by Jim Edge
Introduce students to the Fellowship The opportunity to educate tomorrow’s leaders involves classroom time and also events beyond the classroom. There are many aspects of the ministry that we try to share with our students. One of the important habits we are emphasizing is developing the habit of attending a local Fellowship meeting and sharing in church planting.
Just a week ago, about 15 young men, all students at BBC, joined some BBC faculty members and myself as we attended the Missouri BBF meeting hosted by Pastor Eddie Lyons and High Street Baptist Church. The exposure those young men gained is valuable in developing future participants in our Fellowship.
On the afternoon they attended, they heard Fred Young, pastor of East Side Baptist Church in Independence, Missouri, deliver a powerful message on the importance of prayer. Young is leading a growing, successful, and progressive church in the Kansas City area. It was a great lesson to our students that one of the greatest needs of today’s minister is still one of the basic themes of Christian life.
I graduated from BBC in May of 1973. In October of the same year, my wife and I moved to the Boston area to start a church. At that time, there wasn’t a Massachusetts Baptist Bible Fellowship. There was only a New England BBF which included preachers from six New England states. My first BBF meeting was in November of 1973 in Hudson, New Hampshire. At that meeting, a vote was taken to split the New England BBF into a Northern New England BBF (Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont) and a Southern New England BBF (Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts). In December, the first Southern New England BBF meeting was held at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Chicopee, Massachusetts. It was an exciting time. Then two years later, we felt the need to divide even further and we formed Massachusetts Baptist Bible Fellowship at Twin City Baptist Temple in Lunenburg where Erven Burke has pastored 35 years.
During the early days of my own ministry, I eagerly anticipated the second Tuesday of each month because of the desperate need in my life for fellowship. To share our trials and share our victories was an encouragement to me and the meetings became a needed experience helping to keep me going in the work. I had never been exposed to the BBF in a meaningful way, and I didn’t understand the need of fellowship and participation until those days. I learned the hard way. I was in desperate need of fellowship and didn’t understand that need.
Several years ago when Bob Perryman was BBFI President, he attended a Massachusetts BBF meeting. He remarked about the vibrancy and positive nature of the meeting and asked if we knew the reason for the purported success of the Massachusetts BBF. The Jim Edge | President | Baptist Bible College view from bbc BAPTIST BIBLE COLLEGE reason given was, there were no “big boys” and “little boys” in the ministry. We were all the same. The size of a man’s church was not an issue. It was a common ground we fellowshipped on. We needed to be together at the foot of the cross. We still need that common ground.
Sometimes it seemed like we were trading money just to help keep each other fed and warmed. We needed one another and depended upon one another. Today we still need one another. Today we need those we can depend upon too. BBC exists today and will flourish tomorrow as we grow the number of churches, pastors, missionaries, alumni, and friends we depend upon. Twenty years ago, the group we depended upon was larger than today’s group. Many factors have contributed to the smaller number. My thoughts are not to dwell upon those that are no longer supporting, I simply want to see today’s number expanded.
I desperately want to show today’s students the advantages of participating in our Fellowship. When it’s time for them to leave these halls and begin their own ministries, they will come to realize that the Fellowship will provide lifelong friendships and mentors that they will rely upon to keep fighting the fight to win souls to Christ.