Task force seeks honest look at evangelism, aims to encourage Mississippi Baptist churches
By Megan Young
Editor
In response to a motion made during the 2025 Annual Meeting of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, a recently created Evangelism Task Force met for the first time March 5 with the intention of studying the current state of evangelism and baptisms among Mississippi Baptist churches and reporting its findings and any recommendation to the convention at the next annual meeting.
The goal of the task force is to pinpoint best practices in evangelism and to share those insights with other churches throughout the state in an effort to further the Great Commission.
“My hope would be that we would have an honest understanding of where we are, kind of the state of what our churches are doing and what we’re seeing in Mississippi,” said Chesteen, Evangelism Task Force member and president of the Mississippi Baptist Convention. “I hope the task force is able to provide stories and insights and to call all of our churches back to remember that we have the Great Commission and God sent us into the harvest.”
By analyzing data throughout the state, the task force will look for correlations between baptism numbers and evangelistic practices within churches that are growing.
“We’re hoping to learn from each other, from churches that are reaching people, because you can see it through their number of baptisms,” said Bo Rice, chair of the task force and Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church, Brandon. “If they’re a church that is reaching people and growing, there’s something that we can learn from that.”
Information gathered will be used to bolster the evangelistic efforts of Mississippi Baptist churches as a whole, while encouraging pastors who may be weary by offering support and training.
“Our goal is to remind all of our fellow pastors in the state that we’re still serving the same Lord of the harvest, and the commission He’s given us — that hasn’t changed,” said Rice, who is also Professor of Evangelism and Preaching at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. “We’ve got to encourage each other, equip each other, challenge each other, hold each other accountable, but at the same time, come together to do the work that God has called us to do.”
The Evangelism Task Force will accomplish its mission primarily through two questionnaires. The first questionnaire will be general and sent to all Mississippi Baptists churches that completed an Annual Church Profile (ACP). The second will be sent to churches in each category based on average worship attendance numbers, focusing on evangelism efforts in their churches.
Questions will focus on evangelism practices, community engagement, discipleship and follow-up, and reflection and improvement. The data collected will be reviewed by task force member Judy Lyons, a trained clinical psychologist with a background in research and survey analysis.
Lyons and the other task force members hope to find common threads among Mississippi Baptist churches that are succeeding in their evangelistic efforts in order to offer tangible help statewide.
“What are the some of the things that work for them?” asked Lyons. “Are there things that we could offer as support services to the churches that would help them with evangelism or training or whatever it is that they need?”
The Evangelism Task Force will present its analysis and recommendations at the upcoming 2026 Mississippi Baptist Convention to be held Oct. 27-28 at Broadmoor Baptist Church in Madison.
Ultimately, said Chesteen, the task force will seek to keep the Great Commission the top priority among Mississippi Baptist churches by “putting evangelism on the forefront of what we’re doing as a convention of churches.”
“My dream is to see every Mississippi Baptist church reaching people for Christ and seeing them come to be more like Christ,” echoed Rice.
Evangelism Task Force members:
- Dr. Bo Rice, chair, Senior Pastor, First Church, Brandon
- Dr. Judy Lyons, member, Twin Lakes Church, Madison
- Dr. David Haynes, Senior Pastor, First Church, Senatobia
- Rev. David Williams, Associational Missions Strategist, Lincoln Baptist Association
- Rev. Caleb Lewis, Senior Pastor, Faithview Church, Saucier
- Dr. Lloyd Sweatt, Senior Pastor, Meadowood Church, Amory
- Rev. Collin Montgomery, Senior Pastor, First Church, Greenwood
Ex officio members:
- Dr. Andrew Chesteen, convention president
- Dr. Jon Martin, chief strategy officer, MBCB
- Rev. Don Lum, director, Evangelism, MBCB