Vermonters Took Point During a Relational and Contextualized Revival as International Commission Volunteers Assisted
The International Commission’s key staff and enlisted volunteers from Texas and Oklahoma shared their Christian faith in Vermont.
The “hills are alive with the sound” of praise for Jesus because forty-two people made faith commitments and more than 600 heard the gospel when nine Vermont churches took part in the state’s first annual Operation Andrew evangelistic campaign. The yearlong interdenominational emphasis on praying for and talking about Christ with neighbors concluded October 11-18 with a celebration.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
An International Mission Board blog defines the missions term "contextualization" as “knowing how to make the gospel and the church as much at home as possible” and as “the work of communicating unchanging truths in understandable ways to ever-changing cultural contexts with the expectation that God will save.”
The International Commission (IC, internationalcommission.org), a Lewisville, Texas, ministry that boldly proclaimed on their May 2 podcast that “revival is coming in Vermont,” held training sessions, dispatched key staff, and enlisted thirteen of their volunteers from Texas and Oklahoma to share their Christian faith in Vermont.
They explained Operation Andrew (OA), encouraged church leaders, and then stepped back as the Vermonters took point in what has been described as a slow-moving, relational, and contextualized revival harvest. It’s not your grandmother’s revival.
Rather than schedule weeklong “revivals” in the traditional sense of nightly tent meetings with a preacher and choir, the Vermont pastors and their IC partners took an approach that bridges the gap between biblical principles and local customs, using culturally appropriate methods—prayer, friendship, and hospitality—to present the gospel effectively.
The New England Baptist News Service reported on June 2 that IC’s focus on Vermont began more than a year ago, in October 2024, when First Baptist Church of Georgetown, Texas (FBG), sent mission teams to the Green Mountain State. Brent Edwards, a former IC president, traveled with them and talked about a personal evangelism that would fit the Vermont ethos. IC sends Christ-followers to more than 180 countries to partner with churches as they develop or enhance their own prayer and evangelism efforts.
Growing a Church in Rural Chelsea
When driving along Route 110, some eighteen miles south of Barre, Vermont, a visitor will enter the village of Chelsea. An 1859 general store in the town’s center once served as a meat locker but, in recent years, the two-story brick structure has been transformed, by God’s grace, into a house of worship.
Bill and Jan Smith stood in front of a fish net draped over a large whiteboard. Names were removed from the whiteboard as they were being written in “the book of life.”
Bill Smith Jr. and his wife, Jan, have been serving New Creation Fellowship, a Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE) congregation, since they moved to Chelsea in May 2014. The church’s name is taken from a well-known Bible passage: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor 5:17, ESV).
The Operation Andrew evangelism effort began for Chelsea when New Creation members each wrote the names of ten friends or family and committed to prayer, a systematic approach that “stirred up our church members for our community” and presented them with “the reality of really being proactive about sharing the good news with people and trying to reach and encourage them” with the gospel’s call to salvation, said Smith.
Operation Andrew, he added, “is not just about [saying] ‘Lord, save somebody in town’. It’s picking people who we would be praying for. I don't think [the approach] is necessarily new,” he added, “but it lit a fire under us to be more active about” evangelism and prayer.
The names of those being prayed for were listed on a fish net draped over a whiteboard until they committed their lives to Jesus Christ. Their names were removed from the whiteboard as they were being written in “the book of life’ (Rev 20:15). The church’s whiteboard list is placed year-round near the picture window for all to see, except for a few weeks in December when the spot is needed for a Christmas tree.
The Smiths and their twenty-plus church members are rejoicing these days because the names of three older brothers were erased from the prayer list after they committed their lives to Jesus Christ, decided to attend an introductory Bible study group, and will join the church after they’re baptized. A “grandmother raising her grandson” also made a faith commitment while meeting with women from the church and the International Commission.
All four new believers are “aware that they were part of the catch,” Smith noted with a folksy reference to the calling of Andrew and his brother, Peter. Jesus told the fishermen, who were among the earliest disciples: “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt 4:19, ESV).
“We literally pray that the Holy Spirit will stir our hearts and bring to our attention those who are in our lives and who we would continue to try to reach and nurture. And we pray that we would water the seeds that have been planted,” Smith added.
“I think Operation Andrew is something that, once you get started, changes the way you operate. You always are going to have ten people you’re going to be praying for, people you want to bring to Jesus,” said Jan Smith, who has long served in ministry with children.
A Heart for the Community
When First Baptist Church of Breckenridge, Texas, commissioned as missionaries and Washington Baptist Church in nearby Washington, Vermont, sponsored the Smiths, they had key roles in planting the Chelsea church that Smith describes as “an older rural congregation that has a heart for the community and for the needs in the community.”
“We establish relationships with younger families,” he continued, “and we do that through an after-school program for kids.” New Creation Fellowship, which the Smiths “launched” on October 4, 2015, is his first time as a solo pastor or, applying an orchestral term, his only experience in the “first chair.” In October 2025, they commemorated the first decade of the church, which thus far has survived the rigors of rural New England ministry. Other BCNE churches have come and gone from Chelsea in decades past.
