GARDEN CITY, Kansas (BP) – The nations are coming here, and First Southern Baptist Church is ready for them.
These are hard-working immigrants and refugees from Afghanistan, Benin, Haiti, Myanmar, the Philippines, Somalia, Vietnam and other nations.
“The church has been open to international ministry for 40 years,” Pastor John Harms told Baptist Press. “They tend to come in waves and leave in waves it seems.
“We have to be flexible with who’s in our community at different times,” continued Harms, who has been pastor here for seven years. “Churches need to pay attention to social and economic demographics.”
First Southern Garden City, organized in 1949, brings disparate people groups to its facilities for worship and also reaches out locally and throughout southwestern Kansas in a variety of other ministries. The church’s main focus at this time is expanding and deepening the discipleship – disciple-making – of the congregation as well as planting new churches as God leads.
“I really feel like we have the opportunity in rural western Kansas to impact the world,” Harms said. “God has brought the nations to Garden City. We have a great opportunity to make disciples and release them back to their nations.
“We [Southern Baptists] do not have enough healthy churches,” the pastor continued. “Why? We’re not being obedient to the Scripture of making disciples.”
First Southern Garden City for the last year has been focusing on making disciples. It and eight other Kansas churches went through a process led by the Kansas Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists (known as Church Forward) and by a ministry called Clarity House to build a disciple-making culture that flows from a disciple-making way of life.
Clarity House coaches pastors and other church leaders to discover, develop and deploy disciples from within their churches.
“We’re implementing discipleship groups,” Harms said. “We’ve clarified what is a disciple and the four callings of a disciple. We believe a disciple is a Humble Learner, Intentional Neighbor, Servant Leader and a Kingdom Builder.”
A person is not a disciple if he or she is not following Jesus through Bible study and prayer, and unless they are discipling someone else who is discipling someone else, the pastor added.
“We created curriculum that helps us implement in our lives the four callings of a disciple, the goal being multiplication,” Harms said.
About 240 people participate in Sunday worship at First Southern Garden City. Eight people have been baptized so far this year, with more “in the queue,” the pastor said. Harms’ official title is “teaching pastor.” He serves with three elders, who help shepherd and care for the congregation, and provide him with wise counsel, Harms said.
“We were an unhealthy church for a long time,” the pastor said. “First we had to repent. Our 75th anniversary coming up in November is causing us to reevaluate everything we’re doing. Are we being obedient to the Lord’s command – the Great Commission – to make disciples?”
One goal for the church is to plant three churches in the next five to seven years, with leaders raised up from the congregation. First Southern Garden City already is the primary Kansas sponsor of Seed of Hope Church in Colby, Kansas, two hours north of Garden City, where Tim Watts is pastor.
“We saw an opportunity to partner with this church plant,” Harms said. “There needs to be more churches in our region, Colby needs a healthy church and we wanted to be part of that. This next budget cycle we hope to establish a church plant fund.”
Three other congregations share facilities with First Southern Garden City: Hispanic, Haitian and international, which is predominantly Filipino. Harms credits church member Jonathan Galia, a chaplain at Tyson Foods meat packing plant in Garden City, with the additional congregations.
“We felt we needed to open our building to these other congregations,” Harms said. “Our Haitian pastor was working at Tyson. [Pastor] Jean started talking about an opportunity for ministry. Once we started promoting it [a Haitian church,] they really just started coming. That was five years ago, and the Haitian church has had to change rooms and start times as they continue to need more space.
“We use technology to address common issues, like installing electronic locks that go off and on at pre-programmed times for security, since it’s easy to forget to lock up. Everybody is respecting the space,” Harms said.
First Southern Garden City’s Student Pastor Josh Gordon led students to pass out Tide laundry detergent pods the first week of classes at Garden City Community College this fall, to introduce newcomers to the SBC’s Christian Challenge collegiate ministry.
In August, the church hosted a luncheon for 37 Filipino teachers new to the United States.
“We fed them lunch, shared about the church and gave them goodie bags,” Harms said. “When we see a ministry opportunity we just try to do it. We have many teachers and administrators in our church who knew they were coming, and told us. After a tour of the Tyson plant we fed them lunch and loved on them.”
Christmas brings an international worship day followed by an international potluck dinner, creating the opportunity for fellowship between the congregations and cultures. It also allows an opportunity to highlight how Southern Baptists work together throughout the world and the Cooperative Program.
“The Cooperative Program is the best way to invest in regional and global missions,” Harms said. “It’s one of the greatest missions funds ever. We’re increasing [our giving] a quarter percent a year because of the Kingdom impact it has.”
First Southern Garden City now gives 5 percent to missions through the Cooperative Program.
“I’ve personally seen what the Cooperative Program does,” Harms said. “We’ve partnered the last five years with Baptist Theological Seminary of Zambia, took a mission team there for two weeks in June. The International Mission Board, which had started the seminary in 1967, gave all of the property to the Baptist Fellowship of Zambia in July. That seminary is a clear example of the Cooperative Program at work around the world.”
Harms requested prayer for faithfulness in disciple-making, for church planters and gospel proclaimers to be raised up in Western and Central Kansas, and for the ability to make disciples and to be obedient to God’s command.
