Chitwood: Plenty to celebrate

The Kentucky Baptist Convention annual meeting, coming up on Nov. 10, is less than two months away. I hope you are making plans to attend.

The annual meeting is a time of celebration when the people known as Kentucky Baptists will offer praise and thanksgiving for the ways God has chosen to use us this year. And we have plenty to celebrate!

This year we will celebrate new records in salvation decisions through Baptist Campus Ministries and Crossings Camps. We will celebrate another best year on record in church planting. We will celebrate a record number of consultations conducted by KBC team members to strengthen local churches in every aspect of ministry, missions, and evangelism.

We will celebrate the second-highest Eliza Broadus Offering for State Missions on record. We will celebrate growth in baptisms, church membership, Cooperative Program giving, and the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong missions offerings.

We will celebrate the true and undefiled religion of Kentucky Baptists, being lived out as we care for a record number of hurting children at Sunrise. We will celebrate Kentucky Baptists’ commitment to discipling the next generation, as evidenced through our ongoing investment in Clear Creek Baptist Bible College, a record number of students enrolled at the University of the Cumberlands, and rapidly growing enrollment at Oneida Bible Institute.

And that is just the beginning of all we have to celebrate!

The Apostle Peter called God’s people a “chosen” people. Peter wrote,

“You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).

Peter then stated his counsel to the holy nation of God’s people during their temporary sojourn on earth: “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (v. 12).

In these days when some speak against us, my prayer for Kentucky Baptists as we, God’s chosen people, gather for our annual meeting, is that our time together will be not only a time of celebration. I also pray that we will renew our commitment to live and serve in such a way that we will display God’s glory so others might be drawn to Him as the Spirit uses our good deeds and verbal witness of the gospel. I pray what should happen will happen, that through us the light of Christ will shine brighter as the world becomes darker.

Mark your calendar for the KBC Annual Meeting celebration on Nov. 10 at Severns Valley Baptist Church in Elizabethtown. I hope to see you there!