June 2025

If you have been following our recent newsletters, you know we are conducting a fundraiser to make some much needed repairs to your Peninsula Association Lodge at Eagle Eyrie Retreat Center. We are attempting to raise $45,000 for renovations of our upstairs bathroom facilities at the lodge. This fundraiser will continue until the end of the summer, at which time we will make a decision based on the amount of money raised.

Eagle Eyrie hosts many events throughout the year that are open for people from your church to attend (see below). In addition, PAL lodge may be rented at an extremely reasonable rate by member churches of the PBA for church events/retreats.

Please let us know if you or your church would like to make a pledge toward this campaign.
Please don’t send us any money at this time! We will keep you informed as we draw closer to September.

Here are some upcoming events at Eagle Eyrie Conference Center. If you plan/decide to go to any, remember that PAL Lodge is available for your lodging. When you register note your desire to use PAL and that you are to be using it on the “Owner Basis” rate, which will allow you receive the reduced rate for the use.

JUNE 11-14  Passport Kids
June 16-20   Centri-Kid 1
June 23-27   Centri-Kid 2
June 29 – July 3      Centri-Kid 3

July 21-25 Missions Connection Celebration (MC2)
July 28 – August 1        Music and Worship Arts Camp

Love God, love family, love country, love music! There is so much that divides us today even on Sunday mornings. God inspired pastor Mike Mines to host the first of these Unity Shed concerts last year to celebrate racial unity in the church.

This year’s concert will be held on Thursday, June 19th, 7 PM at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, 221 34th Street, Newport News. Join with worshipers from places like Korea, China, Jamaica, Africa, and the U.S. to celebrate our unity in Christ. In the sanctuary of this church building, you will be standing on floors that slaves hid beneath as you hear songs of faith, freedom, and unity!

This is a free concert that you don’t want to miss. Help us make history at the UNITY SHED! We are better together! For more information, go to:

Some of our PBA pastors recently joined other pastors from our area at a free luncheon and meeting with professors and students from the Regent University Psychological Services Center. They shared with us that Regent offers various psychological services to pastors and churches often at no cost. They would be happy to meet with pastors or churches to talk about topics such as pastoral burnout, addictions, marital counselling and family counselling. Their services are delivered by doctoral students under the guidance of experienced, licensed clinical psychologists.

If you are interested in learning more, talk to Jim Moynihan.

The PBA recently hosted a “Digital Church Proficiency Workshop” with Tom York (a contractor with the Baptist General Association of Virginia), and Gary Long (Chief Marketing Officer for the BGAV). They provided a “digital snapshot” for each church that attended this free event. This snapshot graded each church in Google Business listing (which helps people searching for a church online to find your church), various aspects of having an effective website, and Facebook presence. The workshop took an interactive approach to addressing these topics based on best practices of churches.

The digital snapshot also provided participating churches with basic demographic information about the people living near their church building. This information included education level, median age, employment, and income levels in your community.

About 40 people from our region attended this event.

Due to financial restraints, we are not able to pay a supervisor for the PBA Fun Trailer this year. The trailer will continue to be available for use by our churches on a first-come-first-served basis for a cost recovery fee. It will be up to the churches to repack the trailer in the proper way before returning it to our office. As a reminder, the Fun Trailer has “bounce house” types of amusements, a popcorn machine and a snow cone machine that churches may use for community events. If you would like to reserve the trailer, contact Mike Mines in our office.

We maintain a list of people willing to “Supply Preach” and/or serve as an “Interim Pastor." If you have need of someone to speak or are looking for an Interim Pastor while searching for a pastor, please check out the list on our website www.thepeninsulanet.org, under "Resources”. Also, if you would like to be added to the list either as a Supply Preacher or Interim Pastor, please contact us.

We provide this information to assist churches seeking a senior pastor. We can only provide information given to us by churches, so please keep us informed! You may also let us know about other open positions in your church if you would like us to publicize them.

Churches currently without pastors:

• Buckroe Baptist Church
• First Church Ministries
• Grace Baptist Church
• Hornsbyville Baptist Church
• Yorktown Baptist Church