At work on Sundays

In the last census, there was barely more than a thousand people living in Maysville. But in this town with no red light, about 700 people worship at Maysville Church every Sunday morning – that’s about 200 more than last year.

In 2006, the church baptized 171 people; the year before about 40 people were baptized.

“God’s doing incredible work here,” said Brian Stowe, pastor of Maysville Baptist Church for 11 years. “We have a renewed emphasis on evangelism, prayer, and Sunday School.”

Stowe credits prayer for many of the changes he sees. In addition to a church-wide emphasis on prayer, each Sunday morning a group of men gather to pray throughout both morning worship services.

“A few weeks ago I asked the guys to pray specifically for the invitation,” he said. “I had sensed a hesitancy and resistance during the invitation.”

He asked the men to pray for the lost to be saved, for people to know the necessity to be active in church life, and for people to know that they have only one life and need to use it to serve God.

That night, during evening worship, a leader in the church admitted he had struggled for years with knowing for sure that he was a Christian. He was tired of struggling.

“As a result of his testimony, we had 14 people give their life to Christ that night. By the time the week ended, 23 people had given their lives to Christ,” Stowe said.

Sunday School is another important outreach tool.

Seeing God’s work

“Follow-up is important. Teachers send out a lot of emails and make a lot of contacts,” Stowe said. “Relationships and accountability can’t take place in the worship setting. Sunday School is where you have that. It’s hard work, but our folks are passionate about that.”

Church members also work hard at making evangelism a part of everything they do. Through the FAITH program, every visitor is visited by a Sunday School team the day after they first come to the church.

“The greatest thing about our church is the people. They believe in what they’re doing. When they invite their friends to church, they come expecting to see God work every Sunday,” Stowe said.