Consultant Will Ask New England Baptists to Sharpen Their Church’s “Leadership Development Culture” Because “The Mission of the Gospel Is Too Great to Be Left to Chance”

Ty Childers, senior pastor of Fairview Baptist Church, Spartanburg, South Carolina, will challenge attendees when he preaches the Annual Sermon at the BCNE’s “Nexus Conference,” November 7-8. 

New England Baptists should understand their church’s “leadership development culture” and sharpen its focus for “growth and vitality,” which will provide “clarity and direction for improvement.” That’s the essence of what Mac Lake, a noted leadership development consultant, is expected to convey when he keynotes two Saturday plenary sessions at the Baptist Churches of New England’s (BCNE)  Annual Meeting, now called the “Nexus Conference,” November 7-8 at First Baptist Church, Marlborough, Massachusetts. 

Adding Clarity to Leadership Training

Leadership development consultant Mac Lake equips churches to “build strong leadership pipelines.” He will keynote two sessions of the BCNE’s annual Nexus Conference. 

Lake is known for “equipping churches to build strong leadership pipelines.” His YouTube channel and publications are packed with encouraging presentations and discussion questions that are planned to foster the “transformation of a young leader,” give pastors and church leaders the competence and confidence they need to oversee a growing, healthy congregation, and minister to their communities. “Creating a culture of developing leaders is critical for the growth and vitality of any church. [An] assessment will help you uncover the reality of your leadership development culture, providing clarity and direction for improvement,” he wrote in a statement on his web page. 

The Multiply Group, Charleston, South Carolina, which Lake founded in October 2019, draws upon his years of church planting and starting a church planting network. He and his team guide churches to “build intentional strategies for developing more and better leaders” because “the mission of the gospel is too great to be left to chance.” 

In the same vein, BCNE’s modus operandi is now identified as “Multiplying Christ-Followers in New England” and creating a “network [that] supports churches . . . through partnering, equipping, and encouraging.” The BCNE’s three-story office building in Northborough, Massachusetts, was renamed the “Multiplication Center.” 

A Church Is Not a Business

The leaders of a growing church must adopt a gospel-focused approach to all they do, though some aspects of a church’s operation may resemble business practices. The core purposes of a church and its shepherd-pastor(s) are the worship of God and the preaching of Bible-based sermons, discipleship and evangelism, missions, and community engagement. By contrast, the primary goals of a business and its CEO, owner(s), or trustees are customer service and sales for increased profit. 

While most churches have budgets, paid (non-CEO) pastors, unpaid elders and deacons, buildings and grounds, and carefully worded constitutions, these exist to facilitate biblical ministry and are not ends in themselves. A growing church’s leader recruitment and retention strategies can be enhanced by learning from the best leadership development practices of thriving businesses, which is why Lake quotes the Harvard Business Review in some of his presentations. 

Authors of the Harvard journal’s 2024 Global Leadership Development Study interviewed and surveyed more than 1,100 leadership and development professionals and functional leaders involved in planning leadership training. The theme that emerged from the study highlights “the need to advance the practice of leadership to meet the needs of transformation efforts across organizations.” (The full report may be downloaded.) Can a church afford to do any less? 

Lake graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary (1990) and Moody Bible Institute (1984). Before founding The Multiply Group, he was Lead Navigator of the Leadership Pipeline for Auxano, a consulting company that helps churches and organizations gain organizational clarity, and Senior Director of Church Planter Development for the North American Mission Board. 

A Revitalized Church Will Host the Nexus Conference

All the plenary, adjunct, and workshop speakers will address the theme in some way. “Above and Beyond,” BCNE Executive Director Terry Dorsett noted, is taken directly from Ephesians 3:20-21 (HCSB), which states: “Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

The Apostle Paul’s words, Dorsett noted, “remind us that God can do ‘above and beyond’ what we could ever ask or imagine” on our own, as God has done with the Nexus Conference host church in Marlborough. An “historic church that had been going through some challenging times and emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic with an uncertain future. The small congregation believed that God was not finished with them yet.” 

