WAYNESBORO, Pa. – It would be challenging to find a ministry couple in Pennsylvania more committed to the role of Woman’s Missionary Union than Kathy and Steve Sheldon.
For the past 35-plus years, the Sheldons have invested their lives in families, churches and communities in their home state of Pennsylvania. Much of their ministry focus has revolved around engaging their churches and associations in missions on the local, state, national and international levels – and the primary missions tool they have utilized is involvement in WMU missions support and discipleship programs.
“One of the things I found very early in my pastoral ministry was one of, if not the deepest foundation in Southern Baptist churches is missions – and the pillar of that missions is WMU,” Steve Sheldon said. “I knew if I was going to have a strong mission church that reached its community and reached the world, we needed to work through WMU.”
His wife Kathy agreed, saying: “Every church that we have served in has had WMU or I’ve introduced it to them. It’s really been important to me and to Steve because it’s a way to introduce missions to every age group, and through that, our future missionaries.
“I just think this is a wonderful way for them to be introduced to what is already happening and what their opportunities are, either locally or internationally,” she added. “There’s just so many different situations that they could be involved in. In the churches, we’ve tried to do that as far as mission trips, as far as mission projects locally and to involve every age group. I think that’s a big factor in WMU.”
Unwavering focus on missions
The Sheldons’ strong commitment to missions and all things WMU started early in their ministry journey. After being stationed in San Diego while Steve was in the U.S. Navy and then serving in churches in Kentucky while he was studying at Campbellsville College (now University) and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the Sheldons returned to their home state in 1984 “and have been serving in Pennsylvania ever since,” Kathy said.
During that time, she served 11 years as president of Pennsylvania/South Jersey WMU while Steve served as a pastor and director of missions, including 23 years as pastor of Bux-Mont Baptist Church in Hatboro, Pa., in suburban Philadelphia. He recently retired as pastor of Wrightsdale Baptist Church in Peach Bottom, Pa., and they moved back to their hometown of Waynesboro.
“We’ve always encouraged the WMU organizations across the spectrum of ages,” Steve said. “Some of the churches didn’t have them but Kathy was real good at introducing those. That’s been foundational to our ministry – the mission organizations – because that’s where we train our missionaries.”
Kathy stresses missions involvement for everyone, ranging from Missions Friends, Girls in Action, Royal Ambassadors and Acteens to Women on Mission.
“The biggest challenge is educating no matter what the age is,” she said. “Educating about our special offerings, about the ones who have come before us and all that WMU involves.”
During her years as state convention WMU president, Kathy drew on the resources and experiences she gained as a member of National WMU’s Executive Board. “As I served with National WMU, I wanted to bring back to the state everything that I learned at our board meetings,” she said. “As new products or new opportunities were introduced, that is what we would bring back and share.”
As a result of those efforts, she added, “I feel like it has introduced more churches to WMU, but our challenge is endless … because of the changeover with pastors in churches.” She said many times new pastors simply need to be informed about the ways WMU can help strengthen a congregation’s missions involvement and support.
Mission mindset
For Steve and Kathy, that involvement has led to missions opportunities from Kazakhstan to Chile. “The very first mission trip we went to was to Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union with 300 other individuals from across the United States,” Kathy recalled. “It was a two-week experience and it was eye-opening and very heartfelt when you realize how very blessed we are.”
Steve said Kathy “wound up the WMU director in every church we served. As far as missions was concerned, we would never say no. If an opportunity came, we were going to find a way to do it and we worked together on that because that was our byword: ‘Never say no. Let’s do it….’
“You can deepen the commitment of your people by the mission organizations, by being a part of your local, state, national and international missions. The stronger we can be at home with missions, the better our mission globally is.”
Watch an interview with Steve and Kathy Sheldon:
Written by Trennis Henderson, WMU National Correspondent.