By Gregg Boll, Associate Director of Missions ([email protected])
Fulfilling Kingdom Ministry
It has been an honor to serve alongside Dr. Hammer and the other BR-KC staff for five of the ten years we are celebrating at our Fall Semi-Annual Meeting. I never could have imagined when I left a pastorate in 2012 how meaningful and fulfilling my next five years of Kingdom
ministry would be. I owe that in large part to serving with one of the most competent, visionary leaders I’ve known in my 33 years of ministry. Also, I was blessed by the fact that the Associate Director before me, Loren Hutchinson, had done such a great job in resourcing our churches. Just as in the pastorate, it’s far better to follow a well-beloved, proficient staff person than not. Loren faithfully served BR-KC as Associate Director for 28 years and I know that I am merely standing on his shoulders as I continue to serve. I have also been impressed by the dedication and competency of our BR-KC pastors, staff and members who serve tirelessly week in and week out.
The scope of our ministry and missions is unlike any other Association I have ever been a part of. I produced a precursory list of the ministries of BR-KC recently to share with a church considering membership in our Association. The list contained 34 ministries that serve our churches and expand the Kingdom in the Kansas City area to the ends of the earth. The thing I have appreciated most about Dr. Hammer’s leadership is his desire to serve the churches and not to hoard the resources that come to us.
New Office Space and Equipping Churches
One great example of this is the old BR-KC office at Woods Chapel and 470 highway which Dr. Hammer inherited when he came as D.O.M. It was a behemoth 13,000 square foot building for only three staff members. When I arrived in early 2013 Dr. Hammer had already led the Association to sell the building and to fund a missions/ministry initiative called Vision 2020. We sold the building to the Jackson County 
Sheriff’s office for a little over $800,000 in early 2014. Rather than keep that money for a rainy day, Dr. Hammer led the Association to put it in a safe, conservative investment company, and to immediately begin giving grants to our BR-KC churches. To date, over $500,000 in grants have been given back to our churches to help them fulfill their mission and in some cases to keep their doors open for ministry.
After renting an office for a short time, and seeing our rent steadily increase, we felt that it would be wise to purchase a smaller office that could serve the staff and churches of BR-KC more efficiently. After an extensive search, we found a construction contractor’s office for sale in Greenwood. Greenwood is located on the Jackson/Cass Country line which is very near the geographical center of our two-county Association. This office has served us well and greatly reduced our annual financial outlay for office space.
Important New Ministry in Kansas City
In 2014 Dr. Hammer began to be aware of the problem of sex-trafficking and that Kansas City was a major hub for this heinous activity. Dr. Hammer, myself and Dennis Roth of Heart of Life Church were invited by District Attorney Teresa Moore to begin attending the Coalition Again Human Trafficking meetings she hosted to address the growing problem. Through these meetings we soon realized that there was no
one in the entire KC metro area who provided long term, restorative care for women rescued or had otherwise escaped from sex-trafficking. There was literally nowhere for them to go to escape their traffickers and pimps. In many cases women who were rescued had no choice but to return to their trafficker to survive. When our BR-KC churches heard about how prevalent the problem was in our own city, they rallied to the challenge.
Our churches came together and soon a member of Heart of Life had given us full use of two houses and another donor, Roy Eutsler, gave a lead gift of $60,000 in honor of his deceased wife. In June of 2015, Restoration House of Greater Kansas City, formed a board of directors, hired a bare bones staff team and opened its doors to trafficked women. In three short years we have seen the budget grow from that original $60,000 gift to nearly $400,000 in 2018. We have served 58 women thus far and 8 women have given their life to Christ and followed Him in believer’s baptism. May God be glorified and may the churches of BR-KC celebrate the birth of this amazing ministry. And, as a personal note, it is the first time in my entire ministry that I have witnessed an Association start a completely separate ministry of this magnitude and community impact.
Leadership Training and Pastoral Support
I am blessed to work with the Credentials Committee of BR-KC. Our committee is tasked with interviewing churches desiring to become a member of the Association. In the last 10 years, 35 churches have joined BR-KC. What’s most exciting is that these churches are from every 
background, demographic and ethnicity. They consist of everything from open country churches to ethnic immigrant churches in the inner city and everything in between. It also speaks well of the SBC family and our Association that many of these churches who joined came from non-SBC backgrounds.
It is my privilege and role to provide quality training opportunities for the member and staff of our BR-KC churches. Our practice has been to offer one leadership training event and a preaching seminar every other year. Many years we have provided both. We have invited several known practitioners over the last several years to invest in and mentor our BR-KC pastors and staff. We have offered Vacation Bible School training for workers and directors for the last 10 years, as well. Recognizing the incredible emotional toll ministry can have on pastors, staff and their families, in 2016 we made an arrangement with Diakonos Christian Counseling whereby we can offer confidential, Christian counseling to pastors, staff and any immediate family member at a greatly reduced cost. BR-KC and Diakonos share the costs of this counseling making it affordable to any family of any income level.
One of the most fulfilling things I have had opportunity to do with BRKC is to work with the pastors of our churches. I have enjoyed serving in four different interim pastorates and will be starting another one in October. For the last five years we have offered a monthly mentoring/training platform for pastors of struggling, declining churches called the Revitalization Cohort. We have invited the best church revitalization professionals to help these pastors turn their churches around and get headed in a healthier direction. Dr. John Mark Clifton, Bob Bickford, and Pastor Dan Southerland are just a few of the people we have enlisted to work directly with our churches and pastors to restore them to health and growth. I can say that I have grown personally through my varied experiences in working with our great churches and pastors and am very thankful for the opportunity to serve with such an incredible Association.
This article was originally published in the 2018 Book of Reports.
