Initiatives

	Spiritual Vitality
	Sharing the Gospel to Impact Lostness
	Multiplication of Disciples and New Churches
	Value of Cooperative Giving

     
Will South Carolina Baptist churches experience “the righteousness, peace, and joy of the Holy Spirit” which characterizes life in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ? These initiatives represent a biblical roadmap for reaching this place of fulfillment.

Every church should desire spiritual vitality. This vitality emanates not from a building, a program or a religious tradition, but from people; people who, having responded in faith to the message of the gospel, and are filled with the presence and poser of the Holy Spirit. Only as the Spirit is free to work through such believers, will the church be empowered to experience and share Christ’s gift of an abundant and eternal life with others.

The mandate given to His church by Christ is to ". . . seek and to save that which is lost” (Luke 19:10). The key to success in impacting lostness is the gospel; “the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes” in the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The church must intentionally share this message to the ends of the earth and everywhere in between. “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

The willingness of the church to obey the commands of Christ to “go and make disciples” will not only multiply the number of disciples, but inevitably the number of churches will also increase. Jesus’ method for building His kingdom is discipleship. He invested His life in the lives of others that they might be equipped to produce disciples. Christ saves people to do the same, making them “into servants and witnesses.” When disciples serve and witness, His church will be multiplied.

Only as the Body of Christ learns the value of cooperative will the task of world evangelization be finished. Sharing human and financial resources accomplishes far more for the kingdom than going it alone. These resources, when give cooperatively through the local church and shared with the local association, the South Carolina Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention, fuel Christ’s Acts 1:8 strategy for building His kingdom in this world.