As reported by the New England Baptist News Service in February, First Baptist was revitalized after it joined the BCNE and developed a family-friendly, interculturally diverse ministry, with pastoral leadership from Logan Loveday, who will give a brief testimony Friday night before the Annual Sermon. 

The Executive Director, who completed a decade in that post on April 1, also said of the church, where he is a member: “God honored their faith and, in the last four years, he has done ‘above and beyond’ what they could have ever imagined. The building itself and the congregation that meets there is a testimony to the theme of this year’s meeting.” Loveday’s wife, Katie, is the daughter of Terry and Kay Dorsett. 

New England Is the Only Region Where Southern Baptists Are Growing

Long considered the premier gathering of New England Baptists—the single best place to reconnect each year with old friends and meet new ones—the 2025 reunion  has been rebranded this year as the BCNE “Nexus Conference.” “Most people come to the meeting for networking and connection, which is what the word ‘nexus’ means,” explained Dorsett. 

BCNE executive Director Terry Dorsett will comment on Lifeway Research’s major report at the 2025 Nexus Conference.

“Over the last few years, the meeting has been evolving into more of a conference and less of a business session, so it just made sense to change the name,” he added. 

In his annual Executive Director’s report on Friday morning, Dorsett will comment on the major Lifeway Research report that said, “New England was the only region of the US where Southern Baptist churches grew from 2018 to 2023. Churches in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont grew by 10%. Every other region saw declines in overall church membership.” 

The full April 2025 report by Aaron Earls is titled “Complicated Picture of Southern Baptist Churches Emerges From Statistical Analysis.”  The New England Baptist News Service reprinted the report and also published Dorsett’s reflection titled “Five Reasons Why We’re Growing.” 

“New England is the only region in the United States where Southern Baptists are growing. We think we can capitalize on that and keep it happening. We don’t think it is a fluke, but we do think it is a result of the long-term focused efforts of our BCNE churches and the BCNE staff being responsive to their needs,” Dorsett wrote in August. 

He will also offer comments of unity and thanks that Sean Sears is now leading the Send Network in New England and that Shaun Pillay is now leading the Send Network in Boston. “Our prayer is that new leadership within the Send Network in New England will allow our partnership with them to achieve greater impact than it has in the past, when our partnership had been strained.” Sears is also pastor of Grace Church in Avon, Massachusetts, and Pillay was pastor of Cornerstone City Church, Norwich, Connecticut. 

South Carolina Pastor Will Amplify the Meeting’s Theme

Ty Childers, senior pastor of Fairview Baptist Church, Spartanburg, South Carolina, will preach the Annual Sermon on Friday night. Amplifying the meeting’s theme. “Above and Beyond,” he is expected to focus his comments on “how God can do more than we can ask or imagine—and [God] is just getting started in New England,” said Dorsett.

Childers prayed in March 1981 to commit his life to Jesus Christ—and has “not gotten over it, and I know that I never will.” An energetic expository preacher, he began his ministry at Fairview Baptist in December 2007. He was President of the South Carolina Pastors Conference and Director of the North Spartan Baptist Association. 

He has been “in partnership with New England Baptists for over thirty years, and Fairview Baptist is currently the most generous contributing church to the BCNE budget among churches not affiliated with the BCNE,” Dorsett commented. 

Previously, Childers was pastor of Chiquola Baptist Church, Honea Path, SC; Zebulon Baptist Church, Toccoa, GA; and Oak Grove Baptist Church, Landrum, SC. He graduated with a Bachelor of Ministry from Fruitland Baptist Bible Institute, Hendersonville, North Carolina, and a Master of Ministry from Andersonville Theological Seminary, Camilla, Georgia. Childers, who is Dorsett’s brother-in-law, and his wife, Janice, have three children and nine grandchildren.

When asked to name his favorite Bible passage, the long-time pastor chose Galatians 2:20, about being crucified with Christ and living by faith, “because this verse helps me to remember who he is and who I am, [and] to take note that I am nothing, but he is everything.” 

“Knowing the Christian life is too big for me to live. I must die daily. . . .  So, in order for me to live for the Lord Jesus, I must be surrendered so he can live his life in me,” he told The Baptist Courier for 2012 profile published online. “Then [God] will be able to live his life through me.”