SLIDESHOW:
The Year in Pictures: 2017
Vacation
Bible School was, once again, the high point of a year filled with
God's blessings. All 5 #BTCampus churches (Baptist
Temple Church, Community
Bible Church Highland Park, Mision
Bautista Betel, Family
Deaf Church and Sunny
Slope Baptist Church.) worked together to give us 96 workers and
a total enrollment of
269. A sixth church, Iglesia
del Dios Altisimo, brought a van filled with African refugee
children that, along with a student
mission team from Baptist
University of the Americas, brought a total of 14
different nations
to our
campus that week.
SLIDESHOW:
VBS 2017
Worship
this year included some special events including a Blessing
of the Bikes (led by #BTCampus Immanuel
Motorcycle Ministry), a Blessing of the Teachers, a multi-church
Youth Rally, the Hanging
of the Green and a Christmas
Cantata. The house was packed on Easter as BT and CBC shared the
11 o'clock hour in a combined service. On Memorial Day Weekend all
the campus churches joined in worship. Delvin Atchison, director of
the Texas
Baptist Great Commission Team, brought the message.
In
the Fall, Ferrell Foster, from the Christian
Life Commission, brought the message as we celebrated our
community ministries. A tour of the Brunnemann Building and snacks
followed. The
Brunnemann is home for our thrift store, food pantry and community
garden and is open 3 days a week. Over 3500 people visited in 2017.
SLIDESHOW:
Birth of the Brunnemann
Building
Our
food pantry is only part of our hunger ministries. Our free weekly
dinners and occasional large food distributions enabled us to feed
1649 households (6181 people) and serve 11,022 meals. We distributed
85,912 lbs of food in 2017.
The
latest addition to our hunger fighting efforts is our community
garden. It serves as an outdoor lab to teach gardening to people of
all ages while providing fresh produce to our pantry clients. This
was made possible by grants from the Baptist
Health Foundation and Texas Baptists.
Community
outreach events included three annual events: Fall
Festival, Christmas
Party and Back
to School Fair. The Fair put 800 people on our campus (including
volunteers). We handed out 350 backpacks, 300 lunches, $2500 in
vouchers for clothes and 14,000 lbs of groceries.
Our
fellowship grew closer and larger this year with 25 new members. Our
young people went on a variety of field trips and three different
camp experiences. Our adults shared 17 meals together including the
monthly Young in Heart luncheon. We ordained 8 deacons and licensed
three people to the gospel ministry.
Adding
to the #BTCampus fellowship are San
Antonio Against Slavery (advocating against human trafficking),
who meet monthly on Thursday nights, and Free
By the Truth (working with ex-offenders), who worship Sundays at
2PM.
Seven
mission teams stayed on the #BTCampus in 2017 performing ministry
throughout the city and recording 93 professions of faith. Other
local ministries and individuals have joined with us to build up our
ministry in physical and spiritual ways.
This
tremendous volume of ministry takes a toll on our campus. We are
continually repairing and upgrading. This year our parking lot was
made safer by re-striping and improved lighting, the chairs in
fellowship hall were replaced and the Fritz Building got a new roof.
As I write this blog, there are a number of projects in progress.
In
2017, the #BTCampus hosted 6 churches, 2 schools, 3 conferences, 9
ministries and 6 Basketball Clubs. Thirteen different churches and
non-profit agencies have contributed finances, materiel and/or labor
to help us in our mission to minister to the physical and spiritual
needs of our community.
