Baptisms in Southern Baptist Churches have been in decline for eight of the past 10 years, according to a recent article from Facts & Trends magazine. The Kentucky Baptist Convention—created by churches, for churches, to help churches reach Kentucky and the world for Christ—is seeking to address this issue with a field-oriented approach to encouraging and equipping churches and their leaders in evangelism.

As of June 2019, Kentucky Baptist churches have two full-time evangelistic leaders, each serving approximately 1,200 churches. The sole ministry of Andy McDonald and Kenny Rager is to help pastors and churches become more intentionally evangelistic.

McDonald, who has been with KBC for six years, will be working with pastors and churches on the east side of the state. Rager, who lives in Owensboro, will be working with churches on the west side of Kentucky. These men bring a wealth of ministry experience, a personal commitment to reaching people with the gospel and a passion and desire to help others who wish to become more intentionally evangelistic. They desire to be used of God to help others grow in evangelistic faithfulness.

McDonald came to KBC in 2013 after an extensive and successful history in student ministry. He served on staff at Zion Baptist in Henderson, First Baptist Shelbyville and Memorial Baptist in Frankfort, as well as ministry outside the state.

Rager came to the Mission Board staff with experience as a church planter, church pastor and evangelist.

Both men are passionate about helping others grow in evangelistic faithfulness. They spend most of their time going from church to church and sitting down face to face with pastors, AMS leaders, church planters, student ministers and others who are striving to lead evangelistically in their area of ministry.

Some of the ways these leaders can serve Kentucky Baptists include:

• Developing a church evangelism team.

• Providing personal evangelism training in a church or association.

• Helping a pastor develop a church evangelism strategy.

• Providing counsel and assistance in revival preparation, event evangelism, student evangelism, community saturation projects and more.

• Train pastors and church leaders in front door evangelism and much, much more.

Almost every pastor I know wishes he was more intentionally evangelistic. Pastors are pulled in multiple ministry directions and need a friend in the ministry to encourage them in their efforts to reach out to the lost with the gospel and to equip the saints for evangelistic faithfulness.

Andy and Kenny are available to help Kentucky Baptists reach Kentucky and the world for Christ. Andy can be reached by email at andy.mcdonald@kybaptist.org or by calling or texting (502) 648-4291. Kenny can be reached by email at Kenny.rager@kybaptist.org or by calling or texting (270) 314-2060.

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Todd Gray is team leader of KBC Evangelism, Church Planting and Collegiate Ministries.