In this edition:
  • Executive Board Summary
  • The Church Refocus Summit
  • DakotaDisciple.com
  • Baptist Hymnal Giveaway
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  • Food Giveaway 2019
  • Wanted: Choir Robes
  • Baker State Missions Week
  • Youth Camp Leaders
  • Website Update
Executive Board Summary
The Dakota Baptist Convention Executive Board met in Bismarck, North Dakota, March 22-23. Below is a summary of actions taken at the meeting:

  1. The Board voted to receive South Canyon Baptist Church, Rapid City, and Northland Church, Fargo, into full membership of the Convention.
  2. Approved a 2020 budget worksheet to form the mass of our 2020 budget.
  3. Gave the Executive Director/Treasurer the authority to appoint a sexual abuse task force to work on resources and training in the future.
  4. Gave the Executive Director/Treasurer the authority to appoint an evangelism and discipleship task force to determine the best use of convention evangelism funds.
  5. Set a goal of $30,000 for the Baker Mission Week offering goal as well as allocated for the offering and its theme.
  6. Approved updated job descriptions for the DBC State Staff.
  7. Approved the transfer of money from the unrestricted fund balance for the following purposes:
  • $5000 for a sexual abuse training and prevention fund
  • $15,000 for a ministry leaders retreat
  • $15,000 for a spiritual coaching workshop
8. Approved to transfer up to $25,000 from any funds left in the Sturgis
Bike Rally fund to the Faith Riders.

The Board heard reports from associational leaders, the state staff study task force and the staff. The Board approved financial reports as well. The Board also planned its performance evaluation process for the Executive Director.
Food Giveaway 2019
Greetings to all of my friends in the Dakota Baptist Convention!  I am Ben Farrar, Pastor of First Baptist Church of Eagle Butte.  I am full of excitement, because I have some fantastic news to share with you.  But like all exciting news, it all begins with a problem of terrible weight.  
As you know, we recently came through the longest-running government shutdown in history.  In some places, people scarcely noticed the change.  But in a place like Eagle Butte, which is tied heavily to the Federal Government, it was a matter of terrible concern.  The greatest trouble came when the Department of Social Services, being unsure of when the shutdown would end, decided to send out February’s food stamp payment early.  While on paper this seemed like a good idea, in practice it resulted in nearly 3,000 people across the Cheyenne River Reservation being without food for the last two weeks of February. That’s more than a third of our entire population!  A terrible crisis was upon us, and action was called for.
In great haste, I contacted leaders of religious and secular organizations across the Reservation.  Of course, none of our organizations was capable of purchasing enough food for all of these people to eat…but what if we worked together? What if we pooled our resources-our money, our time, our volunteers-and met this tremendous need? It just might work!
We decided to make use of the food bank in Pierre, taking advantage of their rock-bottom prices.  The Mustard Seed, a local charitable organization centered around feeding and housing the poor, was placed in charge of shopping, so we could get the maximum effect out of our available funds.  But even so, the food we would need came at a price tag of about $10,000. And even with the cooperation of all the churches, we were coming far short of that goal.
But then someone asked me: “Why don’t you contact Garvon Golden?  This is just the kind of thing that the Dakota Baptist Convention tries to help with”.  And I thought, “Why didn’t I think of that before?”  Within 24 hours of speaking with Garvon, the Dakota Baptist Convention had pledged $5,000 to our cause.  The project was fully funded.
Of course, there was plenty of work to do after that.  But the community rallied.  Dozens of people volunteered hundreds of hours to make this project possible.  But God had decided to make it so.  Every day, an impossible problem landed in front of us that threatened to ruin everything.  And each time, that impossible problem would be solved through an amazing turn of good fortune.  God was in this, and was showing His great power.  
The relief effort was a tremendous success. With donated money, more than 30,000 pounds of food was purchased. This food was packed into more than 6,600 bags, and distributed to 17 different communities throughout the reservation. At first, we thought we would only have enough food to provide for the 3,000 food stamp recipients whose income had been affected by the shutdown. But it turns out that our math was very wrong. God multiplied the available food so that we could open the food giveaway to everyone, regardless of whether they had food stamps or not! In the end, we gave away enough food to feed more than 4,000 people. That’s more than half the population of the reservation!
What happened this February should stand as a testimony to the amazing things that can happen when God moves, and when people cooperate toward a common goal. I am in continual gratitude to the Dakota Baptist Convention for its great help in this crisis, and I implore God’s blessing upon you all.
Yours in Christ,

Ben Farrar
Pastor
First Baptist Church of Eagle Butte
May 10 @ 5:30 pm - May 11 @ Noon, 2019
Quality Inn
Bismarck, North Dakota
  • Identify ways to overcome barriers to church growth
  • Breathe new life into their ministry and church
  • Discover a path to strengthen your church
  • Lead you church to growth and health
Wanted: Choir Robes
Yep, you saw that right! We are looking for new (or really well taken care of) choir robes. The robes will be taken to Africa to be used in ministries over there.

If you have any, please email or call (605.716.0130) the DBC office.
Baker State Missions Week
September 8-15, 2019

This year's allocations:
23.3% Pastor & Church Emergencies
23.3% Summer Missions Intern
23.3% Camps, Retreats & Youth Ministry
30% Native American Ministry
DakotaDisciple.com
Visit dakotadisciple.com or dakotabaptist.com/disc-toolkit/ to get podcasts and other information related to discipleship in the Dakotas. Check out our podcasts featuring interviews with churches in the Dakotas who are making disciples. A new blog post or podcast will be posted every Friday. This Friday will feature part 2 of an interview with Jeffrey Mueller from Restore Church in Yankton, SD. We have additional episodes already planned with John Flowers from Living Hope Baptist Church in Fargo, ND, and David Apple, Adult Training Leader at Lifeway. If your church has a story to tell about how you make disciples in your community, Jeff Musgrave would love to talk to you and feature you in a future podcast or two. Be sure and check out blog posts on discipleship strategy and growing as a disciple personally as well. 
 
We are also looking for your ideas to expand our resources for discipleship in the Dakotas. If you have ideas for more tools to add to the virtual kit at dakotadisciple.com , email or call (701.818.8801) Jeff Musgrave. And if you haven’t yet received a toolkit, please contact the DBC office or Jeff and we will get one to you.
Youth Camp Leaders
Attention  all adult leaders coming to youth camp this June at Crystal Springs! Many of you are aware of the current issues regarding abuse and misconduct in ministry settings. In order to be proactive in protecting our campers, we are requiring all counselors to have a current background check done before camp this year. This is necessary regardless of whether you have had a background check through your church previously. The DBC will cover the cost of the check. Your leader application is your consent to have this check run. Please be sure and turn in leader applications before the early deadline or no later than May 29 th  to give us time to process the background checks. Any adult leader who does not consent to the check will not be allowed to participate in youth camp. Thank you for your help in this.
When Hills of Grace moved into their new location, they discovered some hymnals that they will not be using. If your congregation could use some Baptist Hymnals, please let Paul at the DBC office know. He'll gladly ship them to you. There are approximately 25 red and 25 grey hymnals available.

First come, first serve!
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