Richard Harris, Bill Mackey and Jerry Rankin

Just ahead of  the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Orlando last week, Bill Mackey, the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s executive director, participated in a panel discussion on Great Commission priorities with Jerry Rankin, the outgoing president of the International Mission Board, and Richard Harris, the interim president of the North American Mission Board.

Click on the arrow below to hear the audio of their 15-minute discussion:

If the embedded player is not showing on the device on which you are reading this post, you can also access the audio by clicking the link below. This link will also allow you to download the audio file.

GCR Roundtable Discussion with Bill Mackey, Jerry Rankin and Richard Harris

Here’s a summary of discussion highlights from the North American Mission Board:

ORLANDO, Fla. – International Mission Board president Jerry Rankin, Kentucky Baptist Convention executive director Bill Mackey and interim North American Mission Board president Richard Harris took part in a brief roundtable discussion on future trends in missions during the SBC annual meeting in Orlando.

The roundtable was one of four hosted by NAMB during the SBC meeting in Orlando. Other discussions included “Reaching Cities in North America,” “Church Planting in the 21st Century” and “Reaching People Groups in North America.” Audio of each roundtable discussion is posted at www.namb.net/orlando2010.

Mackey said reaching the increasing numbers of internationals settling in Kentucky is an issue challenging him. “We are seeing a great influx of Hispanics, a tripling to 300,000 since 2000. We’re trying to respond by urging the churches to consider the opportunities in their neighborhoods.

“We’re working with journeymen who are coming out of seminary who are experienced with working with people groups throughout the world. We need them to address the people groups moving into Kentucky. For example, we have seven dialects spoken by Indians in Louisville.”

Rankin agreed that “the world is coming to us. You no longer have to go overseas to do foreign missions and reach unreached people groups. All of us recognize that it won’t be the state convention, IMB or NAMB that reaches these people groups. It will have to be a grassroots movement of Christians witnessing anywhere, everywhere to anyone. IMB’s role would be to mobilize, train and equip these grassroots Christians, churches and associations to reach the peoples coming to their communities.”

NAMB’s Harris said, “You have to identify these folks and find them: where are they and what are their interests? What is their heart language? What are their needs?

“One area we need to do more in is on university campuses,” said Harris. “We have to get more career, MSC and summer semester missionaries on campus – to get in there and engage students with campus ministries and try to reach them. They’re the ones going into leadership positions.The college campus is a great opportunity.”

The three men also discussed the advent of “participatory missions” – whereby more of today’s Baptists want to take a hands-on approach to missions, rather than leaving it just to missionaries.

“There’s a massive challenge of reaching billions of people overseas,” said Rankin. “We’ll never have enough missionaries to reach them all. But if we could mobilize the 16 million Southern Baptists and 45,000 churches to be strategically involved, God has raised up the necessary resources to fulfill the Great Commission.”

story by Mickey Noah, North American Mission Board

–Robert Reeves

Risk is primarily a game of strategy but gets its name because there are key times when players have to make decisions about how bold they should be in pressing forward. The player that makes the best decisions in positioning his resources and pacing his advance is the one who ultimately wins the game.

There are two very common strategic blunders that are made in this game. One, often made by new players, is to try to do too much when there aren’t enough resources available to be successful. These players try to put their pieces into as many countries as possible as soon as possible. For a short time they look like they control a substantial portion of the world map. But because they don’t have the necessary strength to hold these territories and have no significant home territory from which to draw greater strength, they quickly succumb to the pressures of the game.

The other common blunder, which may very well be made even by experienced players who have been successful in previous games, is to try to play the game too safe. These players recognize the importance of having a strong home base. They work to control a continent that is easily defended against the other players. They slowly build strength in numbers in their base territory and only advance when it feels safe.

These players tend to stay in the game longer than those who spread themselves too thin. But ultimately they also go down to defeat because there comes a point when a competitor has to be willing to push forward and take some real chances. Players can’t wait until everything is perfect because the other players are also seeking to make their moves. If a player delays too long, he ends up on the defensive and battling against diminishing returns.

I can’t help but see comparisons with the game of Risk and the current Great Commission Resurgence discussion. It’s way too simplistic to say that there are only two positions on the GCR but I think the game’s common blunders do illustrate the dangers in the two most extreme positions in the conversation.

