2020.08 Connect

AUGUST 2020 CONNECT TheTshteosriteosribesehbienhdintdhethpeepoepoleplaenadndmminiinsitsrtierisesoof fTTooppeekkaaBBiibblleeCChhuurrcchh Going All In: Alex & Lindsay Wolfe

AUGUST CONNECTION POINTS HARVESTERS GRIEFSHARE volunteer for people at our grieving the community death of food someone close distribution to them 8 AM Tuesday, August 11 Begins 6:30 PM Monday, August 10 DISCOVERY OUTDOOR SUNDAY BAPTISM TAILGATING EXTRAVAGANZA call 234-5545 if you’re ready After Both Services to get baptized Sunday, August 23 6 PM Sunday, August 30 Visit DiscoverTBC.com for details on these and other upcoming opportunities to connect! Connect magazine is a publication of Our thanks to the volunteers Topeka Bible Church, 1135 SW College who contributed to this issue: Avenue, Topeka, KS 66604, 785-234-5545. Don Brent (photography) Please email editorial inquiries to Teresa Jenkins, [email protected]. Todd Fertig (writing) Parker Robb (photography)

CONNECT AUGUST 2020 IN THIS ISSUE If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go 2 Going All In far, go together. Meet new Young Adults Pastor Alex Wolfe That African proverb is truer 6 Saved to Serve than ever, as we hang out alone in order to maintain social distance. The story behind TBC-supported mission But can we clarify that what we really mean worker Janet McClanahan is PHYSICAL distance? SOCIAL distancing is what loners and snobs do, 10 Connection Points: which is the very opposite of how God created us. For each of us is a link in His TBCers tell us how they saw God moving chain, a “connector” between persons. in this global pandemic In fact, that’s why you’re holding this magazine in your hands. This is your “social 12 Connecting With: connector” with your brothers and sisters Keyera Patrick at Topeka Bible Church. Other members of the congregation. Door greeters. Youth workers. Young parents. Our missionaries around the world. So let’s go together, and go far! Jim Congdon Lead Pastor NEW TO TBC? Text “NEW” to 785-432-4801 We’re so glad you’re here ... welcome! We know it can be difficult to find a good fit in a new church home. We have several “Pizza With a Pastor” events throughout the year to help you get acquainted and to share more about our ministries and beliefs. These casual, get-to-know-you lunches are held on designated Sundays throughout the year. To find out more, or to get connected with a Bible study, Sunday school, or small group, simply text “NEW” to 785-432-4801.

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When searching for a pastoral position during a global pandemic, Alex and Lindsay Wolfe proved that sometimes living your faith means Going All In When Alex Wolfe arrived at Topeka Bible Church in early May, the doors were locked. The sanctuary sat empty on Sunday mornings. The new addition to the TBC team was not greeted with keys to his new office. There was no ‘Welcome to the Staff ’ party. The new Young Adults Pastor moved into town in the midst of a global pandemic. And thus he had to figure out how to do the job he was so eager to do under entirely unique circumstances. An Iowa native and recent graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, Alex joined the TBC staff without ever having seen a worship service there. It was a leap of faith to commit to a church in the midst of a statewide shutdown, but Alex said he felt drawn to TBC by the warmth of the staff and of the handful of people he and his wife met during the interview process. “To come to TBC before we had even seen a worship service…that was wild,” Alex said looking back. “My first reaction was ‘Where is Topeka, and why would I want to go there?’ continued AUGUST 2020 • CONNECT 3

“But we came to visit the weekend COVID visited,” Alex said. “We knew we would be shut everything down, and even despite loved on and we could really go deep with that, the family feel here, the camaraderie of people in the community.” the staff, the community feel of how people Alex will serve as the pastor to young adult serve one another, we sensed that imme- singles, married couples and young families. diately. The hospitality and way people use He brings with him the experience of having their resources to bless others…that just served as college pastor at Park City Baptist really made us say ‘Wow!’ Church in Dallas. He said he is excited to So Alex, his wife Lindsay, and their help build intergenerational connections one-year-old son Lochlan, joined a staff that regardless of marital and family status, in was working remotely to serve a church order to help a diverse group serve and learn that couldn’t meet in person. But he wasn’t from each other. daunted by the circumstances. “I really desire to see this ministry turn “There wasn’t much to think about after we from an internal focus, to go from a group YOUNG ADULTS MINISTRY For ages 18 to 35, singles or married During the summer, the Young Adults meet at 9 AM Sundays in room 302 & 303 of the Mulvane Buliding (third floor). 4 CONNECT • AUGUST 2020

