Two days of snow and then ice threatened — but failed to stop —those heading to the recent 2024 Midwest Leadership Summit in Springfield, Illinois. Some 1,000 people from nine Baptist state conventions covering 12 states signed up for the biennial event.
The summit, which was held Jan. 23–25, brings church leaders from the region together for leadership training and encouragement for ministry.
Called the “best event of its type in the Southern Baptist Convention,” the summit offered three plenary — and worship — sessions and 60 breakouts in 10 leadership development tracks.
Developing leaders
Ben Mandrell, president, Lifeway Christian Resources opened the event with an early bird session on “the short bench,” the difficulty faced by many churches to find and develop leaders.
“Multiplication is one of the most intimidating things in ministry,” Mandrell said of raising up leaders.
He cited statistics showing that in some states as many as 27% of churches are searching for pastors — a process that is becoming more difficult and taking longer.
“Who is the next generation, and how will we find them?” Mandrell asked.
Using Robert Coleman’s “The Master Plan for Evangelism” as a guide, Mandrell offered eight steps for a mentoring process that draws young people into ministry in the same way Coleman, in his book, advocated sharing the gospel.
“You can’t mentor in a microwave,” Mandrell declared, noting it takes time to guide someone in ministry..
“Jesus was always building His ministry for the time He was gone,” Mandrell told the packed room. “How would your agenda shift if God said, ‘You’re going to be out of there in three years’? Jesus was always working Himself out of His job.”
Having a bigger vision
In the opening plenary session, church planter Stephen Love, lead pastor of Redemption City Church in South Bend, Indiana, noted people are drawn to a vision that is bigger than themselves, as he told the story of planting his church.
“Our goal is never to fill the seats, but to fulfill the Great Commission,” the Chicago native said.
Missions outside ‘the buckle’
Trevin Wax, North American Mission Board vice president, resources and research, set the stage for the summit with a clear depiction of the mission field, especially outside the “buckle of the Bible belt,” addressing the explosion of pseudo-religions in the age of the “be true to yourself” mindset.
“We have to stop thinking about other religions or non-religions. We have to answer ‘Why Christianity?’ but also why not all those other quasi, pseudo religions.”
The core tenet of this era is “expressive individualism,” Wax said, which finds its definition and meaning within the person, rather than from an outside source, such as the gospel. This worldview creates so many versions of reality that it results in isolation and loneliness.
“The beauty of the gospel is that it does not isolate us,” Wax asserted.
How it began
The Midwest Leadership Summit started as the North Central States Rally in the mid-1950s to encourage Baptists in a largely unreached area outside the SBC “stronghold.” The rally was staged between two SBC annual meetings in Chicago in 1950 and 1957 as part of a move to create new local associations and plant churches in midwestern cities. The event met every three years, then switched to every two years in 2018.
In the Midwest today, self-identified evangelicals range from 18.7% in Wisconsin to 32.7% in Missouri; Illinois claims 23.7% evangelical believers.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Eric Reed and originally published by the Illinois Baptist.