“We struggle the most to get people in the doors of the church on Sundays, but they know who New Creation Fellowship is and what we’re about.”
The first annual Operation Andrew evangelistic campaign in Vermont concluded October 17 with a celebration at The Baptist Fellowship of Randolph. Russ Rathier, the BCNE Vermont Regional Coordinator (top center) organized the “relational revival.”
People in town attend some of the church’s summer outreach ministries, activities that include setting up a table at farmers’ markets; inviting the community to cookouts; designing and staffing floats in Independence Day town parades; and sponsoring soccer camps, Easter egg hunts, and Vacation Bible Schools.
A music and worship leader, always with other pastoral responsibilities, including education and administration, at churches in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, Smith’s first exposure to New England Baptists was in 2005 as a member of the Singing Men of Texas, a ministry of Texas Baptists. The large group flew to the Green Mountains for a concert tour that included a stop at the Barre Opera House.
Little did Smith, a Dallas native, realize then that he would plant a rural church nearby. “It was God’s open door for us to find our place in the community” of Chelsea.
When not studying for sermons or visiting church members, the pastor keeps busy by driving a school bus and clerking for the regional school board, the First Branch Unified District; his wife is a substitute teacher.
Last month, on November 2, Smith, 68, announced that he will retire after more than forty-five years, on August 31. A pastoral search committee is being formed. The Smiths will return to Texas after twelve years in Vermont, but they plan to devote part of each summer thereafter to serving churches as needed in the Green Mountain State. Their three adult children and six grandchildren are scattered across the United States.
Operation Andrew Explained
International Commission representatives including Director of Media Bucky Elliott (left) shared their faith and went away feeling like they had new family members when they left Vermont. [The IC photos are courtesy of Elliott.]
Most Christians recognize Andrew as the first apostle whom Jesus called to a lifetime of service and as an exemplary evangelist because he brought his younger brother, Simon (Peter), to encounter Jesus (John 1:40-42).
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) developed OA and features a printable poster, a simple OA outline that pastors may wish to follow, distribute to church members, and adapt as needed to their own contexts.
The BGEA gave the International Commission permission to adapt and expand on OA’s approach to relational evangelism. Seven short IC videos explain the process, which begins when a Christian lists ten names for daily prayer.
Relationships are created or strengthened when the person being prayed for is told about the prayers, when specific needs are shared, when the person being prayed for joins in informal settings such as at a gathering over breakfast or around a campfire, and then when he or she is given a low-key gospel presentation that could lead to a faith decision, participation in a church, or commitment to a follow-up gathering.
International Commission Served
Shara Cowen, IC’s AST (Area Strategic Team) vice president for North America, described her views of OA Vermont. “Everyone that I talked to who went to Vermont was very positive about the experience. They thought that the pastors were warm and welcoming, the churches were kind, and they really felt like it was a great experience for them.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Seven short International Commission videos explain Operation Andrew, which begins when someone lists ten friends or family for daily prayer.
International Commission staff returned to Vermont December 5-6 for a training session as churches prepare for the second Operation Andrew Harvest that will commence May 16-23, 2026, and conclude in Fall 2026. Contact Russ Rathier, the BCNE Vermont Regional Coordinator, at rrathier@bcne.net, for details.
“I feel that they [the Vermont pastors] felt like it was also a really good partnership that we had, and I think a lot of our participants went away feeling like they had new family members when they left Vermont.”
In April, when IC staff and volunteers arrived for their initial visit to Vermont, there may have been “just a little bit of unease” about cross-cultural expectations and outcomes, but, she continued, “I think all of those fears were put to rest.”
Cowen confirmed that forty-two people made faith decisions during OA Vermont and added that 615 people heard a gospel presentation in one-on-one or group discussions.
Living Out Faith and Building Relationships
Tim Whitman (seated) of Baptist Fellowship of Randolph discussed his experiences and explained his Christian faith to someone in a laundromat.
OA Vermont “isn’t a program where we set things up and other people come in and they do all the work. They don’t! [IC] comes in and works with us. We build the relationships with the people, and then they come alongside us. They may not say anything different than we’ve already said to the people, but they say it in such a way that it connects or validates what we’ve been saying to people for years,” said Russ Rathier, the BCNE Vermont regional coordinator.
“When someone else comes in and says what we’ve been saying for ten years, the person gets it. It’s that kind of a campaign. It’s just focusing the local church on how important it is to live out our faith and build relationships about our faith” added Rathier, who is also pastor of Grace Bible Church, Moscow, Vermont.
A native New Englander, he served as pastor of another Vermont congregation, Washington Baptist Church. Rathier’s background includes senior enlisted leadership roles during a twenty-year career in the US Navy. He worked with the BGEA for six years as the Operation Andrew coordinator for Vermont.