason added.
The business of the annual meeting consisted of the election of officers and approval of the 2025 budget.
Tharp was reelected president. Harvison was reelected first vice president. Reuben Marlow, pastor of Living Hope Church in Green River was elected second vice president. Dawn Kenney, a member at Sunrise Baptist Church in Casper, was reelected recording secretary. JoAnne Jackson, a member at Mountain View Baptist Church in Mills, was elected assistant recording secretary.
A $957,212 budget was approved by messengers, up from $949,500 last year. This included an anticipated $410,000 in Cooperative Program giving from Wyoming’s Southern Baptist churches, $105,000 in giving for the state mission offering, and $186,212 from regional missionary funding, plus $46,000 in interest and registration fees, and up to $210,000 from NAMB for evangelism and church planting.
On the expense side of the budget, $41,000 again this year, or 10 percent of total CP receipts, is allocated for Cooperative Program needs outside of Wyoming. The budget also includes a 3 percent cost of living increase for the WSBMN staff.
“We have a great spirit in our state,” Taylor told Baptist Press. “We’re seeing increases in baptisms, increases in attendance, and increases in giving. God is doing great things in our state in all areas.”
Wyoming’s annual meeting followed its Evangelism Conference with guest speaker Chuck Peters from Lifeway Christian Resources. Peters discussed how Gen Z and Gen Alpha can better be reached with the gospel.
“It was well attended and very valuable,” Taylor told Baptist Press. The evangelism conference included large group speaking sessions as well as times of Q&A with Peters and local practitioners.
The Cooperative Program(CP) has been instrumental in the state convention’s growth since in 1951 First Southern Baptist Church in Casper was started, Taylor said.
“We don’t exist without gifts to the Cooperative Program,” the executive director said. “We still couldn’t do to this day what we do without CP.”
Taylor, in his executive director’s report, echoed the words of Jonathan Howe, SBC Executive Committee VP for convention administration, who had spoken in his report to Wyoming that “Southern Baptists are a force for good.”
Taylor told messengers, “Our churches are a force for good as they proclaim the gospel, as they serve the less fortunate, as they care for the vulnerable, as they support and undergird their schools and their communities, as they love one another, as they invest in the next generation, as they teach the truth of the gospel, and in so many other ways.
“I give thanks to you,” Taylor said to the pastors and churches scattered across Wyoming. “We believe we are better together when we work together. Our impact is multiplied when we work together.”The 42nd annual meeting of the Wyoming Southern Baptist Mission Network is set for Nov. 6-7, 2025, at Mountain View Baptist Church in Mills, a Casper suburb.
