Alabama Baptists on pro-life work and making a difference for Christ

State Baptist Conventions help mobilize, unify, and equip churches who are bound together by state lines. On today’s episode, Dr. Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, talks with ERLC Interim President Dr. Gary Hollingsworth. They discuss the unique challenges Alabama Baptists are facing from supporting bi-vocational pastors to navigating pressing cultural issues such as abortion. They also highlight the significant pro-life work taking place through a partnership between Alabama Baptists, the ERLC’s, Psalm 139 Project, and the Alaska Baptist Resource Network that’s promoting a culture of life across state lines, especially in abortion permissive states.

Episode Transcript: Alabama Baptists on pro-life work and making a difference for Christ

Narration:

Welcome to The ERLC Podcast, where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues. I’m Lindsay Nicola, and today we’ll hear about the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.

Narration:

State Baptist Conventions help mobilize, unify, and equip churches who are bound together by state lines. On today’s episode, Dr. Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, talks with ERLC Interim President Dr. Gary Hollingsworth. They discuss the unique challenges Alabama Baptists are facing from supporting bi-vocational pastors to navigating pressing cultural issues such as abortion. They also highlight the significant pro-life work taking place through a partnership between Alabama Baptists, the ERLC’s, Psalm 139 Project, and the Alaska Baptist Resource Network that’s promoting a culture of life across state lines, especially in abortion permissive states. Dr. Lance was called to the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions in 1998. He leads the state convention staff in assisting approximately one million Alabama Baptists in over 3,200 churches with Great Commission ministries. He obtained his bachelor of arts from Sanford University and is M.Div. and Ed.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Lance and his wife Pam, have two daughters and four grandchildren. Now let’s turn to Dr. Hollingsworth’s conversation with Dr. Lance.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth :

Well, I’m here with Dr. Rick Lance, who is the executive director-treasurer of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions. And not only is he a wonderful leader in the state of Alabama, but around our nation. But beyond that, a long, long, long time personal friend. So, Dr. Lance, thank you for taking time out of your busy world to just chat with us for a few moments here on this podcast today.

Dr. Rick Lance:

Oh, I’m delighted Gary, and you look good in this new role. It fits you.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Well. I keep saying honored, humbled, but clearly interim. So we’re grateful for our search team and thankful for those who’ll be looking for that next leader to come in on a full-time basis. But thank you so much. Well listen, today Rick, I just wanted to chat with you about a couple things and really ask you some questions with several motives in mind. But to jump in, when you think about some challenges that pastors there in Alabama are facing regarding issues that specifically relate to life, religious liberty, marriage, and family and human dignity, talk with us a little bit about what you know your pastors are facing there in Alabama.

Dr. Rick Lance:

Well, today it’s always been this way, but in today’s climate, pastors are overloaded with a lot of issues coming at them to try to metabolize that and then be able to articulate a good, wholesome biblical foundation in terms of communicating to their church family. That makes it even that much larger. Now, of course, in the last three years we have celebrated the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but even in that at that particular time, I offered a word of caution that the work was still going. And in fact it reached a new level because it went to the states. It was not a ban on abortion, of course, it was a leaving it up to the states and now every state is doing their own thing. That in itself causes problems. Now here in Alabama being a very conservative, traditional, biblical kind of state in the main, we don’t have the kind of problems that some would have in states which have much more liberalized laws related to abortion and more restrictive concerns about religious liberty. But we do have to deal with the larger culture because the larger culture invades your space, so to speak, here in Alabama. So a lot of our pastors, they’re doing a fantastic job of being able to communicate, but it is a very challenging time in terms of being able to just absorb what’s coming at them in real time and then being able to have the biblical wisdom and the stamina, if you will, to be able to communicate to their people in a thoughtful and biblical way.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Excellent. And that’s a great transition to a follow up question on that. Obviously those are the challenges and you’re exactly right as far as pastors being overloaded with information and challenges with all of the cultural things that just come upon us. But one of the things that even during this interim time and our team, we’ve talked quite a bit about this and this means a great deal to us, is we really want to serve the churches. And so my question would be when you think about those challenges that your pastors and even your team there on the state board are facing, how can the ERLC come alongside to best help? What are the resources so that we really want to be church focused in our delivery, if you will? So what are some things where we could help you and help your pastors?

