WALNUT RIDGE, Ark. – Several Arkansas Baptists gathered at Williams Baptist University on Saturday, Feb. 1, for EQUIP, a conference designed to encourage, strengthen, and equip leaders in their ministry.
The one-day conference provided an opportunity for pastors and their wives to fellowship and talk life and ministry with those serving in a similar context, which can be encouraging. Couple that with practical and insightful teaching and that is the aim of EQUIP. Arkansas Baptists giving to the Cooperative Program makes events like EQUIP possible around the state.
“EQUIP is something we do to pay attention to faithful, faithful pastors that sometimes are in a church nobody has ever heard of in a place where they don’t even know where it is, but God has placed them there and they are faithful servants,” said Dr. Mark Tolbert, Arkansas Baptist State Convention (ABSC) evangelism and revitalization strategist. “We do this to encourage them. The state convention is to encourage and assist and we want to do that with these pastors who have served.”
Tolbert noted one pastor at the conference had been at his church 17 years. At least two others had been at their churches for 10 years.
“They’re not in a steppingstone location; they’re in a place of service. We are here to help them,” Tolbert said.
The conference is called EQUIP, based on Ephesians 4, “And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.”
“We give them some resources and tools to help equip them and try to encourage them so they can go back and equip their church members to do ministry,” Tolbert said.
Saturday was the first EQUIP Conference of the year. It included sessions on text-driven preaching led by Tolbert, creating a culture for church health, and a presentation and free copy of “Conceived by the Holy Spirit: The Virgin Birth in Scripture and Theology” by Dr. Rhyne Putman.
While the pastors were in sessions, their wives were led in a Bible study and roundtable discussions by Vickie Lee and Micah Putman.
Additionally, attendees heard from ABSC Abuse Prevention + Response Consultant Emily Smith, who briefly touched on the essentials to actively assist and encourage Arkansas Baptist churches to train, screen, protect, report, and care when it comes to abuse prevention and response. She mentioned two upcoming ABSC Abuse Prevention + Response Conferences. The first is Feb. 10 at First Baptist Church in Fayetteville. The second is May 1 at the ABSC office in Little Rock.
Future EQUIP conferences will be held April 26 in Fayetteville and May 17 at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia. For more information, contact Tolbert at [email protected].