“But the word of God increased and multiplied” (Acts 12:24, ESV) in the first-century Middle East and it is doing so in twenty-first century New England.

That’s the inspiring message that New England Baptists can expect to be preached in various ways from the podium and discussed in small-group workshops when they attend the Baptist Churches of New England annual meeting—the theme of which will be “Multiplication Matters.”

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The theme can be understood by considering the words of evangelist Billy Graham, who wrote, “One of the first verses of Scripture that Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators, made me memorize was, ‘The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also’ (2 Tim 2:2, KJV). This is a little like a mathematical formula for spreading the gospel and enlarging the Church.”

“Paul taught Timothy; Timothy shared what he knew with faithful men; these faithful men would then teach others. And so the process goes on and on. If every believer followed this pattern, the Church could reach the entire world with the gospel in one generation! Mass crusades, in which I believe and to which I have committed my life, will never finish the Great Commission; but a one-by-one ministry will,” added Graham, in The Holy Spirit: Activating God's Power in Your Life (Thomas Nelson, 2nd ed., 1988, p. 188).

Addressing that theme will be Phil Waldrep, an evangelist and author who is president of Phil Waldrep Ministries, Decatur, AL, and a longtime supporter of New England ministries; and Shaun Pillay, associate pastor of Olive Baptist Church, Pensacola, FL, a South African who planted a church in Norwich, CT. They will speak at plenary sessions on Saturday morning.

Stephen Thiel, a Wisconsin native who moved to Vermont to work with IBM before finding Christian faith and eventually relocating to Connecticut to plant Christ Proclamation Church, Windsor, will preach the annual sermon Friday night.

On Friday afternoon, Terry Dorsett will deliver his annual Executive Director’s Report and explain how “focus and fortitude make multiplication possible over the long haul.” He will ask attendees to “not get sidetracked by all the ministry fads” that pervade ministry in North America, but instead to “stay focused on the ministry of gospel multiplication.”

Dorsett, whose tenth anniversary as executive director will be April 1, 2025, will moderate a panel discussion at which regional coordinators will tell stories about ministry developments and challenges. He also directs the Baptist Foundation of New England, which invests financial resources for “long-term spiritual impact” in the six-state region.

Previously, while living in Vermont, Dorsett led growth of the then-Green Mountain Baptist Association, planted Faith Community Church in Barre, and was pastor of the Washington Baptist Church.

Lierte Soares Jr. will kick off the two-day annual meeting November 1 at 10:00 am at First Baptist Church, Manchester, CT, when he enrolls church representatives from across the region for a day of worship, committee reports, and staff updates. He will then highlight recent appointments, deliver the president’s address, and stand for re-election.

In an historic decision nearly a year ago, New England Baptists elected Soares, who is from Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, Brazil, as their president. Typically, BCNE presidents are elected by acclamation to serve a second one-year term. Since then the self-proclaimed “reverse missionary” pastor of churches in Georgetown and Framingham, MA, has also been named Director of the BCNE Multiplication Center.

The 2024 Ray Allen Evangelism and Robert Brindle Church Planting awards will be presented and a 2025 budget will be adopted at the annual meeting.

Phil Waldrep, evangelist, conference speaker, and CEO of Phil Waldrep Ministries, traveled to Vermont to preach in a rural church where he learned that pastors needed opportunities to meet together, be taught by other Christian leaders, and be encouraged in their ministries. That 1984 trip sparked Waldrep’s passion for New England and, in 1988, he launched the New England Pastor’s Encouragement Retreat, a three-day gathering of church leaders for renewal and refreshment. Today, more than 300 leaders attend one of two retreats held each year.

Waldrep, who is author of Stop Chasing Happy and Start Pursuing Your Purpose (Harvest House Publishers, 2021), helps readers “find the meaning God wants for your life [as] you examine the principles of Christlike joy.” He has served as the board chairman at Northeastern Baptist College, Bennington, VT, and is a past recipient of BCNE’s Robert H. Brindle Church Planting Award.

*Stephen Thiel will preach this year's annual sermon*

Shaun Pillay is Minister of Evangelism and Discipleship at Olive Baptist Church, Pensacola, FL. He was born and raised in South Africa. After graduating from Durban Bible College and the University of Zululand, he was a youth and missions pastor in Durban. At a conference in Birmingham, UK, in 2005, he learned of the need for missionaries in the United States and answered that call two years later when he planted Cornerstone City Church, Norwich, CT.

Pillay later took his passion for church planting to the North American Mission Board, where he was a catalyst in the Northeast for seven years. He is committed to discipling people not yet reached by the gospel and will be so until “the earth [is] filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Hab 2:14, ESV).

A native of Wisconsin, Stephen Thiel moved in 2013 from Vermont to Connecticut to start a church. In October 2014, he launched Christ Proclamation Church in Windsor. He is an alumni of the New England Training and Sending Center for Church Planting and Revitalization (NETS), Williston, VT, which “trains and sends men to plant and revitalize gospel-driven churches in New England and beyond.”

Thiel’s prayer continues to be that God might use Christ Proclamation Church to start a church-planting movement in the Connecticut River Valley. He is recruiting pastors, church planters, and church revitalizers so that the gospel might be proclaimed in more locations so that “sinners might be saved and saints might be sanctified.”

A Massachusetts native and a New England Baptist since 1970, Dan Nicholas is the BCNE managing editor.

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