INTRODUCTION Blake Martin is the senior pastor at Wallace Avenue Baptist Church (WABC) in Shawnee, Oklahoma and has been there since August 2016. Blake is married to Bryse Martin who is a student at Oklahoma Baptist University (OBU) and they have been married since August 2015. Blake was hired at WABC after serving at two other churches in Shawnee. At only 23 years of age and little experience under his belt, most people assume that WABC is a church of mostly college age students, however the congregation is middle aged adults around 40 years of age. Before Blake came to WABC the church was fairly set in their traditional ways making it very hard to grow into a family oriented church body. Along with the rest of his staff, including, Graham
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You can see how having a 23-year-old come into your church and try to move you to a family oriented environment can cause some conflict, especially in the Southern Baptist world. Blake is so grateful that his congregation has been so supportive of the changes he has bestowed upon them. He knows that if they were not supportive that he would not be able to make so many of the changes he has made. Blake has handles the age diversity by making sure he has some of the older members on the leadership board to give their input on big decisions. He also knows that he still has so much he can learn from the older generation and that they are still a vital part of the church body. I believe Blake has handled the age diversity at WABC extremely well in the situation he is …show more content…
However, at WABC their goal is to be more family oriented so they can measure the number of families that join or visit every week. Along with that knowing how many are in attendance or how many have been baptized is an important part of trying to grow the kingdom of God. When it comes to the financial aspect of WABC the leadership board reviews the yearly budget in October and revises it as needed. Blake will advise this process to make sure funds are being distributed as needed. This is a normative control process since everyone shares the same beliefs for how the church should be ran and what the vision is for the
You can see how having a 23-year-old come into your church and try to move you to a family oriented environment can cause some conflict, especially in the Southern Baptist world. Blake is so grateful that his congregation has been so supportive of the changes he has bestowed upon them. He knows that if they were not supportive that he would not be able to make so many of the changes he has made. Blake has handles the age diversity by making sure he has some of the older members on the leadership board to give their input on big decisions. He also knows that he still has so much he can learn from the older generation and that they are still a vital part of the church body. I believe Blake has handled the age diversity at WABC extremely well in the situation he is …show more content…
However, at WABC their goal is to be more family oriented so they can measure the number of families that join or visit every week. Along with that knowing how many are in attendance or how many have been baptized is an important part of trying to grow the kingdom of God. When it comes to the financial aspect of WABC the leadership board reviews the yearly budget in October and revises it as needed. Blake will advise this process to make sure funds are being distributed as needed. This is a normative control process since everyone shares the same beliefs for how the church should be ran and what the vision is for the