Dr. Rick Lance:

Well, first, you are doing some good things already, but let me amplify what might be a good approach today and in the future regarding communication. And that is when I get up in the morning, I start thinking about not only the staff here and the ministries we have, but I think about the churches and the pastors out there, the world they’re facing. Because we all know that’s the headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention. So being very grassroots oriented in perspective will help anyone not only here on the state level, but at the ERLC and other entities of the Southern Baptist Convention. They would be better able to stay rightfully connected. And I think if we can learn to think like a local church pastor, and you and I have been one, be able to put ourselves in their minds and in their shoes helps us.

Dr. Rick Lance:

So I think the word partnership is so often used in Southern Baptist life. It may be losing its meaning. I still think it’s a good church-friendly, Baptist-friendly term, and a genuine partnership would be asking the right questions and you’ve just done that and be able to check in regularly with state convention staff because we’re a good bit closer to the grassroots than any SBC entity would be. And that’s just because of where we are and who we are. Not bragging by any stretch. So asking the right questions and being able to let the pastors know that you’re trying to think in ways that you want to help them, help their people, and help advance the kingdom of God in ways that relate to ethics and religious liberty. I think that one perspective would do a world of difference in the lives of churches and pastors.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Great. I might just add, without this sounding too much like a commercial on our behalf, but the church guides that have been produced over the years, and by the way, a brand new one is available now on artificial intelligence, on AI. Dr. RaShan Frost wrote that, and I can’t think of anything much more timely and needed. And so I heavily want to commend, again, the team here and they’ve got their finger on the pulse. And I would add one more thing related to the abortion pill for example. We’ve already, and this went out under my signature about a week ago, but we’ve already communicated with the Trump administration and particularly with Secretary Kennedy and our disappointment, quite frankly, that as pro-life as often like you said with the overturn of Roe versus Wade, those kinds of things in your 100% right, that battleground just shifted. 

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

And so we certainly want to commend our administration anytime they’ve done some positive things that would be in keeping with who we as Southern Baptists have already said we believe. But when they don’t, we want to make sure that they know that when we say we’re pro-life, we mean that truly from the wound of the tomb, as we like to say. And so those are things, and I’m gonna quote my dear friend Rick Lance on this. I’ve already quoted you with our staff because I’ve heard you say so many times, it takes three years to say hello to a Southern Baptist. And that is so true, is that sometimes there are things that are out there that people don’t hear about, they don’t know about. And we want to again be as proactive as we can and as you said very church centric in our communication.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

So thank you for that reminder. We are gonna stay very tenaciously focused. We have to do both. We have the policy side that’s so important, but we have the delivery side speaking to our Southern Baptist family. So if I can transition that briefly again, you know, we hear so much these days about the challenges. I’ve always said that bad news seems to travel better because bad news makes better news than good news sadly. But that’s a part of human nature. So on a positive side of that, what’s happening in the state of Alabama? I am an Alabama Baptist now, grateful to be so, but just some things that you’re excited about, you’re encouraged about–tell us some things that are going on where God’s at work in the Alabama Baptist Convention. 

Dr. Rick Lance:

Gary, you not only are an Alabama Baptist, but you have previously been an Alabama Baptist. You’re about as Alabamian as you can be. This is your home state. And as you know, we are kind of quiet people. We just quietly go about the work and the calling we have. And we are generally speaking, doing some initiatives in bi-vocational ministry. Something like 60% of our pastors are bi-vocational and trying to facilitate training and connection with them with our state convention, or state board missions more particularly. That’s always been an enormous challenge. And there are all kinds of bi-vos. We used to think they’re all the same, but you still have of course the farmer, the worker if you will, you have the school teacher. But we have bi-vos now who have Ph.D.s. In fact, I was with one not terribly long ago who had three Ph.D.s and was teaching at two institutions while he was serving as a bi-vocational pastor.

