A recent opportunity to visit with Terry Dorsett, executive director of the Baptist Churches of New England, only solidified my excitement for and interest in the ministry efforts taking place in the six-state region.
Located near the tip top of the east coast, BCNE supports the work of more than 350 churches in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
Dorsett has helped plant and serve in churches in New England for more than 30 years and is nearing his 10th anniversary as BCNE executive director.
Making the difference
It’s been a little more than a year since his wife, Kay, passed, and he’s still finding his footing following the two “most difficult experiences of his life” — her health battle and death — but it’s the BCNE churches that are making the difference.
The pastors and other church leaders have walked beside him, held him up and truly been like family to the Dorsetts, he said.
He’s also gotten to experience an even deeper level of community as the ethnic churches have demonstrated their form of care for him, counting him as part of their family and ministering to him from that vantage point.
In fact, 40% of churches in the BCNE network are non-Anglo, and nearly 20 different languages are represented.
It’s an extremely diverse network of churches there with some of the oldest churches in the U.S. mixed in with some of the newest church plants.
Dual alignments are more common since the number of non-religious people far outnumber those who follow a religion at all, much less those who would be deemed Baptist or something akin to Baptist.
Multicultural efforts
Churches centered around the gospel of Jesus Christ need each other and serve so well together that leaders in other multicultural areas are beginning to study how the BCNE churches do what they do.
Dan Nicholas, managing editor for BCNE, reported in late July about church leaders from Brazil who traveled to New England recently to explore the benefits and challenges of multicultural ministry in a post-Christian world.
They returned home with fresh ideas on how to effectively serve their neighbors from Haiti, Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and other Latin American countries, Nicholas wrote in the article posted at bcne.net.
The BCNE multiplication center’s Venture Missions initiative is a 10-day intensive learning experience. It offers opportunities to “engage the culture of New England” and learn from ministry leaders and pastors.
This year’s seminars also were taught in Portuguese and English for the first time.
Other intensive training efforts taking place by the 27 BCNE staff members (21 of which raise their own support) include evangelism and discipleship, student outreach, church revitalization and church life needs.
