Task Force Report from Annual Spring Meeting

 What a tremendous outpouring of the Presence of God at our annual spring meeting.  We had  a wonderful response from our churches and the messengers from those churches.  I truly believe that we accomplished so much in this meeting and that God is going to bless our desires to find His will for the Savannah River Baptist Association. 

There were three very specific concerns raised from this meeting and I want to briefly share what you heard and what your committee gathered from what you heard. 

1.    The enormous need to address the issue of illiteracy in our area.  The statistics show that 78% of Jasper County and 46% of Beaufort County are illiterate.  We need to look at ways of providing programs that help those who do not know how to read or write.  Because of this problem using religious materials are of no value to those in need.  We need to address the way in which we can internally reach this segment of our population.

2.    Secondly, we heard from you the growing problem of single parent families.  Here are the facts: 32% of Jasper County  and 25% of Beaufort County children are being reared by mothers; 8% of Jasper County and 6% of Beaufort County children are being reared by fathers. This does not include the number of unwed mothers coming from our high schools.The home is the solid rock on which our country stands and we have an issue that needs to be met head on with the Gospel.

3.    The third area of concern is the relationship and working together within our churches.  We as     an association must turn our focus off of ourselves and focus our outreach on the lost.  One of the task force members shared that "we are not in competition with each other and that we need a unified effort to reach the lost."  We are in need of changing the word Church from a noun and changing it to a verb.  There is a concern that we need to educate our churches on what an association is and what we can do to promote unity and harmony in the body of Christ, as well as reach new converts.

We are going to be meeting again soon, to put the final touches on these tasks.  A final thought that came out of these sessions is:   Plan to work and work the plan !  We look forward to sharing with you at the Fall Meeting.

Richard Spearman
Chairman of the Future Task Force