Dr. Rick Lance:

But that’s a numerical core. Now they don’t represent the bulk and the mass of our people, for a general way of putting it. Seventy-five percent of our people go to 25% of our churches, and 25% of our people go to 75% of our churches. Now that may not hold exactly true, but it gives you an idea that numerically we have more bi-vocationals, but they serve a smaller mass of people. However, they need the same kind of information, the same kind of training from us and from the ERLC as any pastor because the normative-sized church in Alabama Baptist life, and I believe it probably would represent SBC life, would be if you have 55 or 60 people on Sunday morning, you’re pretty normative size. And we had to keep that in mind. Oftentimes as we gather in our meetings, we think about the mid-size and the larger ones, but there’s a whole array of people.

Dr. Rick Lance:

They’re just out there serving in places that, again, being quiet but efficient. We’re celebrating bi-vocationalism, calling out the call. We also have missional initiatives that relate to try to advance our giving through the Cooperative Program, the lifeblood if you will, the missional mutual fund, as I call it and others have called it. And without that, it fuels what we do and helps us in terms of having the glue that holds us together in the missional standpoint, the financial standpoint. Those are things that we’re continuing to work with, but also in the minds of our pastors–and you can’t put them all in one lump. Never before in the history of Christianity have this many generations worshipped together. You can go back a hundred years or more and you’d have three, maybe four generations. Now you can have six generations worshiping together. Now that also translates to leadership because many of those bi-vocational pastors I talked to you about are retired full-time pastors who, now, in their 80s. I was with one the other night of 82 years old and actually just going very strong in his church.

Dr. Rick Lance:

And that’s not a large church, but it’s normative size and it certainly has a kingdom impact in that community. So we’re just trying to touch everyone at every place possible knowing that we have a smaller staff than we’ve had historically because of all the pressures financially, yet with technology, we can make some advances there. It’s a work in progress. We never arrive. It’s something in my almost 28 years, I keep telling myself, when are we gonna really be able to do what we’re talking about doing in fulfilling the Great Commission? Well, it’s an ideal goal and this side of heaven, all we can do is what we’ve been called to do with the talents and gifts that we have to make a difference for Christ in a world that needs a difference made.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Good word. Good word. And you’ve already kind of hinted at this, but is there an anecdotal story that comes to your mind? I know I’m putting you a little on the spot, but you’ve mentioned an 80-year-old bi-vocational pastor. You mentioned a bi-vocational pastor with three Ph.D.s. But is there one, and you don’t have to mention the name unless you’re comfortable doing that, but just maybe an anecdotal story that comes to your mind when you think about, doesn’t have to be bi-vocational, but maybe a pastor in the state of Alabama or a church that you just are so grateful and you see God working in some incredible ways that that would encourage others out there. Is there just one that comes to mind quickly that you could share?

Dr. Rick Lance:

Well that comes into the area all of us call church revitalization, and we have a number of those stories to tell. But I’m thinking of one right now that was once a very strong, good-sized church in an open-country place. But it was the main town that had gotten down so low that they could financially hang on for a while. But it got down so low that they really didn’t know what the future held. And we were able to have Rob Jackson, our church revitalization leader, go into that fellowship and, I mean, in a short order, they were having young families come in, and this is not a demographically blessed area. These young families were coming in, there were children being baptized, adults being reached. And the revitalization process brought new life to the point where this pastor and that church family became almost the poster child of how it can be done now.

