The holidays are upon us.  Tomorrow is November 1^st.  Thanksgiving, then Christmas, will be here very soon.  For Kentucky Baptists, November is the month of our KBC Annual Meeting.  For the Missions Mobilization Team, it is the month for Christmas Backpacks.  Deliveries will be made to churches and ministries, with ministries preparing to distribute to the children between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Girls and boys across the state and in our SEND CINCINNATI partnership will be blessed as backpacks YOU packed will be distributed to children in need.

Backpack applications were sent out in March, and we had requests for 12,683.  The Kentucky Baptist Convention goal for 2023 was to fill 10,000 backpacks, knowing that we would also receive backpacks from our partnering state conventions.      

Every year I get a little nervous and pray that we will receive enough backpacks to meet all of these needs.  Yet, over and over again, God provides.  Will I ever learn?  I often say, “Oh me, of little faith.”

Phone calls and emails have come in all day about backpacks.  You can hear the excitement as regional collection site directors call to report the numbers that have come in.  However, there is lots of hard work ahead.  Please pray with us:

• That enough backpacks are received to meet the requests.
• For associational & regional collection sites to have the volunteers needed to sort the backpacks.
• For individuals to pick up and deliver the backpacks to the needed distribution sites.
• For church and ministry Backpack Events.
• For those sharing the Gospel message. 
• For children and families to not only receive a Christmas Backpack, but come to know Christ as their personal Savior and receive the Greatest Gift this Christmas season.

Thank you to all who had a hand in purchasing, filling, sorting, delivering, distributing, or whatever part you had in the KBC Christmas Backpack Initiative.  You are a blessing to many families during this season…and even for eternity.  It’s a blessing to work together as Kentucky Baptists for such a great cause!!

May each of you have a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas!!

I have learned over the years that at times the simplest of actions can have the greatest impact. I have had people in the past thank me for everything I did for them. As I reflect on what I did, I really couldn’t think of much, if anything that I “did.” I would often respond with, “I didn’t do anything.” And then their response was, “But you were there.”

My presence in their time of need, grief, tragedy, and loss would in itself be what they need. It did not seem like much to me, but to them it meant the world.

I have a friend who loves to get greeting cards in the mail. She loves to read them, read them over and over and display them where she can be reminded of kind words and thoughts. A simple card means a great deal to her.

I have discovered during times of disaster, the things that matter most are often the simple things. A meal or a blanket. A card or a prayer. A shoulder to cry on or a word of encouragement. Sometimes even just being there.

I am reminded of the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:42, “And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” (ESV)

The “little ones” refers to those who may seem insignificant or unnoticed. Those who are unimportant or have little. Those who have lost everything in a storm. Helping someone with the simplest of things like a cup of cold water to quench a thirst can mean a great deal to someone.

When you serve others, even in simple ways, you will pour a blessing on someone, but in turn, you are blessed as well. In the disaster relief ministry, we experience this over and over again. We feel we are going to serve others in their time of need to bless them, but so many times we are the ones being blessed. We often call it the “double blessing.”


I often wonder if we would take time to look around and see the needs of others and with a simple act, make a huge difference in someone’s life.

• Pray about it.
• Prepare for it.
• Plan on it.
• Present it.

You might just experience that “double blessing” yourself. And maybe, just maybe, lives will be changed.

Learn how you can be involved in the Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief ministry by visiting kybaptist.org/dr for more information.

The muddy and winding Ohio River flows through or borders six states, two of which are KY and OH.  Along the Ohio River’s path sits America’s original Boomtown—Cincinnati, also called the Queen City.  Cincinnati is most notably known as the home of Reds baseball where the Great American Ballpark rests on the bank of the river. 

To the surprise of most, the Reds went on a run this year. In fact, they didn’t get eliminated from the playoff race until the last weekend of the regular season.  After finishing with a record of 82-80, most fans look forward to next year with excitement.  What has made the difference in their late season run and increased fan optimism?  It’s simple.  New players.  A group of new players joined the team after a rough beginning to the season.  But what does Reds baseball have to do with the Cooperative Program?

Well, metro Cincinnati boasts of 2.1 million people, which is nearly half of the population of the whole state of KY.  Sadly, only 13.7 percent of Cincinnati’s metro residents are affiliated with any evangelical church.  In other words, 1.8 million in metro Cincinnati have no evangelical church affiliation. Not surprisingly then, in the five counties around the city, there is only 1 SBC church for every 10,298 people.

What does this mean? We need more players in the game, if you will, to defeat lostness and to make disciples through the planting of churches.  This is why the KBC is partnering with NAMB and the 36 Send Cincinnati church planters to connect KBC churches with them as they invest their lives in the Queen City for maximum gospel impact.

One church planter in Cincinnati told Kentucky Baptist pastors and leaders who were visiting him on a vision trip, “KBC churches have made it possible for us to do more through their partnerships with us than we could on our own.”  Cooperative missions is what we are about as Southern Baptists.  We really believe we can do more together than we can by ourselves. 

When your church gives through the Cooperative Program, you are stepping up to the plate to help advance the gospel as churches are planted in Cincinnati.  Churches giving through the Cooperative Program help support financially all 36 church planters in Cincinnati (and eventually the additional 7 which are in the hopper), as the gospel is multiplied in the Queen City.  Now that’s worth our cooperation and excitement.   

For more information about Cincinnati or our other KBC partnerships and how your church can give and go, email us at [email protected] or visit www.kybaptist.org/vision.