of young adults that exists to serve only “The husband/wife relationship and the their own life stage to a group of young parent/child relationship are one the adults that exists to serve the larger body primary means that God uses us to teach of Christ.” us about Christ and the church and what Alex didn’t let the pandemic keep him from it means to be in a sacrificial covenant getting right to relationship building. He relationship,” Alex said. “As people said as the restrictions on gatherings slowly faithfully live out their marriages and lifted, he and his wife focused on making faithfully parent their children in the connections with individuals, families and church setting, they are indirectly small groups. teaching others what it means to be in a Alex is passionate about families. He relationship with Christ.” treasures his roles as a husband and father and he sees them as his opportunity to (Below) Alex meets with Young Adult model Christ’s relationship to the church. leaders (left to right) Janna Mahner, Kenna Brantingham, Kelly Crandall, and Brian Mauldin. AUGUST 2020 • CONNECT 5

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As a rebellious teenager who was bored with Sunday school, Janet Roudybush couldn’t imagine where God’s plans would take her Saved to Serve “I don’t want to go to Sunday school anymore,” a young, ornery, teenage Janet Roudybush told her dad. “I’m tired, and I’ve learned everything I need to learn.” Janet had been attending Seward Avenue Baptist Church in Topeka on the invitation of a friend but was becoming restless. Janet’s father (who himself neither went to church nor was a follower of Christ – yet) replied, “As long as you live under my roof, you’re going to Sunday School!” One might wonder if Janet’s heavenly father was prompting her earthly one to push hard for Janet to grow in her faith. Because Janet did grow. First, by accepting Christ as her savior, then stepping out in faith to send money to a missionary in Brazil, then attending seminary, and later moving to Brazil to educate and mentor young pastors’ wives at the school. God had great plans for this rebellious teenager, who lived in an old boxcar with her family in Topeka’s Oakland neighborhood. Janet recalls an evangelistic revival one evening when she was 16, when she accepted Christ. “What I had been hunting for, seeking for in my wandering, had become a reality,” she said. “I had peace in my heart, and my life was completely changed.” continued AUGUST 2020 • CONNECT 7

Janet was encouraged by her pastor to pray “Here I was, a sinner,” Janet said. “Yet God, for Bernice Lind, a missionary in Brazil. in His love, saved me. And He gave me a Not only did Janet pray, she sent money to new life.” buy bricks to build a home for Bernice. She corresponded with her, and a friendship Janet arrived in the northern state of Ceará developed. in 1960. After spending a year taking Portuguese, history, and geography classes After high school, Janet worked to earn in the capital city of Fortaleza, Janet moved money to attend Kansas City Bible College to Juazeiro do Norte. She began serving (now Calvary University). Throughout her alongside her longtime friend, Bernice and education, Janet kept taught elementary in touch with Bernice, school in the mornings and at who asked that Janet Here I was, a pray that God would the Baptist send someone to Brazil sinner,” Janet said. seminary and a to help at the school. As public school at Janet completed Bible “Yet God, in His night. college, she prayed for Tragedy struck love, saved me.what God wanted her Janet’s world in 1962 when her to do. While reading 1 mentor, friend, and colleague Bernice And He gave meChronicles 16:23-24, died in a plane crash near their Janet said God spoke community. The funeral was the next day. While looking down at Bernice’s casket, a new life.to her heart. “It was as 24-year-old Janet said she heard Satan whispering to her, “’You see what happens if the Lord was saying, ‘Janet, go and tell the Brazilian people about my great love.’ I knelt down by my bed and responded, ‘Yes Lord, here am I, send me!’” to missionaries? Just pack up your bag. Go home.’ And I said, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ Because Bernice didn’t call me. God called me. I started teaching all Bernice’s classes and even lived in her home – the very house I had helped to buy bricks to build.’” Bernice Lind (left) and Janet Roudybush After serving as a single woman in Brazil (right) serving together at the seminary for nearly thirty years, in 1988 Janet was in Brazil. This photo was taken shortly reacquainted with friend and fellow before Bernice died in a plane crash. missionary and Kansan Fred McClanahan, who had recently lost his wife. Fred asked Janet to return to the US so they could spend more time together. She did, and soon after her return, they were engaged. Fred and Janet stayed in Kansas for two years so Janet could take care of her aging 8 CONNECT • AUGUST 2020

