An excellent example of a congregation that represents BCNE’s growing edge is the multiethnic Word of God Christian Fellowship that Neptali Rondina has been leading since May 14, 2017. The Filipino American immigrant church serves recent arrivals from the Philippines, individuals and families who have found their way to Metrowest Boston and those who have lived near the region’s largest city for generations.
Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE) launched an innovative strategy, the New England Gospel Collaborative (NEGC), which procured $1,700 in gross sales of artisanal coffee since November, funds that will be invested in the church network’s foundation and then be used for ministries.
Mark H. Ballard announced in September 2024 that he would be planting a church in Bennington, Vermont. The founding president and chancellor of Northeastern Baptist College (NEBC) shared a vision from the Lord for planting a local church in Bennington, reaching the community with the gospel, and multiplying itself across New England, the country, and the world.
The 2025-26 academic year kicked off in September with NEBC’s largest student body ever—105 students! As you read that number, I encourage you to avoid concrete, impersonal thinking. Consider this: God brought on the campus 105 disciples, with their beautiful stories. Each student is a child of God, a laborer in the harvest fields of Vermont. That perspective will change the way someone thinks about what God is doing here.
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.
Ministries don’t “live by bread alone”—cash gifts and investments are needed to underwrite Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE) priority needs for 2026.
Nearly 250 pastors and church leaders from six states and beyond gathered for fellowship, information, worship, inspiration, and a little bit of business at the Baptist Churches of New England’s (BCNE’s) inaugural NEXUS Conference, November 7-8, at First Baptist Church, Marlborough, Massachusetts.
More than 100 college students and young adults from sixteen schools gathered October 17-18 at the Hilton Back Bay in downtown Boston for the inaugural Baptist Churches of New England Momentum Conference—two days of fellowship, worship, prayer, teaching, and urban community service.
If you’re seeking “vital tools” to fuel a “movement of multiplication” in your church or if you want to remove your leadership-development “barriers to the gospel,” the Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE) is organizing its inaugural NEXUS Conference, which ought to be an essential addition to your calendar.
Creative ministry comes easily to Silvio Simões dos Santos and Vera Lucia dos Santos, missionaries in Portugal, who use their talents in numerous ways to present the gospel—he as a clown and she as a creative artist.
The couple, who are natives of São Paulo, Brazil, opened their ministry center—called the “365 Family Project”—in Viana do Castelo, fifty miles north of Porto, on April 4, 2025. They sell high-quality, secondhand clothing; teach Brazilian jiujitsu; and offer Japanese origami paper folding classes. They also visit and provide a variety of activities at orphanages, schools, hospitals, and nursing homes in their adopted region and in several other countries.
The faith journey of George Lim that began more than two decades ago in San Diego around his mother’s holiday dinner table has blossomed, by God’s grace and because of a commitment to innovative leadership development methods, into The River Church, Glastonbury, Connecticut.
Anyone who spends more than a few minutes with New England Baptist house-church pastor, seminary scholar, and author Paul S. Biswas will soon discover that he was born for exactly the ministry he leads in Greater Boston.
Recently, my small group Bible study became aware that one of our members had received news about a very serious health condition. The moment she shared the diagnosis; the room became quiet. You could see the concern on everyone’s faces. Some of us didn’t know what to say. Others immediately began asking how we could help. In that moment we were reminded that small groups are more than just weekly Bible studies—they are spiritual families that walk through life together.
Every great turnaround has a moment. A line in the sand. A day when everything shifts from what was to what will be. For the church, that moment has a name: it is Palm Sunday.
A sixty-person church can plant another church—size isn’t the issue. A church of sixty can plant another church effectively and with mission, but not if it’s dying and grasping for air. A congregation that is plateaued or declining can’t think about multiplication when it’s fighting for survival. The energy goes to keeping what exists, not creating what’s next.
For many people in New England, a church’s online presence is the first (and sometimes only) interaction they will have with your congregation. Long before someone considers walking through your doors, they will quietly Google your church, scroll your social media, and form conclusions about who you are, what you value, and whether they would feel comfortable visiting.
As one year ends and another begins, most of us naturally pause. We look back on the year we’ve just lived—what went well, what was hard, what we wish had gone differently—and we begin thinking about what’s ahead.
This is a healthy moment. It’s a time for reflection, humility, grace, and even some dreaming. When done well, learning from the past doesn’t trap us there—it helps prepare us for the future.
As we step into a new year, Scripture offers a wise, balanced way to plan, renew, and move forward with God.
Each year during Advent, my family pulls out our well-loved copy of The Jesus Storybook Bible and reads through the stories leading up to Christmas. One of my favorite parts is tracing Jesus’s family line woven throughout Scripture, watching name after name unfold until we reach the child in the manger. It strikes me every year that Christ didn’t just come to a human family, He came through one. He chose to have this particular lineage, these particular people, their DNA forming His tiny baby body. And remembering that makes the genealogy feel far less like a list and far more like a miracle of grace.
A well-known podcaster recently brought the topic of hell to the forefront by advocating for annihilationism or conditionalism, the belief that the soul of the nonbeliever ceases to exist at the final judgment. A stir of responses followed! The doctrine of hell has always been a controversial one. The traditional view of hell as eternal conscious torment has so often been accused of being cruel, and even dare I say, unjust? Add to this medieval depictions of souls in agony burning forever in literal fire and it's a topic to offend even a passive skeptic. It may be helpful to consider the Bible’s teaching on hell again, with some help from C. S. Lewis.
Advent is the season when the Church leans forward on tiptoe. It is the time each year when we acknowledge that the world is both beautiful and broken, both radiant with grace and aching for healing. Advent does not rush. It does not shout. It does not demand. Advent whispers. It invites. It teaches us to wait—not with resignation, but with expectancy.
It’s a debate going on for over 500 years. What actually happens during communion? Is there a transformation of substance as Rome demanded? Is there a spiritual presence within the bread and wine as Calvin argued? Is there, as Luther contended, a mysterious physical presence in the elements, “as heat is to iron?” Baptists have most often taken the Memorial View, focusing on the remembrance of the gospel, advocated by Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer.
This article explores the significance of reverse mission for churches in New England, a region historically associated with the rise of American Protestantism but now marked by widespread secularization and declining church participation. It argues that reverse mission offers both a theological and sociological response to religious decline by revitalizing congregations, reshaping religious identity, and affirming Christianity’s global character.
Thanksgiving has a way of slowing us down just long enough to recognize something we often overlook: God’s goodness is not only around us—it is sustaining us, even when life feels heavy. In the busyness of ministry and the challenges of living out our faith in New England, we sometimes need the reminder that the Lord’s care does not change with our circumstances.
In Exodus 1:12-22, we encounter a sobering chapter in Israel’s history. The Israelites, once welcomed as guests in Egypt, had multiplied and prospered. Pharaoh, fearing their growing numbers, turned that blessing into a threat. He enslaved them with forced labor and, ultimately, commanded that every newborn Hebrew boy be killed. These decrees were legal in Egypt, but they were morally abhorrent. Though this story unfolds in ancient times, its tension feels strikingly relevant today as Christians navigate workplaces, institutions, and systems that may expect compliance over conviction. It raises a pressing question for believers in every generation: What should we do when human authority asks us to act unethically?