Association Meetings

Book of Reports - January 27, 2025

Waccamaw Baptist Association Winter Meeting

151st Waccamaw Baptist Association Meeting—Good Hope Baptist Church

January 27, 2025

Meeting Notes by Dr. Jeff Gaskins, Association Missions Strategist

Reminders for our Associational Ministry

The association is not a church. We exist to come alongside our churches for encouragement, support, fellowship, and joint mission engagement focusing on the parameters of Acts 1:8. Associations don’t do missions or evangelism or church planting. Churches do.

Local associational work is at the heart of the formation and continued health of our SBC for evangelism and missions. The local church came first, then the local association, then the state conventions, and then the SBC.

It is a joy to serve our churches and leaders and partner together for Gospel advancement. We have never been in a better position to advance the Gospel in the Coastal Region than we are now.

Last year our theme was “Praying to the Lord of the Harvest.” Our theme and prayer for 2025 is that “Sowing for a Harvest” from Mark 4:1-20 will guide us as we work together this year to sow the gospel widely and with firm trust in the Lord that He will give the increase.

The State of the WBA Churches

Recorded baptisms in 2023 from our annual church profiles were 683, the highest reported in over ten years.

We have set a new record with 70 WBA churches so far completing ACP reports. We had 58 in 2023.

Mission giving and Coop giving among our churches are at record levels.

The $280,000 gift from the sale of Lordsway Baptist Church and their contribution to the WBA for mission work was unexpected.

Faith Baptist Church disbanded and their property in Aynor was turned over to Palmetto Pointe Church of God at the request of the remaining members.

4 churches are currently without pastors—Mt. Olive, High Point, Cedar Grove, and Wannamaker. All currently have an interim in place.

I am thankful for a good list of potential interims who have been trained and locally God called preachers who can assist with pulpit supply when pastors need assistance in that area.

I have been in conversation with multiple churches in our area that are interested in our mission partnerships and emphasis and are considering joining with us in those efforts.

Beach Church was recognized by Outreach Magazine as one of the fastest growing churches in the USA. Pastor Joe Donahue reported that they have had 300 baptisms in the past two years.

FBC Murrells Inlet and FBC Myrtle Beach have combined to become Coastal Church under the leadership of Pastor Chris Spires and his staff at FBC Murrells Inlet. This has resulted in a new opportunity for restored health and mission growth at FBC Myrtle Beach and serves as on ongoing model of what partnership can look like—Healthy growing churches coming alongside declining churches and assisting them to renewed health.

The State of Our Pastors and leaders

Three ongoing pastor cohorts led by Ronny Byrd and Mike Craig

Groups of youth leaders and worship leaders are meeting regularly for fellowship and sharing of ideas and planning.

Mike Velardo from FBC Surfside is available to provide education for children’s workers and I highly recommend you use him. See attachment to our book of reports.

A pastor retreat at Church Creek near Charleston has been planned for April. Spots are still available.

The South Carolina Baptist Convention is sponsoring a Senior Pastor and wife retreat at Hilton Head in February. Cost is $199 and registration deadline in 1/31.

The State of WBA and Missions

I am thankful for the continued growth of our newest church plants. Coastal Community, Coastway, Purpose, River’s Edge, and Chinese Baptist. We are praying for a new wave of church planting in our area and we are praying for God to raise up church planters and sending churches. Thankful for Tom Gore and for his work in this area. Pastor, if you have any interest in any phase of church planting or have some God called preachers in your church that could be potential church planters please see myself or Tom. There is a host of resources for you. We’d love to share those with you.

Our churches responded in a big way to Hurricane Helene efforts. Multiple mission teams were deployed, money given, and supplies sent. WBA disaster relief teams have been deployed to SC for tree work and in NC for rebuild work. The work in NC will continue for several years and mission teams are needed.

Our $280,000 missions gift from the Lordsway property presents the necessity for prayer and a Holy Spirit led focus to allocate those resources in a way that most impacts lostness and advances the Gospel in our local mission field and beyond.

Our current financial status gives us an unprecedented opportunity to invest in Gospel advancement. Your mission gifts were $30,000 above our budgeted requests.

We are blessed to have a WBA staff that has unity of focus on missions. Their walk matches their talk. Thankful for Mrs. Zelda our financial specialist, Mrs. Brenda our office assistant, and Kevin Cabe our Associate Strategist in charge of missions mobilization. David Neace leads the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at Coastal Carolina. Our church planting partner with the SCBC is Tom Gore. Thankful that Mrs. Kathryn Barnhill with Lifeline Children’s Services and Church Planter Jeremy Woods are able to share offices in our WBA building in Conway. Thankful also for the support of our WBA WMU leadership and church WMU groups who are actively involved in missions giving support and joint evangelism and prayer efforts. Pray for Mrs. Vicky Matthews who is recovering from surgery.

Association Missions Report from Kevin Cabe, Associate Strategist

Thank you for allowing me the privilege in serving the churches of the Waccamaw Baptist Association. They say if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day. That’s been the case here because I love what I get to do here. We have an incredible team lead by Dr. Gaskins, Ms. Brenda and Zelda.

