American Baptist Churches of the Great Rivers Region
News, Opportunities, Reflections, & Connectionsfor Growing Healthy Churches
Candy Stivers tells us that the ABCUSA Planning Calendar is now available for 2008 as a 1 MB pdf download from ABCUSA. This link will be available in the column for the next few days; thereafter, find it under the "Downloads" tab in the column to the left.(Download a smaller file - 332 kb. Learn how to make a smaller pdf file out of a large one. More on use of pdf format.)
Back by popular demand:
2008-2009
POCKET PLANNERS
Order your planner today from Judson Press.
1-800-4JUDSON
$8.95 each
Order 2 or more and save!
Paul Weers invites us to respond with gratitude to God for God's great blessings. As we count down to Thanksgiving, consider Paul's invitation and actionable strategies to live out our giving of thanks.
How GRR Churches Do Web
There are certain features our churches are adding to their sites to be more inviting and better serve their users.
This week: "Your First Visit" (Listing of features)
First Baptist Church of Elgin has a feature linked from the home page that invites people to explore what to expect when they first visit the church. One of the headings of this section of the site is "Where to Go, What to Do." Following this there is a sample general worship order of service.
Another way of doing this is by including a very practical set of FAQs such as what FBC Aurora has included on their site.
What a wonderful way to lessen the chance visitors would feel "put on the spot." Those who have found the church online, but who have not been to that church before have the opportunity to have less anxiety as they enter the church building.
Pastors Brad Donoho of Upper Alton Baptist, Jeff Johnson of Carlinville Federated, and Steve Robinson of Taylorville First Baptist join Tom Bayes of Peoria FBC and Jim Wolfe of Pontiac FBC in video testimonials of their experience with Consecration Sunday.
Thinking about Offering Electronic Giving as an Option for Your Church? Reflect on this as you read this article from Christianity Today.
Support Ministry and Mission of the GRR by giving online.
Register now for the 2007 Blackhawk Christmas Camp.
Bible stories, campfire, making crafts, playing games and sledding (if there is snow)
Registration is limited to the first 50 children.
Carl Cottingham has published the second issue of the Regional Ordination Program newsletter.
John Grisham presents 12 short videos on stewardship by Robert Crandall and Associates. These are well done and appropriate for showing in worship, discipleship venues, and other ocassions.
What is it? View a moment of the actual seminar.
Find it online at http://www.abcgrr2.org/
pastoral%20relations%
20committee/start.htm
Or, request a self-starting CD by sending an e-mail request to Debbie (debbie@abc-grr.org) There is no charge for this CD for GRR churches and pastors.
Click on the dropdown arrow on the right side of the "GRR Site Index" above to view and use an exhaustive list of links to all the nearly 900 pages of this site. Or, use the "site map" link on the bottom of this column for an exploration of this site by themes.
View the comments of the Reverends John Curtis and David Garver about retirement.
Since 1935, American Baptists have contributed to special offerings received in their churches for retired ABC ministers and missionaries or their widowed spouses. The Retired Ministers and Missionaries Offering (RMMO) was established in 1977.
Through this annual offering, American Baptist congregations say thank you in a tangible way to the denomination’s retired spiritual leaders. The offering provides them with:
The Mission Videos of Reid Trulson, Victoria Goff, and GRR Staff taped during the 2007 GRR Annual Meeting and its Mission & Ministry Banquet have moved to the Mission section of this site.
There will be a second Baptist Blitz to build at least 5 more houses. This is being planned for April 2008. Our Executive Minister, Dwight Stinnett, is already making personal plans to work on this project. More information is coming soon.
FYI: If you need to view again a story that is no longer available on this home page, that you can view past home pages? Use the Archive.
Please note: Opening any of the above downloads may require several seconds. Two processes cause this delay. 
First, your computer must open the Adobe Reader. Second, the Adobe Reader opens the file. If you do not have the Adobe Reader installed on your computer, follow this link to the download page or click on the Adobe icon above . Thank you for your patience. (Needing to produce PDFs? Read about the options.)
ABC Great Rivers Region
(217) 726 - 7366
(217) 726 - 7566 FAX
grrabc@abc-grr.org
Physical Address:
3940 Pintail Drive
Springfield IL 62711Mailing Address:
P. O. Box 3786
Springfield IL 62708
Administrative Staff:
Roland Sundberg, Executive Administrator
roland@abc-grr.org
Candy Stivers, Data Management
candy@abc-grr.org
Sharon Downs, Camp Administrative Coordinator
sharon@abc-grr.org
Debbie Naugle, Registrar & Receptionist
debbie@abc-grr.org
Ministerial Staff:
Dwight Stinnett
Executive Minister
John Grisham
Mission Support
Stewardship
Cheryl Henson
Area I
Ministerial Recruitment
Ministerial Cont. Ed.
Max Klinkenborg
Area II
Natural Church Dev.
Spiritual Development
Richard Ricks
Area III
Multimedia
Web Technologies
Randy McNeely
Area IV
Bivocational Ministry
Costa Rica Partnership
Muriel Johnson
Area V
Church Planting
