Pastoral Mentor Johnny Fain Invests in Endowed Funds That Will Underwrite Salaries of Nine Missionaries
Johnny and Debbie Fain, near home in Alabama, are cofounder of Assignment International Ministries. They are among the first investors in the Baptist Foundation of New England’s ministry chair funds.
Missionary movements need missionaries and missionaries need salaries that underwrite their youth outreach, collegiate evangelism, church planting, leadership development—and many other important tasks—that advance New England Baptist ministry.
To that end, Baptist Foundation of New England (BFNE) leaders recently established endowed funds to underwrite the salaries of nine essential missionary staff and asked eight “core givers” to become the initial investors; they gave a combined total of $132, 644 (as of December 31).
Stewardship Development Involves Building Lasting Relationships
The core donors included Johnny Fain, president and cofounder of Assignment International Ministries. Following prayer, he gave seed money to each of the nine funds when asked.
Following fifty years of church ministry in Alabama and Georgia including as senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Dothan, Alabama, Fain of Trussville, Alabama, and his wife, Debbie, felt God’s call to leave the pastorate.
After prayerfully considering various options, they decided to start Assignment International Ministries (AIM) to mentor, equip, and encourage pastors and their wives and, AIM’s website says, “to help them stay spiritually and emotionally equipped for the assignment that the Lord has placed them to serve.”
The Fains teach pastors and their wives “the spiritual principles of prayer, and of hearing God, and staying where God’s called them.” Their ministry of encouragement “takes us into New England for over four months of the year.”
A native of Eufaula, Alabama, who found faith in Jesus Christ at the age of eight, Fain got started with New England ministry a dozen years ago when a friend from Dothan, Ed Wright, by then a staff member of the Northeastern Baptist College, Bennington, Vermont, invited him to help the college, then a new endeavor, by bringing a mission team. He has been helping as needed ever since.
Johnny Fain of Alabama (right), a faithful supporter of New England Baptist ministry, gave a tour of Williams College and the historic Haystack Prayer Meeting, which was said to be “the first documented time that Americans committed themselves to foreign missionary work.”
Now that he has retired from pastoral ministry, the Fains escape the blazing Alabama heat by spending every July to October in Bennington. The college even lists Fain on its staff web page as an “advancement ambassador.”
Their network of ministry extends far beyond Vermont. They serve churches and pastors in the other five New England states, in fourteen other states from Oregon and Texas to New York and West Virginia, as well as in Honduras and Wales. Through itinerant preaching, church conferences, and numerous one-on-one sessions, the couple invite others on what they call “a journey of prayer [for] those on the front lines of ministry, especially pastors and wives.”
Since Fain has a heart for campus ministry in particular, he had previously given to the BCNE’s collegiate ministry fund. When asked to prime the pump by becoming one the first investors in the BFNE ministry chair funds, he thought he would just invest in the collegiate ministry chair fund but he decided to give to all nine endowed funds.
“Now we’re giving seed money for all of them because of the benefit that it brings to New England and to equipping the people there.” The Fains decided “to equip the [BCNE staff] ministers to do the work of the ministry.”
Experts agree that stewardship development for ministry and missions involves building lasting relationships over time. The Fains met Dorsett when the BCNE leader spoke some years ago at a meeting in Alabama on the topic of small-church ministry, which Dorsett had mastered during his years in rural Vermont.
Fain remembered, “We met [again] and got to know each other much more in depth during a missions conference in Ohio six years ago. We had to go to Ohio to get to get around each other. We spent several days just laughing and having a great time.”
Though there are a variety of ways in which new missionary personnel are being funded in the BCNE, one of those ways, Dorsett noted, is the recent creation of the nine “chair” endowments described below.
“Much like seminaries create various chairs to endow professorships,” he added, “the Baptist Foundation of New England has created nine chair endowments to fund nine critical missionary positions.”
For nearly forty years, the Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE.net) has been on the forefront of fielding missionary staff to reach New Englanders with the gospel. In the past, many of those leaders were funded by various Southern Baptist Convention national entities and partner state conventions but, since 2012, funding from national agencies has been phased out.
“There are no longer any nationally funded missionaries serving through the BCNE,” a financial reality that, said Dorsett, “has resulted in the BCNE having a much smaller missionary staff than in the past. It has also required the BCNE to be more creative. Now we fund our own essential missionary personnel.”
Getting Nine New Endowment Funds Off the Ground
A donor may invest in a particular “Chair of Ministry” endowment or decide to divide the gift equally between these nine chairs:
CHAIR OF CHURCH MULTIPLICATION
The BCNE’s ministry of church multiplication—which includes both revitalization of existing congregations and planting of new churches—is undertaken to equip and encourage church leaders to engage in missionary activity by facilitating and resourcing them to multiply disciples.
CHAIR OF COLLEGIATE MINISTRIES
New England is the nexus of higher education in the United States. Although Christian faith historically played an important role in universities, today most students still seek truth. For this reason, BCNE supports a network of collegiate ministries that partner with churches.
CHAIR OF YOUTH MINISTRY
BCNE invests in the lives of teens and their leaders. Youth ministry offers churches opportunities that equip Christian teens and their unchurched friends to discover and grow in genuine faith, while also training and encouraging adults who serve in church youth ministry.
CHAIR OF GREATER BOSTON MINISTRY
Boston churches serve on the front lines of one of America’s most influential and least evangelized cities. Those who serve more than a dozen language groups through BCNE’s ministries in Greater Boston confront a shortage of workers and meeting spaces, and a high cost of living.
CHAIRS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, RHODE ISLAND, and VERMONT
Many New Englanders live in towns or villages; they need gospel-preaching churches. That’s why BFNE started endowments to provide for the leaders of ministry networks in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, where life can be difficult and lonely.
CHAIR OF LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT MINISTRY
Pastors and their leaders need inspiring and informative training on an array of topics including but not limited to children’s ministry and VBS, trauma counseling, addiction recovery, ESL teaching, and digital evangelism. The BCNE’s Leadership Development Ministry offers encouragement and assistance as needed.
CHAIR OF EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP
By definition BCNE’s Executive Director must be passionate about multiplying Christ-followers. Each morning the leader faces a never-ending set of complex responsibilities that include but are not limited to staff and board development, fundraising and budget management, preaching and teaching the Bible, speaking at numerous regional conferences, and attending to denominational relations.
Eight donors gave a combined total (as of December 31, 2024) of $132,644. We invite you to join them by contributing to the ministry chair or chairs of your choice. Your gift will help ensure that New England always has an adequate BCNE missionary staff to get the gospel to every corner of New England.
Give today at https://4agc.com/donate/missionarysupport
This article is part of an ongoing series. Click here to read the other BNFE stories.