Expanded 1:8 Leadership Experience
gets students on mission

Thirty Kentucky BCM students involved in summer missions in state, U.S. & Haiti By Garrett Wishall Kentucky Baptist Convention Louisville—Thirty college students from Baptist Campus Ministries from across the state of Kentucky are spending the summer sharing the gospel, rebuilding homes and working with the homeless in Haiti and inner-city Denver, San Francisco and Louisville as part of the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s 1:8 Leadership Experience. Based on the Acts 1:8 command to take the gospel to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth, the 1:8 Leadership Experience combines discipleship and teaching with missions and evangelism to create a full-orbed ministry experience.

SUMMER FUN Members of the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s 1:8 Leadership Experience West team play a parachute game with a group of children at a housing complex in inner-city Denver. Now in its third year, the 1:8 Leadership Experience has expanded to two teams in order to accommodate the demand. Thirty-three students from Kentucky colleges are participating this summer. (Photo by Evelyn Fuson)

“We are seeking to develop students for leadership now, on their campuses and in the future in local churches,” said Keith Inman, director of the KBC’s collegiate/young adult department. “The purpose of the 1:8 Leadership Experience is to get students involved in missions and evangelism (combined with) discipleship and leadership development.”

As it enters its third year, the program has expanded to include East and West student ministry teams, each of which will serve for eight weeks. Inman said the east/west division was set up to meet increasing student demand.

“We are looking at continuing to expand in the future,” he noted. “Next year, we are looking at the possibility of sending a team to China and also perhaps Turkey and South America.

“Part of the reason for expanding is mobilizing as many students as we can to be on mission and to see that it comes right out of the heart of the church,” Inman added.

The East team’s experience began June 6 and continues through July 30. Throughout June, the East team is based at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, as they work with the Jefferson Street Baptist Center, Kentucky Changers and several local churches. The group then will work with First Baptist Church of Salyersville before leaving for Haiti July 8, where they will do water purification ministry and disaster relief work.

Inman is leading the West team, whose summer began June 1 and runs through July 24. The West team is ministering in Denver for most of this month with that city’s Bear Valley Church and other area church plants.

Beginning July 1, the West team will spend 17 days serving in San Francisco.

“We will be plugged in to ministries that work with homeless people, an AIDS/HIV ministry and a human trafficking ministry,” Inman pointed out.

Colorado Christian University is housing the West team in Denver, with Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary filling that role while they’re in San Francisco. After its time in California, the West team will return to Kentucky to also work with First Baptist, Salyersville.

The 1:8 Leadership Experience includes a teaching/discipleship component that will be led by Southern Seminary’s Albert Mohler and Chuck Lawless, as well as BCM directors from across the state, Inman said.

“When we think about leadership, we think about three different components: being connected, having competence and having solid Christian character,” he noted. “College is a great time to discover what your passions are and what you are good at. We want to expose students to people who are in ministry.”

Inman said students raise half the money needed for the experience themselves. The other half comes from money raised by Kentucky BCMs Kentucky for state missions and from the Eliza Broadus State Missions Offering.

Katie Smith, who is about to enter her senior year at the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, said she is grateful to be on the West team after hearing about the program when it began.

“I heard about it through my campus minister when it first started a couple years ago and this year I filled out the application and prayed through it a lot,” she said. “What they were doing seemed really good, and as I prayed through it, I really felt like it is what God wanted me to do.”

Trenton Fleener, a recent graduate of Kentucky Wesleyan College in Owensboro, is participating in the 1:8 Leadership Experience for a second straight year. He said he particularly appreciated the discipleship training he received during his first summer and is excited to be doing the program again.

“It was so great last year,” he said, “so I decided I might as well do it” again.

Students were selected for the 1:8 Leadership Experience in November by BCM directors and the KBC.

1:8 Leadership East team:

Katie Goins, team coordinator, Northern Kentucky University associate campus minister.

Kelsey Barber, Western Kentucky University.

Madison Branstetter, University of the Cumberlands.

Bayley Davis, Northern Kentucky University.

Heather Dolce, Murray State University.

Claire Heitzman, University of Kentucky.

Lauren Hoeks, University of Louisville.

Chris Jeffrey, University of Louisville.

Anna Key, Murray State University.

Kara Monroe, Eastern Kentucky University.

Kenny Newton, University of the Cumberlands.

Kelly Poston, University of Kentucky.

Allen Reed, University of the Cumberlands.

Mark Reeves, Western Kentucky University.

Whitney Smith, Alice Lloyd College.

Robin Watson, Morehead State University.  

1:8 Leadership West team:

Stephanie Tartar, team coordinator, Northern Kentucky University graduate.

Jeremiah Ellis, Berea College.

Austin Fatkin, Western Kentucky University.

Jenny Ferguson, Northern Kentucky University.

Trenton Fleener, Kentucky Wesleyan College graduate.

Evelyn Fuson, Georgetown College.

Daniel Gifford, Western Kentucky University.

Audrey Harned, Murray State University.

Kaitlin Kirkpatrick, Eastern Kentucky University.

Chris Leeper, University of Kentucky.

Erika Maynard, Eastern Kentucky University.

Kyle Riffe, Morehead State University.

Katie Smith, University of the Cumberlands.

Amanda Sutton, University of Kentucky.

Madison Wesley, University of the Cumberlands.

Sarah Whisman, Morehead State University.

Jocelyn Yuen, University of Louisville.

Western Recorder issue date June 29, 2010.