Rev. Darrell Armstrong, senior pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church of Trenton, has had a growing concern for strengthening the Baptist identity and tradition of his congregation. Not only is he aware of the rapidly changing demographic of his community and, by extension, his congregational membership, but also because Shiloh Baptist Church is home to a good number of ministers and seminarians in training who are all preparing for pastoral ministry in ABCNJ/ABCUSA. He reached out to the regional pastors of ABCNJ to discuss his concern. What came out of that conversation was a creative and novel approach that now is a resource that is available to all ABCNJ churches.

ABCNJ and Shiloh Baptist Church came up with a series of 5 classes on Baptist History, Practice and Theology which were all held at the church in the course of 5 weeks, beginning November 17, 2011 (skipping Thanksgiving week), through December 15, 2011, taught by Rev. Dr. Lee Spitzer and Rev. Dr. Elmo Familiaran. A Major component of that were two sessions on ABCNJ regional life and ABCNJ/ABCUSA ordination.

We invite you to avail of this resource. In a "post-denominational" society, one might ask, "Why is it so important to know that we are Baptists and American Baptists?"  Our sense of family and roots give us our identity and sense of purpose in our life journey.  To be grounded in the particularity of our identity as a people of God is important so that we can live out our witness and mission with clarity of understanding in how our uniqueness contributes to the universal and ongoing kingdom work of the Holy Spirit and the church in the world.

We invite you to call the region office to avail of this resource. We will be glad to design a plan that best fits your needs.