Category: Uncategorized

Our largest challenge is a downsizing and restructuring of our governance system from 32 officers to a nine member Leadership Board. This has necessitated a re-write of the By-Laws. We have been working diligently on this and the discussions have been good. In the new structure some “new” folks have stepped up into leadership roles.

From last July, we started small group discipleship training and this program motivates members who cannot join regular worship services for their different work shift. Later this resulted to start regular cell group worship every week on Wednesday night, lead by evangelism and mission committee. From this I learn that reaching out our members at homes and in their convenient time builds strong root for church growth.

The executive minister and ABCGI staff worship with us occasionally and give us guidelines to work together with other believers in ABC. They also support us for pastor’s MMBB premium.

Woodland Baptist Church began ministry in Mary 1946. The church began meeting in houses and eventually met in the Fox’s Skating Rink building on Madison Avenue. The Chuch purchased property at 3200 S. East St., and began building a church for worship. Woodland served the Lord and ministered to the people on the southside for 69 years. In July of 2015, Woodland merged its congregation with Southport Baptist Church and in October 2015, Woodland sold its building to the Lautu Evangelical Church.

Most of Woodland’s congregation continues to worship and serve the Lord with the members of Southport Baptist Church. In celebration of our merging of two congregations and becoming one ministry, the churches voted to change the name of our congregation to ONE christian Church. The name reflects we are not two separate congregations (or ministries) but we are ONE. Our new name also serves remind us that in Christ we are taking part in “One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.”

The year 2015 was exciting for Westview Baptist Church. We started the year without the leadership of Fred Schooler, who was head deacon for 45 years at Westview. He passed away in the fall of 2014 at the age of 91. So new leadership is developing within the church but the outreach remains the same. This year completes three years of outreach ministry of bread give away and a free meal on Wednesday evening with average attendance about 110 people from the church and community. The evening service averages about 40 people. The highlight was the baptism of three people who joined our fellowship from our community outreach. There are an additional 8 to 10 people attending worship on Sundays from Wednesday evening dinners.

We received a lot of assistance from the Executive Director of ABCGI personally, and helping secure a grant for $2000 from our denomination for our Wednesday Evening Outreach.

Many challenges are ahead of us in leadership development and future direction of the church.

With the partnering of 36 other churches, we have been able to fund more than adequately the groceries (for 15 families) that go out to homes in our zip code every week. We have been able to provide clothing for 20 families per week and we have been able to feed dinner to 3,500 people per year on a weekly basis as we do missions with the community. The majority of our workers are made up of community people, with others coming from many suburban churches of multiple denominations. We have face painting and special activities for the children. We also have at least 12 individuals going from table to table to evangelize to the people. We also give out brochures about the church with the worship times.

Our outreach to our community continues with our very successful daycare/preschool which is serving approx. 100 children at this time. We also are providing office space and/or worship space to Indiana Kachin Baptist Church and Indiana Chin Baptist Church. We also provide meeting places for several support groups, clubs and little league.

We are excited about our merger with Woodland Baptist Church, which happen in July. The two congregations have truly become one. This was a long process but the leadership worked hard and prayed for God’s guidance. We are very blessed by the results.

The ABCGI staff is always helpful and patient whenever a need arises. Our area minister is very present in our churches ministry including the merger process, join concerns with Edna Martin CC, and the Burmese Community.

1. Tell us about a way you’ve reached out into your community. What happened?
2. What event from the past year most excited you? Why?
3. What new thing did you try in mission or ministry? What did you learn?

The first three bullet points above can be summed up in one ministry event we started last year…our “SVBC Ladies Tea”. We needed a large area, so we removed some pews and shoved the rest back to put tables in our sanctuary to seat over 100 women and girls. We were also able to take advantage of our sound system and LCD projector. It was held the weekend before Mother’s Day. We had around 15 rectangle and round tables where a woman from our church (the same number of women as tables – called a ‘table hostess’) were assigned a table, responsible for decorating it in any theme with plates, centerpieces, etc., and find 7 other people to sit at her table. Each person was charged $8.00 to attend. Our leader of this ministry contacted Scott Swan, our local (Indy) TV anchor to speak, as he shared his testimony and gave an alter call. He proved to be an excellent speaker!!! The men of our church prepared and served the meal. Our leader also contacted local ministries/missions that had dresses and jewelry for sale after the event outside our sanctuary made by girls rescued from sex trafficking. This ministry was viewed as a great success where it got several members involved and a few women accepted Christ. It was also an outreach where approximately 30-40% of the attendants were not from our church. We are holding this event again this year May 7th at 11:00 AM.

There are two other ministries that I see fitting into these categories, but are not new to SVBC. We also held our Annual Fish Fry again this past fall and it was successful once again. Several members helped with this outreach and many in our community were reached and fed!!!! Our other outreach ministry is our Peanut Brittle Ministry! A women’s ministry at SVBC, “Activities ETC.”, start in September and make over 80lbs of Peanut Brittle every Tuesday morning until right before Christmas. They take out a small profit to replenish their supplies (peanuts, syrup, sugar, etc. – even take donations and collect soda cans to help keep costs down as not to go too much into the profits) for the next year; however, every other cent goes to support missions/ministries in our community!! This past year was the first year they sold over 1,000 lbs.!!! If you like Peanut Brittle, you have to try it…I’ll promise you won’t be disappointed (if you like Peanut Brittle)!!!;) They charge $9 a pound, $5.00 a half pound, and for the first time charged $1.00 for a small package to sample!!!

Our challenge we faced was the “Ladies Tea”,, as it has replaced an also well attended and longtime favorite, our “Mother Daughter Banquet”; and, we served food in the sanctuary…’nough’ said!!!!;)