On one extreme is the thinking that Southern Baptists should throw all of our resources into the world as forcefully and quickly as possible. The argument goes that in a world of 6.7 billion people, most are lost and have never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel. We should therefore stop spending cooperative missions dollars in the Southern United States and put all of our denominational resources into reaching the world. The job of reaching our home areas can be left solely to the local churches.

On the other extreme is the belief that no change is needed. The thought is that we are nowhere close to winning our home territories for Christ, have many established ministries in these areas that need continued support, and that there must be spiritual revival among Southern Baptists before we can hope to be successful in winning the world. Expanding the missionary force is important but we should recognize that even if we spent every penny that Southern Baptists give on international missions, it would still only amount to a few cents per person when divided among the world’s population.

The first strategy loses because it assumes that there’s no need for cooperative ministry at home. It also undervalues the need for developing those churches that will provide the funds and manpower for future missions endeavors. The Southern Baptist Convention is a convention of small churches. While there may be some large churches that can easily access all they need for growing their congregations and reaching their communities, most small churches depend on the leverage that cooperation provides. Working together through their associations and state conventions enables them be healthy and active Acts 1:8 participants in sharing the gospel. At the same time, these small churches in the traditional Southern Baptist strongholds provide the majority of missionaries and vocational Christian workers for service around the world. As in Risk, a strategy that neglects the home base is likely to lead to rapid burnout.

However, the other extreme position is just as dangerous. The impact will just be felt more slowly. With this strategy, Southern Baptists will wither because the denomination never really take any risks. Churches, conventions and denominational entities can continue to do good things in the same ways they have always done them. But we will continue to lose ground because some of the old tactics don’t work so well in a post-Christian culture. Our dwindling numbers may lead us to begin to isolate ourselves from the world like the Amish and to die out like the Shakers. Meanwhile, the Convention’s risk-takers — often found among the much-needed younger generations — will grow impatient with the denominational lethargy and bolt to pursue other strategies.

It is so easy for us to keep doing what we are doing and not move forward. It is also easy to take the position that nothing that worked in the past is of value now and set about the process of reinventing the wheel. In truth, there is merit in what both extremes in this discussion are saying. Wise Baptists will not take sides but will listen and learn from what those on both ends of the spectrum are saying in arriving at a course of action somewhere in the middle.

So what’s the takeaway from this? Let me suggest three things we can learn from this comparison with a board game:

First, we must be wise in allocating resources. It is important to keep enough resources at home to help strengthen churches and reach out to the lost in our home states but we need to stay as lean as possible. We, as Southern Baptists have a tendency toward overeating at the dinner table, and we probably do the same at times with our ministry dollars. Each national Southern Baptist body (including the two mission boards, each seminary and the Executive Committee), state convention, state convention ministry, association, and church, must redouble efforts to cut any fat so that we can be the muscle behind the punch that we send into the world.

Second, we need to recognize the importance of being willing and able to move quickly. The successful Risk player is the one who is both careful in managing resources from a stronghold but is also nimble enough to take and press the advantage when the opportunity arises. Our cooperative system is a good one but can also be cumbersome at times. This is where good leadership plays such a vital role. Having leaders at the heads of our various Baptist organizations who truly believe in cooperation and are willing to engage each other in a spirit of partnership rather than competition can do so much to move Southern Baptists forward quickly in a unified way.

Finally, we need to trust the Lord to guide us into His will as Southern Baptists. In the game of Risk, there’s an element of chance involved because even with wise planning and the proper mixture of daring, there are aspects of the game that are outside of the player’s control. We can be grateful that we don’t have to deal with that in terms of the Great Commission. We’ve already read the end of the Book and know that the Lord wins. We don’t have to have all of the answers right now. We just have to be willing to let God lead us. If we do, he will allow us as Southern Baptists to be a part of what He will do for His Glory in ensuring His gospel is preached in every nation and every tongue.