Dr. Rick Lance:

There’s not one particular way, but there are many ways of doing it. So that one comes to mind. And there are others that flood my mind. But I can tell you, church planting is birthing babies. Church revitalization is helping restore to health, like a medical doctor, working with a patient, restore to health someone who has been unhealthy, a church which has been unhealthy. And every church, no matter how strong, needs church health improvement. Every church, no matter how strong, they have areas of need in church revitalization. And since COVID, almost every church needed some form of basic revitalization. And that’s happening, and we praise God for it. 

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Well that is so true. And you know, it’s not an either or. It’s not church planting or revitalization. It’s both and. Well thank you for sharing that. But just as an encouragement, because I do know as a pastor, sometimes feeling isolated and, often, especially on social media, we only hear bad news and it’s so good to hear some good news. So thank you for sharing that encouragement. I have one final question, and it’s a real simple one and we’re gonna kind of close this out, of course, unless there’s anything else that you’d like to share. We want to give you that chance. But is there any particular way that I could pray for you and for the churches and for your team? Because I do want to close our time. I’d love to have the opportunity to just pray for you and over you. But before I get to the prayer time, anything else you would like to say on our podcast?

Dr. Rick Lance:

I want to thank the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for fostering the Psalm 139 Project with state conventions, ministering across the state lines. We have been able to work with New England and, most recently, with Alaska. I was there in Alaska for their state convention. I went to the pregnancy center there where the sonogram we were able to pay for to be installed. And I was there hearing wonderful stories. And the unique thing is that the people there are so extremely dedicated, if you closed your eyes while they were talking, you would’ve thought you were listening to IMB missionaries. That’s how dedicated they are. And they talked about, not just one, but several women in distress who came with pregnancies, unwanted pregnancies who were just bound and determined to go ahead and go forward with abortion. But after some consultation with a friend or a minister, they came there just to get some guidance.

Dr. Rick Lance:

And every one of them, almost every one of them–there might have been one exception–said, I want to go forward with this pregnancy. So I want to thank ERLC for that partnership. I think that is one added value way that the southern states can help the non-South states, as we call them nowadays, in work that really makes a difference. We’ve had a partnership with Alaska for more than five years now. It’s a multifaceted partnership, and I’ll make this as brief as possible. We have teams going up, if you’re using military terms, special operations, because they’re going to places where there are no roads. You have to fly in or boat your way in. And they are indigenous Alaskans, many of them. And we’ve gone to places that even some Alaskans who have been there as Alaskan Baptist had not yet been before. And some of our staff and the churches have been involved in this.

Dr. Rick Lance:

So this is a rich partnership for us. I’m old enough to remember that in the early 1980s, we had a partnership with Alaska back then, and that was the first introduction to the situation. But some years ago, Randy Covington, now retired as executive director for Alaskan Baptists, asked us to have a partnership. So we got involved, we helped them with the purchase of disaster relief equipment. We helped them a little bit with some staffing for a short temporary period of time. We helped them among other special requests. And on their 75th anniversary, we, as Alabama Baptist at the State Board of Missions, blessed them with a gift corresponding to their 75 years. And I’m not talking about $750,000, I’m talking about $75,000. So growing out of that, when the request, they came to us with really two requests. One was through ERLC, the Psalm 139 Project, but also their children’s home needed heating and cooling.

Dr. Rick Lance:

And we helped get that back up. And then the Psalm 139 Project that we were delighted to help in that regard. So again, we’re quiet people. We don’t hold press conferences. We don’t go around talking about what we do. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s not who we are. But very quietly and very efficiently and committedly, Alabama Baptist are working alongside Alaskan Baptist with a question in mind. The comment is, first, we’re not here to do it for you, we’re not here to make you into Alabama. We want to know, how can we help you reach your people? That’s been our partnership motif.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Thank you for mentioning the Psalm 139 Project and Across State Lines. And by the way, even during this interim period, transitional time of leadership, that is going to be one of the key things that I’m personally going to be talking to several of your colleagues and my former colleagues at least in the work for those states that have not yet gotten involved in a partnership at any level, but particularly the Psalm 139 Project. And so you’re going to be hearing a lot, and our staff is very passionate about Across State Lines. So thank you for mentioning that for us today. Well, Dr. Lance, again, I want to pray for you. Anything particularly for you before I have this prayer? 

