INDIANAPOLIS – Northside Baptist Church has already successfully completed its “25 by 25” campaign.
Like most Southern Baptist churches, Northside Indy was hit hard by the COVID pandemic. Attendance dropped from 203 in 2019 to 100 in 2020, and was down to between 60 and 75 in Sunday morning worship when in December 2020 Jeremy Couture was called as pastor.
“Now it’s between 200 and 225,” Couture told Baptist Press in mid-October. “No huge jumps. Carefully just moving ahead. We have certainly regained some people who didn’t attend during COVID, and since then some new believers.”
Despite the pandemic hiccup, Northside continues the missions path it started on in 1963 when it became the 1,500th Southern Baptist church plant in the Great Lakes Region. Founding Pastor Gene Lake, rejected from overseas missionary appointment for health reasons, led the church from its earliest days to be missions minded.
Couture in early 2021 challenged the church to the 25 by 25 campaign. He wanted them to get involved in 25 mission trips or local ministry projects by 2025 “as a way to jumpstart outreach and evangelism,” Couture said. “I wanted us to have a goal we could achieve that would build excitement and momentum for the future.”
The church went on mission trips to Missouri and Kentucky, and several Sunday School classes got involved in various ministry projects in Indianapolis, including a 5k race, the local Baptist ministry center and several others even before they connected with three Crossover events the weekend before the 2024 SBC Annual Meeting.
“This [campaign] has re-ignited a passion in our church family to do missions, evangelism and outreach,” Couture said. “COVID was tough, right? It made us question almost everything. This – 25 by 25 – has been really positive. Our members are asking, ‘Can we do those kinds of things here that we did on our mission trips?’”
Each time one of the mission projects was completed, a photo of it was added to a display in the church’s Welcome Center, and after the 25th, “The completion of the project was announced and celebrated in a big way during one of our services,” the pastor said.
Serving as Jesus’ hands and feet and arms is one part of discipleship, the Northside pastor said.
“We started early on by establishing a clear discipleship pathway of three steps: engaging in worship, growing in groups and serving in ministry,” Couture said. “I spent a lot of time the first two years learning about the church and key steps we needed to take. We wanted to be sure that as God brought people into the church, we had a clear pathway for them to grow.
“We organized our ministry around that centralized pathway. And then our evangelism and outreach side consisted of different emphases or initiatives,” the pastor continued. “We have hosted a steady stream of community outreach events.”
Northside Indy has seen a “really great response” to the Easter Egg Hunt that started in 2021, and there is a long-standing annual women’s brunch near Christmas that is another evangelistic emphasis.
“We recently have been encouraging our people to be more intentional with Gospel conversations and personal invitations to church,” Couture said. “Almost every week we have a personal invitation campaign. We have invitation cards. We’re trying to make it as personal as we can. We have seen some success from that.
“A good portion of our visitors come from the internet and personal invitations,” the pastor continued. “There’s a lot of power in a personal invitation. When a member who cares enough about what’s happening and is excited about it, that’s an irresistible kind of invitation to people. At least we’ve found that to be true.”
Northside Indy calls for baptisms at least once a quarter, and makes it a major portion of the worship service. As of mid-October, three teenagers were to be baptized Nov. 3, for a total of seven so far in 2024, with the anticipation of others before the end of the year.
“It serves us well to be involved in a well-organized international missions effort, which is what the Cooperative Program is,” Couture said. “We believe God is doing great stuff through our missionaries and we want to continue to be a part of it.”
Northside Indy allocates 9 percent of its undesignated offerings to missions through the Cooperative Program, the way Southern Baptists work together to spread the Gospel worldwide.
“We have a missions committee that helps highlight and promote missions involvement,” the pastor said. “Just recently the International Mission Board appointed a couple who are now serving in Colombia. She used to be a staff member here. We like to hear from NAMB and IMB missionaries. We make that a big deal, and that makes our relationship with the Cooperative Program more personal. We get to make a face connection with CP.”
At least two dozen members of Northside Indy have gone out as missionaries, though not all with the SBC, the pastor said. They have gone out as staff members, chaplains, international and North American missions personnel.
Couture said sending out members on short-term missions endeavors “gives them a real passion for the Gospel. You can’t do missions without loving the Gospel message, right?
“And our people see God can use different kinds of gifts and talents,” the pastor continued. “It’s really exciting to see the lightbulb go on, that ‘I can use this skill or talent to share the Gospel in a missions project way!’”
Northside Indy’s vision has been to highlight life transformation and change.
“We have been blessed to see the Gospel change people’s lives,” Couture said. “We feel that’s exciting. When people hear of others beginning to use their gifts and talents, that can give them an ‘aha!’ moment, that God can use their abilities to draw people to Him.
“We want to continue the momentum started with 25 by 25 and Crossover,” the pastor continued. “We want to keep thinking and acting like missionaries in our own back yard. That’s another carryover from 25 by 25: It encouraged our people to think like missionaries in their very own lives. That’s key to being involved in the Great Commission.”
