Why are you ministering through Denton Bible Church/Serve and not the IMB or another ministry?

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Sweet Lily, standing on her drum dancing to fiddle music first thing in the morning.  She wakes up full of life!

 
Hi Friends and Prayer Warriors,


Given that I graduated from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (an SBC institution), and we're members of a Southern Baptist Church, a question I'm often asked is "Why are you ministering through Denton Bible Church/Serve and not the IMB or another ministry?"

That question has multiple answers, depending on the perspective.  First, from a theological perspective, I affirm both the doctrinal statement of DBC and the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.  Though their emphases are slightly different, they agree on the foundational doctrines of our faith.

Second, from a calling perspective, I believe that my calling is to train pastors and church leaders.  Each of the various missions agencies has a slightly different emphasis that is helping to move the gospel forward globally.  When I was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ in Russia, our emphasis was on evangelizing and reaching college students who would then be plugged into local churches.  It's a wonderful ministry and my time there was life changing.  But long term, it doesn't suit my calling.  When I was in seminary, I interviewed with the International Mission Board.  At the time, they were not taking new appointees for 2-3 year foreign commitments because of funding shortfalls.  We weren't ready as a newly married couple to commit to 4+ years, having never lived overseas together.  Also, the IMB emphasis is on frontier church planting, which is awesome work that needs to be done.  Again, I just wasn't sure it was a good fit.  Denton Bible Church's emphasis in world missions is leadership training.  As of the last missions conference, DBC missionaries were responsible for present training of over 8,000 pastors and church leaders worldwide.  There's no question that evangelism is a huge part of advancing the church.  However, training leaders to shepherd new converts is also vitally important, and DBC is helping to fulfill that responsibility around the world.  For me, it seemed clear this was the agency the Lord was calling us to join.

Third, from a cost perspective, DBC presently allows 100% of the funds we raise to support this ministry to flow directly through to this ministry.  Meaning, they don't charge any administrative expense.  Other agencies typically keep 10-15% of the funds raised to support their admin staff, etc.  Even most NAMB missionaries today raise their own financial support, but we'll get to that in a future post.

Finally, from a relational perspective, there's just something incredible about being a part of a team where you know everybody.  I've got the big boss's cell phone number in my phone, and if I ever get in a real mess, I can make a phone call for help.  When things are challenging, which is often, our small organization does a fabulous job of taking care of us spiritually and emotionally, which is vital to our life in the mission field.

Next week we'll explain the DBC/Serve and Mountain Vision relationship.

Things you can pray for this week.
This Thursday is our first Thursday food distribution.  Please pray the Lord would send those he would have us to help.

On Friday, we'll be making a mad dash for eastern NC.  We're going to a wedding on Saturday, and then Sunday planning to visit a couple of our partner churches.  On Monday and Tuesday, Daniel will be touching base with a couple of pastors of partner churches before coming back to TN on Wednesday.  Meredith and Lily will be in NC through Sunday, May 13.  Please pray for safety as we travel and for encouraging visits.  

One final note.  A couple of months ago we asked you to pray that the Lord would help us make the best decision for our family about our housing situation.  After much prayer and counsel, we've decided that the most cost effective thing for us to do is to build a house here in East Tennessee.  Daniel's dad, Papa Joe, is going to move here this summer and build it for us. We're excited about our home being a place of ministry, and look forward to hosting many of you in our home in the years to come.

Our dear friends Zach and Casey Kiker came to visit this week!

All the little ones did great playing together.

Lily with Aunt Casey and Noah

Late Wednesday afternoon we took the kids for a hike up to Sills Branch Falls.

Noah hiked all the way up!

Lydia and Lily rode up in style.

Look mom! A bug!

These centipedes were all over the trail.

The falls are beautiful.

Zach, Casey, Noah, and Lydia!

Shraders!

Lily wanted to get in the water!

The hike down was steep!

Why is the Appalachian Mountains one of Serve’s International outreach locations?

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She's a good helper!

