Jun 23, 2017
by Rob Appel
Executive Director
Retrospect – ret•ro•spect – noun – a survey or
review of a past course of events or period of time.
It is hard to believe, but I have had the honor of serving and representing Seventh Day Baptists for over thirteen years! Time flies when you are having a good time! This causes me to look back over the years to see what we have done together, and the first thing I came across was this: The Challenge.
Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
Back in November 2004, I wrote in the Sabbath Recorder about a challenge that we all needed to embrace. That challenge was to have a new vision about our churches. I wrote, “The challenge was made to all Seventh Day Baptists to look to a new vision to work together to establish twenty new churches and increase in another twenty of our established churches over the next fifteen years; Vision 2020!”
So, how have we done in less than 13 years? We have added exactly fourteen churches.
2005 — SDB Church of Ft. Lauderdale — Ft. Lauderdale, FL
2007 — SDB Church of Southeast Atlanta — McDonough, GA
2007 — SDB Christian Church – Silver Spring, MD
2007 — All Nations Church — Grand Rapids, MI
2007 — Central Washington SDB Church — Yakima, WA
2009 — Agape SDB Church of Christ — St. Albans, NY
2009 — Faith SDB Church – Bronx, NY
2013 — Maranatha Community — Colton, CA
2014 — Bradenton (now Union Station at Dunedin) — Dunedin, FL
2014 — German SDB Church – New Enterprise, PA
2015 — Agape SDB of the South — Orlando, FL
2015 — SDB Church of West Palm Beach — West Palm Beach, FL
2015 — Full Gospel SDB Church — Cumberland, MD
2015 — Remembrance SDB Church – Fort Worth, TX
And we have three joining this year!
Redemption Evangelical Fellowship Church — Riverside, CA
Edgewater SDB Church – Oak Hill, FL
Agape Ministry Iglesia Bautista del Septimo Dia — San Sebastian, Puerto Rico
That makes a total of 17 churches in less than 13 years since the challenge. We have done very well, Seventh Day Baptists, in furthering God’s Kingdom here in North America!
And here is the rest of the story! We have another 4-6 churches getting ready to join us in the next three years!!!
There is always the other side of the coin however; the bittersweet job of working with churches that are closing their doors. This is never easy and never fun. But it happens and is sometimes necessary in the life of a church’s ministry. In the past thirteen years we have removed from our Conferences rolls about 12 churches. Some of these had not operated as a church for years and we had simply neglected to remove their names from our membership. One was removed because of their actions that were not in line with the Seventh Day Baptist Statement of Belief. Others closed their doors.
2009 — Community Church – Los Angeles, CA
2009 — Christ’s Baptist Church – Centralia, WA
2011 — San Gabriel SDB – Azusa, CA
2011 — Cornerstone SDB – Tupelo, MS
2013 — Nortonville SDB – Nortonville, KS
2013 — Sunshine Mountain SDB – Chatawa, MS
2013 — Vision Christian Fellowship – Westerlay, RI
We are growing! In November 2004 when I wrote this original post of Vision 20/20, we had no Spanish speaking churches. We now have six: two in Silver Spring, MD; Houston, TX; Riverside, CA; Seattle, WA; and Puerto Rico! And the potential for many more is on the horizon. This is an area of ministry we should all get behind!
God is good! All the Time!