God has called us to reach out and engage our community with the love and gospel of Jesus Christ, to disciple the nations and edify His Body, and to develop relationships with others who share the same call and passion from God.

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This is our story…

When God gave the vision to First Baptist Church Aurora 15 years ago to become a multi-ethnic congregation, no one had any idea the magnitude of what God wanted to accomplish through us. We knew that our community is changing, we knew that we were ill-equipped to meet the changing needs of our community, and we knew we needed God’s help to make that vision a reality. It has been an exciting, painful, messy, and rewarding journey ever since.

 

We have already been working with our Spanish and Korean ministries for many years and God led us to add a Filipino ministry to our growing family. In 2006, God opened a door for us to partner with a mission group called Global Encounter based in Missouri. Their heart is to help churches reach their communities with the Gospel by bringing in young people to conduct backyard Bible clubs, Vacation Bible Schools (VBS), and other community outreach projects. These young people get trained to do mission work in return. Many of them, through their experience with Global Encounter, received their call to serve God full-time, some committed their lives to serving their churches back home, and some went on to be missionaries locally and internationally.

Through them, we were able to conduct VBS at the two parks nearest our church – the Aurora City Park and the Spencer-Garrett Park. We have seen many professions of faith and lives touched by God’s love through this work. These parks have been known as the venue of a lot of gang activity, drug buying, and selling, and with that, a high crime rate. One grandmother told us that she was very happy that we get to work and play with her grandkids at the park because she has stopped allowing them to go to the park because of the increased criminal activity in their area. We are also able to minister to the Muslim community living around the parks. Although the mothers would not allow their kids to be brought to our church and be taught about Jesus, they would allow us to teach the Bible to their kids at the parks. We even had one Muslim mother attend our block party at the church at one time and we were able to love on her and her kids.

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Partnerships

Through our years conducting V.B.S. at the parks, we have seen many changes in our community demographically. Slowly but steadily, different refugee communities began to come and settle along Colfax Avenue. With the influx of different refugee communities from Asia, Africa, and Europe, God led us to meet different ministries seeking to serve their respective ethnic communities with the gospel of Jesus. We met Pastor Lermu Martin who wanted to start a church for the Karen tribe from Myanmar (known before as Burma). They have been persecuted by the Burmese people and had to live in refugee camps before coming to the US. We have now been working with them for almost 10 years. Our Karen partners surprised us one day by introducing us to some Burmese leaders who wanted to reach people from their country who can only speak Burmese. These people who were persecuting them years before are now being endorsed by Karen church! That was a God-thing! We saw God’s hand working in that partnership and, so we adopted the Myanmar Agape Church of Denver more than 5 years ago. Eventually, we also decided to work with the Colorado Lisu Community Church, another tribe from Myanmar and they have been a growing work ever since.

 

With the influx of African refugee communities, God led Pastor Dieu Donne Anyokwa’s path to cross ours. He and his family arrived in the Metro Denver area over 5 years ago and they were looking for a church family that they can be a part of. After many years of worshiping with FBCA, he approached us and shared his vision of starting a work for the Swahili-speaking people from Africa. At least 12 nations speak this language and, so we decided to adopt this mission endeavor with them.

 

Not only has God led us to local partners, He also expanded our partnerships outside our State. Throughout the years, aside from Global Encounter, we have also partnered with IgoGlobal (based in Texas), several churches from Missouri, Alabama, and Oklahoma. The Cherokee Strip Baptist Association from Enid, Oklahoma partnered with us for three years helping us out with follow up programs and a lot of building maintenance. They also sponsored school supplies and backpacks that we gave away to the kids who attended our VBS as part of our follow-up program with them. We have also partnered with FBC Keller from Texas who helped us with Sports Camp through our local Crawford Elementary School. In 2016, Women’s Mission Union of the SBC came to Aurora and we were able to reach our community with them. One of our current partners is FBC Arnold (Missouri) and they have been faithful sending teams every summer to help us out with our Vacation Bible School when Global Encounter is not in town.

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Aurora Police Department

When WMU came, they were looking for an opportunity to bless our community. We suggested that we wanted to honor our Police Department with a block party in their honor. With several communities represented at 1550 Havana St., we could easily come up with 150 people showing our appreciation to the service faithfully given by the APD District 1. News of our intention reached the APD Headquarters and Chief of Police. They were so elated that communities of faith are recognizing the work that they are doing, a number of their officers, the Commander of District 1, and the APD Chief of Police showed up for the event. We presented them with a Plaque of Appreciation and prayed for them, their work, and their families. This gave the APD the idea of gathering the communities of faith in our area to do something together to make an impact in our own community. Several months after that event, they called us together (around 12 churches) and we started “I Care,” a community clean-up project along Colfax Ave. We all walked along Colfax and its peripheral streets to pick up trash and we all gathered together at Fletcher Park for some time of worship, prayer, and fellowship. This is now an on-going relationship we have with our local APD and churches in our area.

 

One story begs to be told about how our Police Department has seen the work of God at 1550 Havana St. We were hosting a block party during our last day of VBS in our parking lot and we transported the kids we ministered to at the park to our location. One set of siblings forgot to tell their mother that we were taking them to FBCA. When she cannot find them, she called the police to ask for their help. The police asked for a description of the group that went to the park the whole week. The mother told them that “they” played with them, fed them, taught them the Bible, and had fun with them. The police said, “There is only one church we know who does that kind of work in our community – FBC Aurora.” So, they took her to our block party, she attended the event, and we were able to minister to her and her kids.
 

Changes and Needs

God is taking us to places we have never been before. When we started this journey 15 years ago, we had no idea how God would lead us through the many doors of opportunity that we have experienced. We are still receiving requests from different ethnic groups from all over the world asking if they could partner with us in reaching their community for Christ. Today, of the 32 countries represented just in our neighborhood (Source: Crawford Elementary School), we represent 26 countries in our ministry.

 

With the world on our doorstep, we always tell our potential partners – “If you want to experience international missions, come to FBC Aurora where you can have that experience without the need for a US passport.” Last year was a big milestone for our youth group. We were able to send 18 people to Missouri for a Mission trip through Global Encounter. Now, we are not only hosting mission teams from all over the country to reach our community, we are also sending out people from our community to reach other people with the gospel of Jesus. We are looking forward to many more years of mission projects for our church – outside our State and Lord willing, outside our country.

 

With these great opportunities, great needs are also present. Since we are serving one of the lowest earning communities in Colorado, doing ministry has been a strain for the resources of FBCA. We have reached a critical juncture in our work where we have had to seriously consider our future in our area. Is God’s work evident in our ministry? Absolutely! Have the needs for community outreach diminished through the years? Not at all! Can we see God’s hand in the work that we are doing? There is no question about it. Our community needs the light and the service that Jesus’ church is doing right now. We believe that our story is God’s story and God’s story is not done yet. Would you partner with us to ensure that His story gets told for many years to come?