How to Customize Your
Church's Participation

First Freedoms Congregations share a common commitment to celebrate our nation’s historic freedoms and to support the ongoing efforts of three national ministries directly related to these freedoms. However, each participating church is encouraged to creatively customize its annual celebration and support of First Freedoms.

Here are a few suggestions. Many more will be posted at this site in the future along with a wide range of quality resources.
 

TO CELEBRATE:
• Designate one Sunday each year as “First Freedoms Sunday.” (Perhaps a Sunday near the Fourth of July or Memorial Day would work well.)
• Use the theme, “Free to Worship, Free to Know,” as a worship theme or sermon title.
• Emphasize the role of early Baptists in ensuring that all Americans have the right to freely worship as they choose.
• Encourage Sunday school teachers to focus one Sunday’s lesson on historic freedoms.
• Invite a local journalist to speak on the importance of freedom of the press.
• Have a dramatic presentation about religious liberty and its early Baptists proponents.
• Profile historic figures that influenced religious liberty such as Thomas Helwys, Roger Williams, Obidiah Holmes, John Leland, Issac Backus and George W. Truett in newsletter article, sermon, drama or Christian education class.
• Ask church members to write statements on how the freedom to worship and to have access to reliable information is important to their daily living. Compile and share these with the congregation.
• Highlight each of the three national ministries supported by the First Freedoms Project — Associated Baptist Press, the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs and Baptists Today news journal.

TO SUPPORT:
• Include the First Freedoms Project in the church’s annual budget for mission causes.
• Designate the First Freedoms Project to receive a portion of the earnings allocated from a church investment fund.
• Share with congregational leaders how supporting the First Freedoms Project is a good way to match the church’s stewardship with its stated values.
• Promote a special First Freedoms Offering.
• Designate proceeds from an annual event such as a July 4 BBQ to support the First Freedoms Project.
• Educate your congregation about the three national ministries related to the First Freedoms Project and how they are not underwritten by denominational funding but rely on the gifts of supportive individuals and churches to carry out their important missions.

SHARE YOUR IDEAS. Please let know how your church plans to celebrate and support our historic freedoms as a First Freedoms Congregation. We would like to post them here for others to consider.

Click here to share your ideas with us.