–Robert Reeves

We’ll have to wait until Monday to know what changes may have been made to the committee’s original progress report and whether any adjustments represent changes in substance or only in wording. Dr. Bill Mackey, executive director for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, recently wrote about his hopes and prayers for the revised report in his column in the Western Recorder and on his Partners in the Mission blog. Here’s that column:

Great Commission Hope

Dr. Bill Mackey

By Bill Mackey

I have been asked on numerous occasions about the progress report issued in February by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. I have certainly had some concerns but I am encouraged by the response of the task force to feedback and look forward to the release of the final version on May 3. I am prayerful that new language in the report will relieve concerns and permit a little more flexibility in its implementation.

Southern Baptists certainly support the call to renewed commitment to God’s mission through the Great Commission. I am grateful that the task force has placed such a strong emphasis on prayer and spiritual vitality.

I am also appreciative that the committee has invited feedback from Southern Baptists. The task force graciously invited various leaders, including state executive directors, to present in person and have conducted conference calls with large groups.

One of the report’s recommendations deals with phasing out cooperative agreements between the North American Mission Board and state conventions. These agreements guide the way state conventions and NAMB share expenses in the common work of spreading the Gospel. NAMB would use the savings to help fund an aggressive church planting process in the unreached and underserved areas of North America, especially the largest cities.

Some executives in the “old line” state conventions (the larger Southern state conventions that originally formed the SBC) have expressed to me their willingness to absorb the cost of ending the cooperative agreements for their states provided that NAMB continues to have a strong supportive role with new work state conventions. I am hopeful that the final report will lengthen the phase out time of the cooperative agreements to seven to eight years rather than four in the old line state conventions.

I believe the final report should also place a stronger emphasis on the Cooperative Program as the preferred and primary way of funding Southern Baptist missions and ministries. Hopefully, the updated report will remove concerns that a new reporting category called Great Commission Giving will hurt CP giving. The SBC’s Executive Committee also needs to have a strong coordinating role, along with state conventions, in promoting CP.

I would also like to see the final report reflect NAMB as the primary coordinator of strategy to reach North America. This strategy can be supported by International Mission Board personnel as requested to reach international people groups.

The final report would also be strengthened by including a strong spiritual emphasis on Biblical stewardship. A national emphasis on increased Cooperative Program support through local churches will result in more support for all mission causes — especially world missions.

If all mission partners, churches, associations, state conventions and the SBC will seek the Lord as never before, I believe Southern Baptists can experience a Great Commission Resurgence under the Lordship of Jesus Christ!

–Robert Reeves

Even in a year when the Kentucky Baptist Convention is managing a recession-limited budget, Kentucky churches are expected to send more than $4.37 million to the International Mission Board through the Cooperative Program. We can add to that figure record-setting giving by Kentucky churches to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. I just saw a report today that showed that Kentucky churches have already given more than $4.9 million through Lottie Moon and that we anticipate hitting the $5 million mark sometime in May. (Last year, the total for the year was  $4.4 million.)

We are grateful to every Kentucky church for its faithfulness to support international missions through both the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. With CP providing foundational support and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering adding strategic focus, Southern Baptists have a system in place that enables Baptists to be true Acts 1:8 Christians who reach out simultaneously both at home and abroad.

Nothing bears this out more than the stories of the impact of giving from the missions field itself. Below is a story the KBC released last month focusing on a Kentucky missionary on the international field:

IMB Missionary: CP is ‘Reason I’m on the Field’

By Kristie Randolph, Kentucky Baptist Convention

LOUISVILLE - Elizabeth Warren* has literally gone around the world and back, thanks to many people she will never get the chance to meet.

Warren has been serving as a missionary to Asia for the past seven years through the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board. As Southern Baptists prepare to celebrate Cooperative Program Sunday on April 11, Warren is spending her stateside time traveling to Southern Baptist churches in order to thank them for their gifts.

A lifelong Southern Baptist, Elizabeth Warren was discipled, educated and called to missions through ministries of the Cooperative Program. She is now an advocate for CP, seeking to help people understand how the program enables thousands of missionaries like her stay on the field.

“The reason I’m on the field is so people who have never heard of Jesus have the chance to hear,” she said. “When people give through CP and Lottie Moon, they aid what I do. Without their giving, it would be difficult to be there.”

Warren’s deep ties to Cooperative Program ministries and missions began during her fifth grade year at a Girls in Action camp, sponsored by the Woman’s Missionary Union in Texas and supported through CP. It was there that Warren first felt God calling her to be a missionary.