Dr. Rick Lance:

Gary, the standard and stock answer that I’ve had and so many have is that the greatest need we have is for requesting wisdom, which really translates into discernment. I still believe that’s a great answer, and I do need that and we all do. We’d be really self-centered if we didn’t say that, ego-centric. But I’m more and more praying that the sparks of revival that we seem to sense happening across the U.S. and especially among GenZs, who are now, the males especially, are leaning much more biblically conservative. We hope that continues. My prayer is not for me personally, although it is personal, that I have a personal revival and that I’ll be a part of another great awakening in America. I would love to see that happen in my lifetime. We’ve had little sparks here and there that have given us a little hope, but I think now if it’s going to happen, it needs to happen. And we need to be not standing in the way of it, but trying to contribute to it the best we can. The greatest fear I always have is complacency. We can become, because we’ve had some modicum of success as the people of God, we can see the signs of complacency and if we don’t watch out, we’ll be a part of complacency rather than commitment when it comes to a spiritual awakening.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Well, I join with you in those requests, not just for you, not just for me, but for really for who we are as Southern Baptists. And I am looking forward to personally being present, at least for a portion of the annual meeting that’s coming up in Huntsville here in just a few weeks. So come by and say hello. And thank you for allowing me the opportunity to just be present and be a part of that. So let me close us in prayer, and again, thank you for your time and for your friendship. Let’s pray together. Father, Lord, it’s so good to know that we can truly come before you. You tell us in your word that we can come boldly before your throne of grace anytime in our time of need. And we know, father, that you are there, that you hear that you care.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth :

Thank you for my dear friend, Rick Lance, and for the incredible years of leadership that he has given and continues to give, not only in Alabama, but as he has shared, with their partnership in Alaska and literally with a passion to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus. And I’d just like to come and intercede for his request for wisdom. And Lord, we all need that here. Again, your Word tells us that when we need wisdom, we can ask for it from you, and you’ll give it to us liberally. You’ll never hold any of that back. And I pray for that, for Dr. Lance, for his team, for our team, for myself, and for all leaders who might be hearing this podcast today. We do pray that you would give us godly wisdom and godly counsel and then Father, certainly Lord, our hearts yearn.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

We pray for the day that we would truly see another great awakening. You’ve done it in the past. We believe that you can do it and want to do it and will do it. And we pray for that and believe that by faith.  Father, we know that revival is really just the outgrowth of your people being obedient, your churches being obedient to the command and to the call of fulfilling the Great Commission in our day, in our age, in our generation with our culture, those that we have responsibility for. And so God, we pray for that and by faith we begin to see it. But before it comes again, Lord, we know that it’s going to be preceded by prevailing prayer and radical obedience to the commands of Jesus and to the call of the Great Commission. So Father, thank you for this day that you’ve given us. May we be good stewards of every opportunity that we have to serve you this day. And more than anything else, we thank you for the privilege of lifting high the name of Jesus. And you’ve promised as we lift up Jesus, that you’ll draw people to yourself. And that is our prayer and heart’s desire. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

Narration:

Alabama Baptists are a wonderful example of what we’re all called to do: make Christ known throughout our various states. And we’re especially thankful for how they do this in the context of championing preborn life through a long-term partnership with pregnancy resource centers across state lines, they are standing for life and caring for mothers in need from Alabama to Alaska. May the Lord continue to use the partnership of Southern Baptists to advance his kingdom across our country.

Narration:

Thanks for listening to this episode of the ERLC podcast. Join us next time as we hear updates on our Psalm 139 Project.