Two-year-old church plant baptizes 45 people during pandemic By Lonnie Wilkey Editor, Baptist and Reflector [email protected] BRISTOL — Pastor Joel Kirk has a simple formula for planting a church: “It’s impossible to please God without faith.” So far, that formula has produced miracle after miracle for Realife Church in Bristol, a congregation that will not be three years old until the Sunday after Easter this year. Kirk recalled that on

Churches invited to host watch parties for YEC this year By David Dawson Baptist and Reflector [email protected] FRANKLIN — For more than two years, Tennessee Baptist Mission Board youth specialist Jay Barbier has been thinking about the possibility of restructuring the annual Youth Evangelism Conference. The COVID-19 pandemic opened the door for those changes to be made. The conference, which has been a popular event for more than 50 years,

FBC McMinnville sees surge in baptisms despite COVID By David Dawson Baptist and Reflector [email protected] McMINNVILLE — Although the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a tidal wave of cancelations and postponements over the past 10 months, the virus certainly hasn’t canceled the evangelism efforts at First Baptist Church, McMinnville. It has only reshaped them. When the virus first took hold last spring, the church staff at FBC began examining some of