“God was doing something in my heart there, showing me he wanted me to be a missionary,” she said.

When Warren moved to Kentucky, her involvement in the youth group at Severns Valley Baptist Church in Elizabethtown fueled her excitement for missions as she sat under missions training and teaching, and was exposed to hands-on missions work.

While she knew the basics about how CP worked, it wasn’t until Warren got involved in the Baptist Campus Ministry at Eastern Kentucky University that she began to experience its benefits firsthand.

“During my college years, I had many opportunities to be exposed to missions and be a part of missions,” Warren said of the BCM, a ministry supported through CP.

It wasn’t long before she learned through the BCM of extended missions opportunities available to college students through the IMB and North American Mission Board. After her freshman year, Warren was commissioned by NAMB for missions work in Wyoming for a summer. Several years later, she went on to serve for a summer in Asia through the IMB.

Warren would again benefit from the Cooperative Program as she set her sights on attending seminary in order to prepare more fully for her calling. She would go on to complete a Master of Arts in missions at Southwestern Seminary in Forth Worth, Texas.

“I knew I wanted to go to seminary, and I knew I wanted to end up on the field, so I wanted to go to an SBC school,” she said. “Part of CP funds are given to the seminary, so that was obviously supporting my education. When I was in seminary, I had a defining moment when God showed me exactly where he wanted me to go.”

With her seminary degree completed, Warren headed overseas to serve as a journeyman in Asia through the IMB. While there, Warren’s call to lifelong missions was affirmed once again, and she applied through the IMB to be a career missionary.

Warren was appointed as a career missionary by the IMB and then returned to Asia in 2006 to continue serving, this time with a specific people group in view. Now several years into her assignment, Warren has seen God working amongst the people she serves and is hopeful that she will be able to continue serving there for years to come.

“I’d like to be there for life, but there are no guarantees,” she said, referring to strict government policy in Asia that has often resulted in missionaries returning home. “I could end up anywhere, but that’s okay as long as I am serving somewhere.”

Warren now lives in a town in her assigned country and frequently travels to the countryside where her target people live and work. Her goal is to form friendships amongst the people and build a relationship of trust that will ultimately allow her to share the gospel.

The work is difficult, but Warren feels certain she is exactly where God has led her. She enjoys her time on stateside assignment in the U.S., but always looks forward to returning to the field.

“I’m thankful that I don’t have to stress about raising money when I’m home,” she said. “The main thing I want to do when I’m at home is thank churches for giving through CP and the Lottie Moon Offering.”

The Kentucky Baptist Convention is a cooperative missions and ministry organization made up of nearly 2,400 autonomous Baptist churches in Kentucky. A variety of state and worldwide ministries are coordinated through its administrative offices in Louisville, Ky. including: missions work, disaster relief, ministry training and support, church development, evangelism and more.  For more information, visit www.kybaptist.org.

*Note: The name of the missionary featured in this story has been changed to protect her identity for security reasons.

– Robert Reeves

Keith Inman

As I have shared here before, one of the powerful ways that Kentucky Baptists are reaching the world for Christ is through the international missions work of Baptist Campus Ministry. Each year, thousands of students from countries around the world come to U.S. colleges to receive the benefits of American higher education. Many will be returning home to take on leadership positions in business and government. Their presence on our campuses gives us a wonderful opportunity to minister and share the Gospel at a time in their lives when they are open to listening to and considering new ideas.

In this guest post, Keith Inman, collegiate and young adult ministries director for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, shares about how this important ministry of Kentucky Baptists:

The World is Coming to Kentucky’s College Campuses

Every week it seems as if I hear of another international student coming to faith in Christ through our Baptist Campus Ministry on our university campuses. There is a reason for this news.

Ten years ago, Tommy Johnson, currently our campus minister at Western Kentucky University, shared a dream of reaping the harvest that God was bringing here to our state from countries all over the world. The Cooperative Program and Eliza Broadus Missions Offering make this possible. I am so grateful to Dr. Bill Mackey and Joy Bolton for supporting a vibrant international ministry on the campuses.

