Sierra Vista spreads its wings to cover children and families

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. – A drive-through prayer ministry started recently at First Baptist Church of Sierra Vista. It’s one of several local and cross-border outreaches in the church less than 20 miles north of Mexico.

And starting this fall, the church is to serve as a southern satellite site for the Arizona campus of Gateway Seminary.

“We hope to be a church that cooperates with and supports other churches in the area through the Cochise Baptist Association and the [Arizona Mission Network of Southern Baptists] state convention,” Pastor Jesse Wood told Baptist Press. “We have lots of smaller rural communities around us and want to be supportive of them.”

In addition to a number of members volunteering at the local pregnancy resource center and other community-based ministries, Sierra Vista First, where about 220 people attend Sunday morning worship services, hosts and leads several ministries. That’s up from the 100 worshippers when Wood was called as pastor in 2019.

The church allocates about 20 percent of its undesignated offerings for missions. Currently, 9 percent of receipts go to support the local association, a number of local ministries, and missionaries with direct connections to Sierra Vista First. An additional 7 percent goes to missions through the Cooperative Program, the way Southern Baptists work together to spread the good news of God’s unconditional love worldwide.

“We love the Cooperative Program because we can accomplish so much that way,” Wood said. “The Cooperative Program allows us to do so much more than we could on our own. Alone it would be a stretch to support even one missionary family full time. Through CP, we have a much broader reach, supporting missionaries, church plants, and doctrinally sound seminaries, to name a few. Alone, we would lack the funds and wherewithal to even begin taking on such endeavors!

“My seminary education was supported through CP,” the pastor continued. “Going to seminary and knowing the professors will teach in line with the Bible is huge. I’m very excited to give to the Cooperative Program to support that for others too.”

Wood’s roots are in Massachusetts, but a mission trip to the Dominican Republic ultimately led him to Criswell College in Dallas, where he said he “experienced the blessings” of Southern Baptists. In time, he went on to study for his Ph.D. in biblical theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and successfully defended his dissertation this past summer, based on a portion of Genesis. 

“I loved the biblical commitment I saw in the convention and at Criswell,” Wood said. “I didn’t grow up in the South, but I was comfortable in the Southern Baptist world, first and foremost because of the Southern Baptist commitment to the authority of Scripture. Also, the way Southern Baptists network together to accomplish global efforts while maintaining a biblical approach to local church autonomy as a convention of churches is very unique.”

Discipleship is a strength at Sierra Vista First, the pastor said. Evangelism, less so, but the pastor has a plan to change that: implementation this fall of a Colorado version of the “Who’s your one?” evangelism strategy: Invest, Invite, Introduce.

“I want to see our church do more evangelism, to not be content to merely build up existing disciples but to be sure we’re faithful in evangelism,” Wood said. “This is a burden the Lord has put on me. The drive-through prayer is part of that.”

How it works: Members hang out on the sidewalk with signs that say, “How can I pray for you?”

“I was skeptical, but the very first day, the very first person to stop was a woman who had just found out she was pregnant,” the pastor said. “She was concerned because she was battling addictions. That pretty much sold me that this is a great opportunity.”

The drive-through prayer ministry was started in the spring by Sierra Vista First members. Mike Olson had participated in a similar ministry at another church before moving to Sierra Vista and presented the idea to church leaders. Now a team of about 10 offers to pray for anyone passing by every Tuesday from 7-9 a.m.

An undercurrent of concern for the next generations runs through the church. In addition to a Christian school and music education, foster care and adoption ministries are important, which include care for parents of fostered children.

Sierra Vista First has been known for more than 40 years for the quality and scope of music education it provides. Worship Pastor Roger Bayes leads a year-round children’s music program that includes handbells, summer music camp for both vocalists and percussionists, youth vocalist choir, plus adult vocalist and handbell choirs.

In the 1980s, the church established First Baptist Christian Academy, which educates about 225 students and teaches a Christian worldview through about 30 faculty and staff. The school is a ministry of the church; both meet in the same location with a partially shared staff, yet separate budgets. The school board members are all Sierra Vista First members.

“We view the school as a ministry and outreach to the community,” Wood said. “We work hard to maintain a Christian worldview in every subject taught in the Academy.

“As a church, we spend a lot of time studying the Word together,” the pastor continued. “Love for the Word of God is another thing I love about the Southern Baptist Convention. People at Sierra Vista First love to dig into the Scriptures!”

New this fall: a satellite site of the Arizona campus of Gateway Seminary. Wood is teaching Old Testament Survey 1. One of his goals is to offer Gateway Seminary courses in English and Spanish at the Sierra Vista site.

Wood also has helped launch a Hispanic church that meets on both sides of the border in a town called Naco.

“My long-term goal is that my role and responsibilities progressively decrease, and they have been,” said Wood, who speaks both English and Spanish. “I’ll be there [in Naco] until I’m not needed.”

“I desire to do more outreach and to keep leaning into equipping others for leadership,” Wood said. “To do this well, we will need to build out our administrative framework to keep pace with the expanding ministry and to talk more with the church about evangelism. The obstacles on our path are real, but we are blessed to be in a season where the challenges are really the best kind: the kind that are natural consequences of the Lord stretching and growing His people.”

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This article appeared in Baptist Press.