For 10 years now, North American missionaries Kevin and Alicia Madden have lived 2,200 miles away from Kevin’s birthplace, Washington, Ga. – an historic little town located about 100 miles east of Atlanta. Today, their home and hearts are firmly rooted in Canada.
Kevin Madden prays with a member of his congregation at The Potter’s House Community Church in Westbank, British Columbia.Madden, who was pastor of West Main Baptist Church, Spartanburg, is a church planting missionary and senior pastor of The Potter’s House Community Church in Westbank, British Columbia, a community of 30,000 people, located about four hours from Vancouver.
Kevin and Alicia are among the more than 5,200 missionaries in the United States, Canada and their territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. Madden’s one of eight Southern Baptist missionaries to be highlighted as part of the annual Week of Prayer, March 5-12. The 2006 Annie Armstrong Easter Offering’s goal is $56 million, 100 percent of which is used for missionaries such as the Maddens.
“We are so blessed by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering,” says Madden. “As part of the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists, we work very closely with the North American Mission Board. The funds from the Annie Armstrong Offering help as a supplement to my salary, and help us with many of the ministries we carry out as a church plant. The chairs we sit on in church were provided by Annie Armstrong money.
“It’s really hard to imagine our work and our ministry without the kind of support we’ve had through the Annie Armstrong Offering and through our network of partners. We’ve been very blessed as a church, but the need is great.”
Reflecting the country of Canada at large, there’s an overwhelming need for more churches in the Westbank area, according to Madden, who says that only 5 to 8 percent of people in the region profess a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Some 90 percent of the population never darkens the doors of any church on any Sunday.
After graduating from Southwestern Baptist Seminary, and serving as pastor at churches in South Carolina and Texas, it was a close relationship with another couple that pushed Canada to the front and center of Madden’s radar screen for missions.
“We became overwhelmed with the lostness of Canada. God pushed us out of the nest and into church planting. We saw a great need in Westbank, where the population is growing tremendously and is projected to continue to grow.”
While the spiritual potential is great, the current spiritual climate can be somewhat bleak.
“Many students go to a school where they don’t know of another Christian in the school,” Madden says. “Alicia and I grew up in Georgia – in the middle of the Bible Belt – where we didn’t know of a non-Christian in school. Here, people are not aware of Christian teachings and don’t know much about the Bible.”
Paradoxically, Madden says that Canadians are people who want to be loved and want to be accepted, and who are open to spiritual things.
“There’s a great openness and hunger for God, and a lot of talk about God. Canadians are a very hospitable and friendly people. But as Christians, we have to develop relationships with them, not try to push a message down their throats or take a harsh approach to sharing the gospel,” said Madden. He said the best method is to let Canadian people witness the authentic Christian life, to speak about Christ, and to live out and model Christ’s love and message.
The Potter’s House Community Church derived its name from Jeremiah 18, in which God told Jeremiah to “go down at once to the potter’s house; there I will reveal My words to you.” Jeremiah went and watched the potter shaping the imperfect clay into something useful and beautiful. Madden likes the potter and clay imagery for his church – believing that he and his members are the clay that God, the potter, is using for his purposes.
Madden extends the pottery theme out into the community. One way he and Alicia welcome and invite business people to Potter’s House Church is to stroll down Westbank’s main street, handing out free potted flowers to the merchants.
But despite the Maddens’ creative ways for drawing Canadians to Christ and the church, their workload remains formidable – almost overwhelming.
“You could get a map of Canada and close your eyes and just point to any place,” Madden said, “and I promise you that wherever your finger landed, that location needs not only one church but many Southern Baptist churches.”
In his role as a church planter, Madden has a vision for additional churches in 12 other sites within a day’s drive from Westbank.
“We need more pastors, more Bible study leaders, more Mission Service Corps missionaries,” Madden said. “We need to reach out more to people with addictions and those struggling with some negative habits or behaviors in their lives. We need a specialized recovery ministry for these people.”
Why are the Maddens – along with their three sons – spending the days of their lives in a world 2,200 miles away from the American South they know and love?
2006 NAMB Facts
? Most North American Mission Board missions personnel are jointly funded with state Baptist conventions, associations and churches, and receive support from the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. The 2006 goal is $56 million – 100 percent of which will directly support missionaries.
? Total gifts to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering in 2005 exceeded $54 million. Since its inception, more than $1 billion has been given through the offering.
? Forty-four percent of NAMB’s $124 million budget comes from AAEO and 36 percent from the Cooperative Program.
? The 5,200 missionaries, 2,400 chaplains (serving in military, institutions such as prisons and hospitals, and in corporate settings), and hundreds of thousands of missions volunteers (e.g. World Changers, Mission Service Corps missionaries) are seeking to reach the estimated 244 million unbelievers in the United States, Canada and their territories.
? Southern Baptists have a goal of starting more than 2,000 churches each year.
? Church and community ministries such as Pregnancy Care Center, literacy missions, Baptist center ministries, weekday ministries, and immigration and hunger ministries result in more than 30,000 professions of faith each year.
? The Strategic Focus Cities emphasis for 2006 is Vancouver, British Columbia. Through SFC, which began in 1998, the cities of New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Boston, Seattle, Philadelphia and Miami have been sites of concentrated and international evangelism and church planting efforts. To date, the SFC emphasis has yielded 48,000 professions of faith, 420 church starts and more than 46,000 volunteers.
? All seven Southern Baptist seminaries, including the Canadian seminary, have Nehemiah Project mission professors in place. Because of this partnership to mobilize new church planters, almost 900 church planter interns have been appointed to serve in summer, semester and full-time capacities.
? About 25,000 youth and adults were involved in missions and ministry through 100 World Changers and PowerPlant projects last year, leading 1,500 people to make decisions for Christ.
? 1,854 high school and college students answered God’s call as Summer, Sojourner, Innovator and Semester missionaries last year, resulting in 903 professions of faith and 682 rededications.
? More than 40,000 people are trained in Southern Baptist disaster relief. In partnership with Baptist state conventions, 12.5 million meals – a new record – were served to victims of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.
“The short answer is that God called us and we felt a clear calling to come to this country. And he brought some people across our path who helped us understand the tremendous needs of Canada. The more we became aware of Canada, and after we came here for a visit, he called us in a very special way to fall in love with the people here and invest our lives here. Oddly enough, this feels more like home now than when we go back to Georgia,” said Madden.