Antioch Baptist Church
Concord UnionBaptist Association
FARMERVILLE – Even with new pastor Greg Dunn, Antioch Baptist in Farmerville has not missed a beat. The church stays busy with an average of 300 in attendance each week and many programs and events as well, said Judy Savage, secretary for the last seven years.
On June 14, Antioch Baptist will host its first “Sunday in the Park,” an outreach that will hopefully draw the interest of new people in the community.
The event will begin at 2 p.m. and will have swimming, volleyball, entertainment and testimonies for people in the community.
“We’re real excited about it,” Savage said. “June is a very busy month for us.”
June 14 is also high attendance day for Sunday school. “We try to reach everybody that we can to come to church and we follow the Great Commission,” Savage said.
Vacation Bible School is set for the week of June 22 through 26. With success in the previous years, VBS will be held in the evening from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
In July a six-person mission team will be going to Honduras on mission to build houses.
As a way to involve the whole church with the mission, a garage sale is planned for June 13 to raise money. Church members will bring items to sell and all of the money will be used to buy supplies for building homes in Honduras.
“We’ve been advertising for people to make their trash someone’s treasure,” Savage said. “Hopefully the treasure will reap rewards in Heaven.”
Beech Springs Baptist
Jackson Baptist Association
QUITMAN – With its 102nd Homecoming Celebration set for later this year, Beech Springs Baptist soon will look back to where it has been and look forward to what the future holds.
With a former pastor as the guest speaker and Brothers in Christ, the musical group out of Monroe, the Homecoming Celebration is expected to be a huge success.
Pastor Jason McNaughten has been serving at Beech Springs Baptist for more than two years and is excited about the work being done.
Last year the church tried a new approach to VBS and found great success.
“We did Bible school in April for spring break,” McNaughten said. “It’s just something different and it gets more kids to come who are sometimes on vacation in the summer.”
In April of this year, the church held VBS again and mostly had children uninvolved in church attend, McNaughten said.
“We have an annual crawfish boil with VBS commencement on the Saturday,” McNaughten said. “Last year we ran out of crawfish, but this year we made sure we had plenty.”
The VBS theme this year was Operation Space. It focused on the authority and salvation of God’s Word.
“The people in my church are very friendly and always willing to help one another,” McNaughten said. “We have a good balance of people, but a lot of the older generation who are very faithful and encouraging.”
Beech Springs Baptist is always looking to reach out in the community and draw more people in, McNaughten said.
In July the church members will bake cookies to bring to church members and visitors who have not been in attendance.
“It’s just to try to reach out and let people know that we’re there for them and we miss them,” McNaughten said.