Dear Friends and Prayer Warriors, this week it's our hope to explain why our team is here, and by here, I mean in this specific geographic location.  If you spend a few minute on the Serve-International website, you'll soon discover our team is the only one located in the continental United States.  That might seem a bit odd, but I assure you it's neither odd nor by accident.  First, let me explain why Appalachia.  This region is one of the poorest in all of the USA.  If you watched the video in last week's post, you got to see a little bit of that first hand.  Jobs are few, and many of the jobs that do exist here pay meager wages.  In that sense, Appalachia is more similar in its economic structure to most third-world or developing countries than it is the rest of the US.

So what does the poverty rate have to do with leadership training?  One thing it means is that Appalachia has one of the highest rates of bi-vocational pastors in the US, particularly in rural areas.  If the church can't afford to pay the pastor's salary adequately, he works a full-time job to pay his bills and serves as pastor on top of that.  This results in fewer pastors pursuing formal higher education like seminary to prepare for the ministry.  Quite frankly, very few men pack up their families, spend the money to move to seminary to receive a masters degree and then return to Appalachia to serve in a small rural church that can't pay them a full-time salary.  It just doesn't happen much.  So, many of the rural churches have pastors with no or minimal formal training.  Our desire is to help, in a sense, bring seminary to them and provide free, non-formal education to men who are already pastoring churches or who are considering the pastorate, helping them become more effective ministers of the gospel and changing this community for Christ.  Because of the high rate of bi-vocational and uneducated pastors, Denton Bible chose Appalachia as one of its outreach locations.

Why are we in the Tri-Cities area of northeast Tennessee specifically?  My team leader Charlie Cornett and his wife Earlene are originally from this region, though they moved away nearly half a century ago before returning just a few years ago.  Today, Johnson City, TN serves as a regional economic hub for much of the south-central Appalachians.  It lies on the doorstep of the most deeply impoverished regions in all the Appalachians; that being northeastern Tennessee/southeastern Kentucky.  Folks from the mountains all around will drive into Johnson City for medical care and other necessities.  Along with the Lord's leading, this area made sense as a logical place to set up "home base" so to speak for ministry in the Appalachians.  So here we are!

Next week we'll explain why we chose to serve with Denton Bible Church instead of the other available agencies.

As a quick ministry update, I had a wonderful visit in Charlotte with a small group from Elevation Church last Tuesday.  It was a joy to be able to share our ministry with them, and we appreciate your prayers as they prayerfully consider partnering with us.  My time with the men from the Baptist Association was profitable.  We continue to discuss and plan how we might be able to launch a ministry this Fall that provides time and resources for bi-vocational pastors in our association.  Please continue to keep this process in your prayers.

This week, some dear friends of ours will be here Tuesday to Thursday to share life with us and minister alongside of us.  We're excited they're coming!  Charlie and I have a conference call on Thursday with the team leaders of a group coming here from Denton Bible in June, so please pray the Lord would bless our plans for the summer trip coming!

I walked into the kitchen the other day to find Lily had moved the stool and was "washing" the dishes!

One can only hope she maintains this enthusiasm for years to come!

Church Planting or Church Revitalization?

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One of the questions being discussed a lot these days among evangelical leaders is “Should we plant new churches, or should we revitalize established churches?”   Before we answer that, a few of our friends have something they'd like to say to you.  Check out this new video.

Thank You from Greene County, TN from Daniel Shrader on Vimeo.

Now back to our question of the week.  Should we plant new churches or revitalize established churches?

I believe we should do both!  Both are vitally important to the Kingdom of God and the advancement of the gospel message.  New churches often have an evangelistic fervor that moves the gospel forward by focusing on reaching the unreached.  However, as they transition from new churches into established churches, the focus shifts towards discipling the existing believers, and the evangelism rate slows somewhat.  Unfortunately, many established churches have lost their evangelistic fervor altogether and are simply dying out as the congregations age out.  “Replanting gives you a ‘gospel two-for-one’.  You get to establish a good witness to the gospel in a community, but you also get to tear down a bad witness.  Dead churches scream ‘Jesus is irrelevant’ to the world around them.  When those churches are revitalized, the negative message turns into a positive one.” – Michael McKinley, pastor and author of Church Planting is for Wimps.

