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Fall 2008

We live in uncertain times. One need only to follow the market news to know the truth of that statement. The temptation may be to retreat from the world, but its needs require our involvement.

As you read through this issue of Future Leadership Foundation's Reaching Across, you will find reasons to get involved:

§   Partnerships at work in multiple nations
§   Prayer needs
§   Services to keep you in touch
§   In-kind gift needs
§   Future strategies for our organization

Your financial gifts, as well as your participation and prayers, continue to be necessary to our ongoing work.

Find reasons here to determine where you can plug in, find your level of involvement and join us!

FLF partnership
update: Lithuania

At the invitation of the Lithuanians, Future Leadership Foundation worked with pastors, staff and laypeople of 20 invited churches, October 9-12, in an event called Find Us Faithful.

The Lithuanian team from Kaunas who did the planning consisted of:
§ Arturas Puckovas, chair, pastor, Good News Baptist Church
§ Gediminas Kapustavicius, pastor, Christ's Mission Baptist Church
§ Arturas Narbutas, pastor, God's Grace Baptist Church
§ Mindaugas Diksaitis, asst. pastor/youth, Good News Baptist Church
along with Nathan Leuthold, American missionary in Lithuania

The pre-conference seminar for pastors was by request: Building Ministry Teams in the Church, including men's ministry.

Christ's-Mission-BC

Laypersons and pastors then chose from several track options: Preschool/Children's Sunday School training; Youth Sunday School and youth ministry training and Adult Small Group training.

The team for this training was:
§ Brian Ford, pastor, Little Bonne Femme Baptist Church, Ashland, MO
§ Sharon Land, children's specialist, Fee Fee Baptist Church, Bridgeton MO
§ Jerry Frazier, associate pastor, Groveton Baptist Church, Alexandria, VA

Above: Christ's Mission Baptist Church, Kaunas, Lithuania, was the host for the conference.

Keep in your prayers..

Prayer is the place to start with our needs. Please be in prayer for, and share these concerns with others:

§ Pray for the Lithuanian pastors and church leaders that participated October 9-12 at Christ's Mission Baptist Church, Kaunas, that they were able to learn from the team and one another how to better serve their local church and unbelievers.

§ Pray for the Board of Directors of FLF as they begin to implement the strategic initiatives that will guide FLF into the future

§ Pray for the 12 regional and national Moldovan leaders at their leadership coaching retreat, October 23-25, at Poiana Braso, Romania.
§ Pray for two seminaries: Minsk Theological Seminary [Belarus] and the Ukrainian Baptist Theological Seminary in Borislav, Ukraine

§ Pray for the HeartSong project in Belarus under the direction of John Jackson:
- Provide a vehicle for distributing information and promoting awareness of the House of Mercy
- Promote unity, involvement, cooperation, and participation among all the churches in worship and family ministry
   - Discover and involve past and present leadership to meet the needs of the churches in worship and family ministry
   - Encourage the cooperation of the Minsk Seminary in the Baptist House of Mercy Project through leadership development.
   - Involve the Minsk Seminary in training and encouraging leaders to develop an awareness and understanding of the role of church leaders in worship and family ministry through planning and implementing HeartSong congregational hymn festivals.

§ Pray for the FLF's 2009 Business by the Book events in Belarus with the partnership of Crown Europe and its program director, Andrew Nedelchev, in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Find further details and additional prayer requests on the FLF Prayer Request page.

FLF partnership update:
Moldova

Baptists comprise only one percent of the population yet this is the largest percentage of Baptists in any country from the former Soviet Union era. It is the poorest country in Europe outside of Albania.

The Moldovan Baptist leadership has extended an invitation to the Future Leadership Foundation to lead an Associational Missionary Leadership Coaching Retreat for their national leaders:

The purposes of this retreat are:

1. To provide a retreat renewal time for the three Moldovan Baptist Union leaders and nine associational pastors and their wives.
2. To coach the Moldovan leadership in the critical issues they have identified as most pressing.
3. To do an on-site needs assessment of the Moldovan Baptist milieu.

A three-person team will leave the states on October 20 and return October 28.

Hosting the team will be the Baptist Union where Valeriu Ghiletchi is the president. Ghiletchi is a former member of the Moldovan parliament and vice-president of the European Baptist Federation.

The team is comprised of:
§ Bob Johnston, pastor, First Baptist Church, Rolla MO
§ Doyle Sager, pastor, First Baptist Church, Jefferson City MO
§ Roger Hatfield, Executive Director of FLF

The retreat is focusing on needs the Moldovan leaders have determined to be most helpful to them in their ministries:
§ Casting a Vision for Your Place of Ministry
§ Developing Strategic Planning Skills for Your Place of Ministry
§ Managing Conflict Skills as an Associational Pastor

There has been growth of evangelical work. In 1991 there were 130 Baptist churches. Today there are 521 churches and missions, a 400% increase in 17 years. Even though there are 21,000 baptized members, there are still 800 towns and villages with no evangelical witness of any kind.

Strategic initiatives

During this summer men and women representing the Board, staff and volunteers spent time evaluating Future Leadership Foundation and developing plans to carry our work forward.

Here are strategic initiatives we have established along with directional goals. We welcome your thoughts and comments:

I. DEVELOP COMMUNICATIONS

FLF communicates its mission, vision and values and how those are implemented and evaluated to develop a passionate constituency that both serves and gives.
Directional Goal: FLF will develop a communication plan that both informs and inspires its ministry leadership and its constituency.

II. EXPAND RELATIONSHIPS

FLF seeks valued partnerships between various ministries, participants and national leaders to build synergy that God can use to help achieve Kingdom-honoring goals.
Directional Goal: FLF will strategically extend an invitation to a relationship with other ministries and organizations that share its values to increase synergy.

III. DEVELOP STRUCTURE

FLF values a highly effective and fluid structure as the underpinning of a vibrant ministry that drives to meet mutually agreed-on goals. Directional Goal: FLF will create a flexible organizational environment that easily adapts to ongoing, changing needs.

IV. SECURE RESOURCES

FLF leverages three types of resources woven together to achieve goals: human, material and financial.
Directional Goal: FLF will offer believers an opportunity to invest in the lives of global Christian leaders who desire to develop to the next level of leadership. FLF will also extend invitations to any gifted believer to coach in the strategic areas of its programs.

V. DELIVER SERVICES

FLF utilizes services in a 21st century global world by every means of communication that God has provided our generation to live out the Gospel.
Directional Goal: FLF will participate in every delivery system necessary to do the job of training next generation of global leaders.

At the opening of this newsletter we said that "we know that this is a most difficult time in the economic life of our country and may remain so for longer than we choose. "

Moreover, two things we know in the face of this: 1) Should God tarry, we will come through this as a nation, and 2) The needs of this ministry will continue since churches and leaders world-wide are facing some of the same struggles.

In light of this, during November 2008 many, many of you will have an opportunity to share financially with us at year end. We invite you to pray about this matter. Like the widow's mite in the New Testament, please know that your gift of grace, however small or large, will go farther than you could imagine.

Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us...
Ephesians 3.20

Sincerely,

Your Friends at
Future Leadership Foundation