It has been a great year of mobilizing churches to be on mission. Churches in our association have served all over the world. From Salt Lake City, New York City, in Puerto Rico, coal mining towns in rural Kentucky, to college towns in West Virginia, to Bangkok, Thailand and more. I led vision trips to New York City and West Virginia this past year and I’m happy to report those churches have already started the process of forming partnerships.

I have the privilege of serving with the Metro New York Baptist Association. For the past 13 years we have hosted an outreach called COATS FOR THE CITY. This year was an incredible year. We had two churches and Coastal Carolina BCM present for this weekend. Our volunteer numbers were down due to Hurricane Helene which is to be expected. We still had 200+ volunteers present over 25 locations. I’m happy to report that there were over 75 salvations reported over the event. I’ve asked David Neace to come and share about how this outreach impacted his students and what encouragement can you give to pastors thinking about participating in this event in NYC? Coats for the City is December 5-7 th this year. This is such an easy weekend trip to be involved in.

Dr. Gaskins and Pastor Richard Williams of Mt. Vernon Missionary Baptist Church attended a Vision Trip with the South Carolina Baptist Convention in November of 2023 with the sole purpose of leading a team back in the near future. Pastor Richard recently led his church to joining the Waccamaw Baptist Association and his primary reason for doing so was our shared interest is missions. In October Pastor Richard led his congregation to serve in Puerto Rico through Send Relief. Pastor Richard, would you share about the impact the vision trip and mission trip had on you and your church and what encouragement could you give to those considering serving on mission in Puerto Rico? If you are interested in serving in Puerto Rico through SEND Relief, let me know or Richard know, and we’d love to get you connected.

Last September we sent Joe Turner from Greenwood Baptist Church and Kyle Stewart from Palmetto Shores Church to Bangkok, Thailand to serve with Ann Nagy. Ann serves with the IMB and works on university campuses teaching English as a Second Language and provides outreach opportunities to college students. Joe approached me after the May meeting and told me the Lord was leading him to go somewhere. Truth be told, Joe has been telling me that for a while but after the May meeting he cornered me and said I think I need to go on this particular trip. There really is a cool God story in how Joe was able to make it on this trip with Kyle. Well- Joe’s not here…he’s on a cruise, but Kyle is here. So, if you want to throw him under the bus you can. Kyle – Tell us about the need in Thailand for the Gospel, how it impacted you and what encouragement can you give to people here thinking about going on an international mission trip?

“To be Thai is to be Buddhist,” is a phrase often heard in Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand which is home to more than fifteen million people. In this prominent and growing city less than 3% of the population identify themselves as evangelical Christian. The majority of Thais in Bangkok spend their days in devotion to idols and spirit worship. We will be partnering with IMB personnel in early September to lead a mission trip to serve among this group of people.

In 2024 we took a vision trip to St. John’s in Newfoundland, Canada with 6 pastors and in 2025 we’re going back on mission trip to serve with our partners in Mile One Mission. According to founder Steven Bray, Newfoundland’s capital city may be considered one of the least reached, and forgotten, areas of Canada. If we only focus on the city of St. John the reality is bleak at best of those who attend a local worship service every Sunday. In a time when the preaching of the Gospel is without persecution or confrontation across many Western countries, how can it be that so few have heard in a capital city? For us, this isn’t acceptable. They are on a mission to plant multiple churches across Newfoundland and Labrador. WBA- YOU are a part of this mission. We want to invite you to join us May 3-8.

Late last year, Tim Rice from the South Carolina Baptist Convention asked me if we would consider organizing a mission trip to serve in Tokyo. The South Carolina Baptist Convention has partnered with the Asia Pacific Rim which includes Tokyo. I discovered that there is 125 Million people in Japan and less that 1% are evangelical Christians. That’s 99% lostness. Less than 5% have actually heard the Gospel Preached. Tokyo has a population of over 37 Million people. That’s 4 times the size of New York City. It was a no-brainer. Jeff Moore- Would you stand? Jeff is a former church planter and has extensive mission experience and experience in Tokyo and has a relationship with iMB Personell on the ground. He will be leading this mission trip September 23-October 3rd. If you have question see me OR see him before you leave. Make sure you get his information too.

Announcement-

February 24 th we’ll be hosting an International Mission Trip Team Leader Training at North Conway Baptist Church. This will be from 9am-12:00pm with lunch being provided. If you have someone in your church that would be interested in leading an international mission trip, this training is for them!

April 6 th - ONE NIGHT will be happening at Langston Baptist Church. Last year we had over 450 people attend and we anticipate this one being ever bigger. This is an evangelistic outreach for middle and high school students. There will be food, worship from Anderson University, a Silent Disco.

If you go to the WBA website- you’ll see these mission opportunities as well as local mission partners for your church to explore. We believe that the Gospel compels us to go. We want to provide you with opportunities to join God on mission I’ll leave you with Jesus words from Matthew 28:16-20:

The Great Commission

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[b] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”