Currently, we now have committed semester missionaries on various campuses specifically for the purpose of international ministry. Under the influence of Riley Byers, a former International Mission Board Journeyman and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate, the KBC Collegiate and Young Adult Ministry Department, in partnership with students from SBTS, has one of the best international ministries in SBC collegiate ministry. A committed base of lay ministers provides a support that makes our efforts so much easier and effective.

According to statistics gathered by the North American Mission Board, more than 623,000 international students are studying in the United States today. Below is a brief snapshot of who is coming to our country to study on our campuses:

International Students in the U.S.

These statistics are from The Institute of International Education which publishes Open Doors, Fast Facts.

Top 20 countries of origin for international students 2006-2007, 2007-2008.

1. India (over 94000)

2. China (81,000)

3. South Korea (69,000)

4. Japan (almost 34,000)

5. Canada (29,000)

6. Taiwan (29,000)

7. Mexico (almost 15,000)

8. Turkey (12,000)

9. Saudi Arabia (almost 10,000)

10. Nepal (9,000)

11. Thailand (9,000)

12. Germany (9,000)

13. Vietnam (9,000)

14. United Kingdom (8,000)

15. Hong Kong (8,000)

16. Indonesia (7,700)

17. Brazil (7,500)

18. France (7,000)

19. Columbia (6,600)

20. Nigeria (just over 6,000)

These countries contain some of the least reached people groups. Just the top 5 countries send 49% of all international students, with 15% from India, 13% from China, 11% from South Korea, and 5.5% from Japan.

The number of students from India increased by 13%; the number from China increased by 20%. Increases South Korea were 11%, Saudi Arabia 25%, Nepal 15%, and from Vietnam 45%.

According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Web site, Kentucky has between 2,000 and 4,999 students currently studying on our university campuses. The Baptist Campus Ministry is the most consistent witness to Christ of any ministry in our state.

Recently, I received this e-mail from Brian Combs, our campus minister at Northern Kentucky University which is indicative of the intentional effort to reach these international students.

“We (NKUBCM) are meeting with Dr. J.D. Payne, director of the Church Planting Center at SBTS to develop a strategy of reaching international students for Christ and discipling/training them to be prepared to start a contextualized church at home when they return.  The thinking is that we have so many students coming to the US from countries of unreached people and if we can reach those students while they are here and send them back prepared to share the Gospel, we will be able to continue to make a difference for Christ around the world.  fyi…JD and I grew up together in Corbin, went to UK together…  He’s a great guy that is seeking to follow what the Lord has laid on his heart and I look forward to partnering with him and seeing what God has in store.”

The command to “go” is obviously intended to extend to the “uttermost parts of the world.” In the 21^st Century, the “uttermost” is coming to our back door! This is creating an interesting dynamic: students going overseas on mission are coming back with an awareness that these same people groups are studying with them on their campus. Furthermore, as these Christian students “recruit” others in our effort to be intentional in building relationships with our foreign friends, students find a new desire to go overseas.

International students in the university culture are very open to hearing the Gospel because our students genuinely befriend them and help make life easier as they adjust to a new country. The Gospel is presented, the message is shared, and the presence of Christ is manifested in love. New brothers and sisters are born into the family of God because of a Great Commandment and a Great Commission intersecting in friendship with peoples from around the world.

Kentucky doctors minister to a little girl brought to the hospital by ambulance

Another great day in sunny Haiti! Every day is different. We got to the hospital this morning and right after we got there a beautiful little baby was born. Kind of like Jesus in the manger, he ended up in a copy paper box.

Big prayer request: about 50 of the hospital staff left today to go back to their respective countries.

We probably saw about 600 patients today. We will have 10 new folks helping tomorrow. It could be a really, really busy day tomorrow.

Our team is essentially going to be heading up most of the areas in the hospital tomorrow. What’s really great is how well these guys and girls will handle it with a Christlike attitude. This is one of the finest teams of any kind that I have ever had the opportunity to serve with.

We had some U.S. Army Rangers from Fort Bragg come by today to get a doctor and some nurses for some undisclosed purpose. I got to talk to them a little bit and I don’t think the Haiti tour is their favorite posting so far, but they were pleased that they got to make a difference.