Fred and Janet McClanahan shared a love When she is stateside (as she has been for of Brazil, missions, and KU basketball. several months during the global pandemic), Janet often stays in Topeka with mother. Throughout, the couple prayed that her sister-in-law, Deanna (the widow of God would allow them to return to Brazil. Janet’s brother, Duane). She speaks at After Janet’s mother’s passing, the couple Midwest churches from whom she receives did return, but not for long. Fred was support, she encourages young people who diagnosed with lymphoma. want to enter the missions field, and as a While Fred was sick, the couple came back representative of the Association of Baptists to Topeka to be near family. Janet describes for World Evangelism (ABWE), Janet how God used Topeka Bible Church to promotes missions to Brazil churches and provide for them. “Every Monday morning, helps plan the mission conference. the men had Bible study,” she said. “They Throughout her 86 years, Janet has endured would come and get Fred. In the end, he struggles: being a single woman mission was so weak, they’d almost have to carry worker in the last half of the 20th century, him out. We never missed a Sunday school. Bernice and Fred’s deaths, and her fight with They’d bring in a special chair so he could colon cancer. Some might attribute Janet’s sit up. When he needed a winter coat, they perseverance to her strong character, and brought in a coat for him. Through it all, rightly so. But she gives God the glory, citing Topeka Bible Church was just so loving to Psalm 62:8 as her life verse: “Trust in him at Fred, and Fred loved them.” Fred died in all times, you people; pour out your hearts 2001, a year after returning to Topeka. before him. God is our refuge.” Although neither Fred nor Janet had any Did you know that nearly 24% of offspring, Janet considers all their former TBC’s annual budget goes to students – many of whom are now pastors support mission workers like Janet? or wives of pastors – as their children. After There’s more to this story – Visit Fred’s death, Janet traveled throughout DiscoverTBC.com/connect/janet Brazil to meet many of his students and for additional content. visit the six churches he planted and the Bible seminary named for him. She finally Janet enjoys mentoring the young returned to Crato, where she is still a teacher wives of new pastors at the seminary at the school. and keeps in close contact with them. AUGUST 2020 • CONNECT 9

CONNECTION POINTS We TBCers: “How have you seen God moving during this global pandemic?” The coronavirus gave The quarantine period me the opportunity has brought me closer to contemplate the to family and neigh- nature of God. Was bors. I have also had He caught off guard? more time for personal No, He knows everything. reflection and spiritual Did He expect the virus to show studies. My stress level has been up some other time or place – i.e., much lower these past few months tomorrow instead of last March? No, and I spend more time outdoors in when we get to tomorrow, He will the garden. be there waiting for us because He’s already there. He’s not bound by – Jan Stover time or space–He created them. – Bill Farris “I believe! Help my unbelief!” And He did. The stillbirth of my daughter’s first child was a heaping dose of pain at a time when I was already struggling to see the goodness of the LORD. Yet, He strengthened my heart (Ps. 27:14). My church, God’s hands extended, found ways to love me AND my daughter, whom they hadn’t met, as prayers, cards and flowers flooded our hearts and homes. He is so good. – Connie Hall I learned a bit more We got creative with about worship during ways to witness and the stay-at-home .... tell people about I love participating Jesus, got to know with my brothers and our neighbors more, sisters in worship. In the absence of their voices, I struggle to exercised more, had more get beyond the mechanics of just quality time with our little girl, and playing music and moving further began to appreciate little things and higher up into sacred adulation more. ... We also got pregnant with focused on Jesus. our second baby for whom we have been hoping and praying for quite – John Bowes a while. 10 CONNECT • AUGUST 2020 – Hannah Powell

If I have learned any lessons or gained any wisdom it has been that God is in control. For me, this is not a new lesson God is teaching. It is one that He has been speaking over and over and over to me in the last three years. … Then came December 2019: my daughter’s accident and consequent hospitalization and recovery. God was in control then. He was faithful, and we all have grown from the many tears, prayers, and miracles God covered us in. The recovery was finished and then came March and COVID-19. I hope it is the final chapter in my book of lessons well-learned – that I must trust God and not myself. – Angie Boles During the 15 weeks By having a time we of no “in-person” were unable to services God gather, I saw the Lord reminded me of the affirm, in my life and joy and power of others, the necessity of our regular gathering as corporate worship. I truly believers to encourage, learn from missed the experience of many and exhort one another. voices raised in praise to Him. – Rodney Kenner – Chris Mammoliti We decided three weeks before our wedding that our original 350-person guest list wasn’t going to happen due to COVID-19. Jon and I were devastated at the prospect of 1) postponing to an undertermined date, or 2) not being able to have all of our family and close friends witness this huge lifetime landmark that we’d been planning for 8-9 months. But God is in the details big and small! … We had perfect weather, streamed the wedding via Facebook live, and had a parking lot parade with the guests that couldn’t come to the ceremony! For days after the wedding I just kept saying to Jon how blessed we were and how despite the circumstances, everything came together perfectly. – Emily (Kaberline) Wilson AUGUST 2020 • CONNECT 11

