For the third year in a row, MTSBC has hosted an information booth at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. This year’s meeting was held at the Kay Bailey Hutchinson Convention Center in Dallas, TX. The theme for the meeting was “Testify! Go. Stand. Speak.” Nearly 10,000 messengers attended the convention this year.
Many Montana planters and pastors, as well as MTSBC staff, helped “man” the booth this year. The increased attendance for the meeting brought heavy traffic to the exhibit hall, resulting in multiple opportunities to engage people in conversations.
The purpose of the MTSBC booth in the exhibit hall is to raise awareness for ministry opportunities in Montana and invite people to join in the work of churches and church plants throughout the state. As visitors stopped by the booth, we engaged in conversation about their own ministries and then asked if they were interested in hearing about opportunities that existed in Montana. We gave visitors “Montana Cards” that included the MTSBC website and a short description of the desire to reach Montana with the gospel. We also gave out refrigerator magnets that would be a constant reminder to pray for Montana, prayer cards for individual planters, and other Montana mementos to keep people thinking and praying about our state.
As people stopped by the booth we challenged them to “answer the call” by allowing us to gather contact information so we could follow up with them about specific interests for ministry in Montana. After people registered, we gave them an elk call as a reminder of their visit to the MTSBC booth.
Many of the visitors expressed interests, in such possibilities as pastoring, planting churches, sending mission teams, and partnering with MTSBC churches. We pray that we have results much like 2016 and 2017, where follow up with these contacts resulted in relationships being built with other churches across the nation.
We have already secured a booth for the 2019 Annual Meeting in Birmingham, AL. This should be a well-attended convention and we look forward to seeing more relationships and partnerships developed through these recruiting events.
Visiting with SBC Annual Meeting attendees at the MTSBC Booth.
Montana items given out at SBC Annual Meeting Booth.
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