Media Outreach

1. Can you give me some background about the church and how long have you been there?

Regions Christian Center serves the Wamba section of Texarkana and was first chartered in 1936 as Wamba Baptist Church.  We are still a Baptist church with our local affiliation being with the Bowie Baptist Association, our State affiliation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas and our National affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention.  The church has been in our current location since 1954.  The Texas Baptist Men built the first church on this site.  We recently renovated that first building with a grant from the BGCT and use it for our Wednesday night and youth services.

I came to Regions in March of 2006.  The membership had dropped from a very active 300 to 17 members who just refused to let the church die.  Today we have an active membership of 123 and have averaged one baptism a month each month the last two and one half years.  But the most astounding statistic to me is that for the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009 100% of our active family units gave something to the church.  I cannot say that they tithed because I make it a practice not to know names of who gives, how much they give or what they earn. But they give – bless the Lord.

We were able to pay the church off in December of 2008 and are completely debt free.

2. How are you using your website to increase member involvement?

The calendar is the most used feature of the website.  We post the church activities, special guests, all church socials, summer camps, etc.  They also like the apples of gold where I was posting the bulletin inserts for a while.  In fact they read that so much that they were not reading the bulletin so I am re-thinking the whole issue, web site or bulletin.  The younger crowd says web site, the older members say bulletin.  Probably both.

3. How has the use of technology changed the way you do church?

It really has not changed, but it has enhanced.  Most notably by the flow of information, but also by allowing those looking for a church home to see what we believe, how we worship and where our focus is before coming.  The result is that most visitors come back and eventually become involved to some degree with the church.

4. How are you using media to communicate your message?

We are not yet streaming, I am a little modest for that but then the message needs to go out…

We do not really use the media except for our in house multimedia equipment.

5. How has the use of technology helped your ministry change lives?

Technology re-defines illustrated sermons.  People are really drawn in by videos (we buy a lot and Blue Fish seems to be our most popular) and get this – - DVD music presentations.  Especially the younger members.

6. If you were the Chief Technology Czar for churches, what would be your recommendations?

Consolidate or merge live web casts.  Big movie size screens giving the appearance of live personage on stage.  Great for seminars, small group presentations, etc.