So if both church planting and church revitalization are important, how do they compare?  Consider this:

Church Planting	Church Revitalization  (or Replanting)
Requires a pastor/church planter and core group.	Typically has a pastor OR an existing core group.
Requires a meeting place.	Has an existing meeting place.
Requires significant funds to “launch”.	Requires minimal funding.
Most effective in urban settings.*	Most effective in rural settings.*

A question I’ve often been asked since the Lord called me into ministry is “Why don’t you go plant a church?”  It’s a great question, and the simplest answer is that I don’t believe that is what the Lord has called me to do.  The more detailed answer is the Lord has given me a heart and a passion to serve the underserved churches in rural areas.  *In my opinion, church planting makes a ton more sense in places like the Northeast, where, according to NAMB, there is less than one church for every 50,000 people in most places.  We need to plant churches there.   Lots of them.  Guys like my friend Jan Vezikov, pastor of Mosaic Boston and Grace Church Boston, are doing tremendous works and need to be supported.  However, in places like rural East Tennessee where there’s at least one church for every 2,000 people, revitalizing the established but dying churches makes a lot more sense than trying to plant new ones.    Again, Michael McKinley says it well. “Replanting also harnesses a lot of resources for the kingdom.  Dead churches are sitting on millions of dollars worth of land, buildings, and equipment.  You don't need all of that stuff to plant a church, but since Jesus-loving Christians have already paid for it, it seems like a shame not to use it.  And let's be honest... if we don't revitalize these churches, that land will become a shopping mall.” 

And so we labor with you alongside us to build relationships and establish credibility, so that we are able to help revitalize these churches.  If we were to plant a church, we could plant one, two at most.  By revitalizing established churches, the opportunity to impact many churches in this region lies before us, should the Lord will and allow it.  We sincerely appreciate all your prayers and support!  Next week we’ll explain why the Appalachian Mountains is one of Serve’s International outreach locations. 

This week, please pray for Daniel as he travels to Charlotte on Tuesday to present our ministry to some potential new partners there.  Also, please pray for Daniel’s meeting with the Baptist Association on Wednesday as we discuss ways to minister to bivocational pastors in our association.  Pray also that the Lord would continue to move that relationship forward in a healthy way.

On Sunday afternoon, we took Lily on her first real hike up to see Margarette Falls, about 30 minutes from our house.

At first, she didn't want to ride.

But she got used to it pretty quickly.

It was a pretty steep hike in places, and she wasn't real sure about it.

But she likes the water!

Meredith carried Lily all the way to the falls!  (over a mile and a half up hill!  Way to go babe!)

The payoff was worth the hike!

Eating my snack.  Grapes!

Resting before heading back.

She liked watching the waterfall!

I love this face!

Beautiful mommy resting a minute before we hike home.

Rinsing off our dirty hands.

She was enjoying herself quite a bit by the end of our hike!

Being goofy :)

Who are Denton Bible Church and Serve International?

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All dressed up for mom and dad's Sunday School class social.

Greetings supporters, friends, and prayer warriors!

What a blessing it is to serve alongside each of you here on the field in Appalachia.  Things sure are getting exciting in the ministry here lately and we can’t wait to share with you all the things in store as they unfold over the next several months. 

One of the things that we believe is a critically important part of our ministry is clearly communicating with each of you about our ministry: what we do and why we do what we do.  We truly desire for you to understand why we believe God led us here to minister and know what we are laboring on week to week.  So, to help with this, over the next several weeks, we are going to pose a “Shrader Ministry Question of the Week” about our ministry and then answer it for you.  We believe this will be helpful in that first, it may answer questions you currently have about our ministry but just have never asked, and second, it will help you communicate our ministry clearly to others who may ask you. 

Also as a part of this, we would welcome you to email us any questions that you have currently about our ministry in any capacity and we will make every effort to include it in this segment of our blog post.

So you will know if your question is going to be answered, here are the questions we will address over the next two months:

1.      Who are Denton Bible Church and Serve International?

2.      Church planting or church revitalization?

3.      Why is the Appalachian Mountains one of Serve’s International outreach locations?

4.      Why are you ministering through Denton Bible Church/Serve and not the IMB or another ministry?

5.      How are Serve and Mountain Vision Ministries related?

6.      Should missionaries raise their own financial support?

7.      Why did you choose Appalachia/East Tennessee?

8.      Why are you doing benevolence ministry and what does it look like?

9.      How do benevolence ministry and leadership training fit together?

Again, if you have any additional questions you would like have answered, simply email us at danielshrader26@yahoo.com and we will try to include them.  We hope this will be refreshing for all of you that support our ministry in reminding you of our vision, purpose, and why we are here. 