CONNE CTING WITH: Most parents of pre-K kids at TBC have already met Keyera Patrick, OCCUPATION: Owner of Key’s Klean, who serves on the security team at our (a cleaning service) and Firefly Care, KidCheck checkpoint. But they may where she is a mindset coach for not know that this young mom other entrepreneurial moms. practically grew up at TBC and Also serves as a KidCheck uses what she’s learned to help security team member at TBC. mentor others. FAMILY: Mother to Mea, Levi, and A member of the TBC family Savannah; daughter of TBCers since age 11, Keyera was deeply Dennis & Debbie Patrick involved with student ministry – MINISTRY: Women’s small group joining a mission trip to leader Guatemala in 2014 and RECOMMENDED READING: participating in many Summer The Sacrament of Happy: What a Sizzles and other events. Keyera was Smiling God Brings to a Wounded homeschooled through high school World by Lisa Harper and enjoyed having a network of homeschool friends at church. “TBC has always been a place I can call home,” Keyera said, “especially when going through difficulties in my early 20s. Church has always been a place I could come to worship and give Christ my problems.” As an adult, Keyera has worked hard to stay connected to her church family. She has done several Bible studies, served as an Awana Cubbies volunteer, and attends Women’s Expresso regularly. “I have made lifelong friends by plugging in and volunteering, and my kids love it here,” Keyera said. “Right now, especially as we are coming back to church, we need to be around people who put Christ first.” Keyera runs a cleaning business, and helps other women as a mindset coach. Through evaluations and weekly coaching calls, “I help entrepreneurial mamas who want to leave their 9 to 5 and find balance between their business and personal lives,” Keyera said. Her goal is to help 30 women change their lives through mindset coaching. She’s already well on her way, and after that, she plans to write a women’s devotional. 12 CONNECT • AUGUST 2020

#discovertbc – photos from our feeds FAMILY DRIVE-IN MOVIE NIGHT The Limon family (George, Linda, Uriah, and Fernando) were one of more than 70 families who gathered on June 26 for games and a special outdoor screening of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. SUMMER INTERNS Kudos to our student GATHERING OF LAMENT TBC Lead ministry interns, who found creative Pastor Jim Congdon and other area ways to connect with our middle and pastors gathered for a period of prayer high school students during a global for an end to racial injustice and the pandemic. (L to R) Drew Will, violent events that swept the nation Brody Lumpkins, Conor O’Boyle, after the murder of George Floyd. Emily Kaufman, Anna Dexter, and Anna Holloway. CONNECT WITH US! @discovertbc @topekabiblehurch Topeka Bible Church

UPCOMING EVENTS In this season especially, events are subject to change with little notice. You can stay informed by subscribing to our weekly e-bulletin (sign up at DiscoverTBC.com) or by downloading the Topeka Bible Church app from your favorite mobile marketplace. AUGUST SEPTEMBER 3 It’s About Time! 5 Foster Care & Adoption Ministry Current Events from an Muffins for Moms 10 End-Times Perspective 9-11 AM, Mulvane Parlor 11 6:30 PM, Mulvane Auditorium Connect with other adopting 23 Women’s Ministry Director or fostering moms. 30 Patty Diliberto examines recent worldwide happenings 8 Harvesters Food through the lens of Scripture. Distribution GriefShare Fall Session 8 AM, Stormont Vail Events Begins Center parking lot Volunteers needed. 6:30 PM, Mulvane Building For those who have lost a 8 Women’s Expresso person close to them through death. 7 PM, Mulvane Lower Auditorium Harvesters Food Hear how God is moving in the Distribution lives of TBC women. 8 AM, Stormont Vail Events 9 Women’s Ministry Fall Center parking lot Classes Begin Volunteers needed. 9 Children’s Awana and Discovery Sunday Pioneer Boys Begin After both services, N side of 19 Father-Daughter College Ave Bldg. Our annual Date Night show-and-tell of ministries, plus lots of tailgating fun! Details to come Summer Baptism 26 TBC Fall Festival 6 PM • Watch for details in our Details to come weekly e-bulletin. NEW TO TBC? Text “NEW” to 785-432-4801 and we’ll be happy to help you get connected!