So, without further delay, our first “Shrader Ministry Question of the Week”:

Who is Denton Bible Church? 

·         Denton Bible Church is a non-denominational church located in Denton, TX, just northwest of Dallas.  The church was started in 1976 by Pastor Mel Sumrall and is currently under the leadership of Pastor Tommy Nelson.  Denton Bible Church is a very mission minded church.  You can read more about the history of the church here: http://dentonbible.org/about-us/history-of-dbc/.  Denton Bible is a church whose foundation of faith and practice is built on the Bible as the inspired word of God.  To read more about what Denton Bible believes go here: http://dentonbible.org/about-us/what-we-believe/.

What is Serve International?

·         Serve is the outreach arm of Denton Bible Church. Serve exists to glorify God by cultivating, equipping, and mobilizing Christian leaders worldwide. We believe the most strategic way to impact a culture is through its churches. Therefore we strive to serve local churches by strengthening their leaders so that they can more effectively accomplish what Christ has called them to do, make disciples. Serve seeks to foster consistent, intimate, and dynamic spiritual lives in Christian leaders worldwide through incarnational discipleship relationships. Therefore Serve mobilizes long-term missionaries who learn the local language and culture in order to establish credibility and cultivate relationships required to minister effectively in cultural contexts other than our own. This is accomplished through equipping leaders in the U.S. through our Missionary Training Institute and worldwide through various leadership tools, including Bible Training Center for Pastors. 

·         Serve’s Training Program is called “MTI” which stands for Missions Training Institute.  The purpose of MTI is to prepare Serve missionaries for service in vocational ministry both domestically and internationally.  Serve candidates complete three trimesters of classroom training over 12 months in MTI at Denton Bible Church.  Some of the class content they cover includes Old and New Testament Survey and Cultural Anthropology just to name a couple.  When a student graduates from the MTI program they usually either choose to join a Serve team established in the US or another country, or to go to work in international outreach ministry in another context.  Daniel graduated from MTI in December 2006 before we were married before going on to receive his Master of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.  Serve has teams in Argentina, India, Kenya, Mexico, Romania, Spain, Western Europe, Central Europe, and us, the Appalachian Mountains.  To read more about Serve International and the MTI program go here: http://www.serve-intl.com/home/

Now I can almost hear all of your brains asking: “Well if Serve is an international outreach ministry of DBC, why, amidst all of those foreign countries, are the Appalachian Mountains included?”  GOOD QUESTION!!  There is a good answer that we’ll get to shortly, but next week we want to set up the answer to that question by discussing church revitalization and church planting.  Have a blessed week!

                                                                                             

 It's been a busy couple of weeks.  Here it is in pictures.

We had a group of high school students from Boca Raton Christian School in FL come serve with us at the storehouse.  They were a good group and accomplished quite a bit in a short time!

The guys loaded all the scrap metal we had collected to haul to the recycle center.

The recycle center won't take buckets with lids on them, so these guys are opening them up.

Altogether we had...a lot!

Some of the guys also helped wallpaper the ceiling in the barn to keep the birds from pooping on our furniture.  It worked!

A group of ladies helped sort, fold, and label clothes to be given away.

Lily's first Easter Egg hunt!

She got some eggs, and she was very excited to open them!

Lily likes to ride the horsey at the park.

She also loves to go down the slide!

Notice the big grin!

This is right before she landed in the dirt and got dirt in her eye.  Dad couldn't quite catch her fast enough.  The transition from euphoria to sadness was almost instantaneous.  The things I put this child through for a photo op.

Mommy and Lily at our second Easter Egg hunt.

She knew the drill this time and got a bunch of eggs!

She opened every one of them.

Someone gave her the soft bunny rabbit they won as a prize, and she's giving him kisses.

She was not afraid of the Easter Bunny!

She gave the Easter Bunny kisses.

Playing with a toy stethoscope.  Mommy tried to help her hear her heartbeat.

We had 56 families for our food distribution this month!