The view of the damaged Haitian presidential palace from the hospital

We had some guys from the International Missions Board communications office come today. They followed several of us around and a few of us got to do interviews. Keep an eye on the IMB Web site and some of the material may be up soon.

We also went walking around downtown Port au Prince with an armed police officer and got to see some of the damage up close and talk and pray with several people. I really wasn’t scared at all until the officer started looking around and told us we needed to go in another direction because this was a very bad part of Port au Prince. I personally had no desire to tour a very bad part of Port au Prince so we took his advice and left.

We went by the Catholic cathedral that was destroyed and the amount of devastation was amazing. Just as we were leaving, this long convoy of cars went by (I mean so close that they almost brushed us). Our guard told us it was the Haitian president.

The Florida Baptist Convention did a small food distribution outside the hospital. The people were truly appreciative but we saw first hand why there are very specific rules in place for our disaster teams. Experienced Haitian pastors were distributing the food but when it ran out the crowd could very easily have turned into a mob.

Fortunately some police pulled up and kept anything from happening, but we were all reminded why we couldn’t randomly hand stuff out. These guys new what they were doing and things still almost got out of hand.

The tent city near the hospital

The CMBH (Confraternite Missionnaire Baptiste dHaiti) house where we are staying is packed tonight. Tomorrow will be pure chaos as two teams that just arrived will be going out for the first time. Please be praying for them because the culture shock from an American hospital to a temporary Haitian hospital is immense. Be praying as they make the transition to being creative and trying to provide as sterile an atmosphere as possible in the midst of absolute filth.

The lady who is heading the hospital right now, Omayra Alvarez, loves Southern Baptist Disaster Relief. She was here several days after the earthquake trying to help a friend from the Dominican Republic find a loved one. She saw the need as the tent city began to grow up in front of the capitol building.

It was Southern Baptist Disaster Relief folks who provided her with the funds to get up and running. Everytime she sees one of our yellow shirts she smiles a mile wide smile. Pray for her as she has been on site since the beginning.

Well, it’s almost 8:30 and I got a little too much sun today so we’d better shut down. We really covet your extensive prayers tomorrow as it is a day of great transition. These are the type of days Satan loves to play havoc with, so please intensify your prayers.

The assessment team has already signaled that it is unlikely that we will be sending down feeding units as we have in response to hurricanes and other disasters. Instead, it is more likely that we will do food distribution through Haitian Baptist churches that will allow families to pick up food staples and prepare it themselves.

Because of the difficult conditions as well as the difficulty in providing logistical support in the short term, our first teams are going to be made up of those individuals who are “tent dwellers” and can pretty well fend for themselves even as they help others. I suspect we will quickly be moving into building and repair mode once we are able to get full-fledged teams there.

Right now, it is still difficult to get people into Haiti. Commercial flights have not resumed and when they do, priority is going to be given to Haitians who were out of the country when the earthquake struck. The relief system is getting better by the day, though, and within a few weeks there will probably be a more solid aid infrastructure in place.

For the moment, the best thing that we can do as Southern Baptists is to give financially. Dr. John Sullivan of the Florida Baptist Convention, which has had an active partnership with Haiti Baptists for 15 years, says $20 will buy 100 pounds of rice to help feed the Haitian population and rice is what is needed there most right now.

There are several channels for sending funds to support Haiti relief. I definitely encourage people to give through a Southern Baptist organization, though, because 100 percent of your gift will go to Haiti relief. Unlike with other charities, administrative costs are already covered by foundational support of the Cooperative Program which allows all Haiti gifts to be used directly for relief.

There are already stories coming out about how Baptists are making a difference in Haiti, including one from Kentucky Disaster Relief Associate Coy Webb, who shared how the Southern Baptist disaster relief assessment team was able to deliver much-needed supplies of baby formula to a medical clinic caring for children across from the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince. The director there had been praying for a miracle that supplies would arrive before babies died. God is good all the time!

For those who would like to give for Haiti relief through the Kentucky Baptist Convention, you can give online through the KBC Web site or by sending a check to Kentucky Baptist Convention, P.O. Box 856300, Dept. 124, Louisville, KY 40285-9900. (Indicate “Haiti disaster relief” in the memo field.) Kentucky Baptists can also give through their churches simply by designating the gift for “Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief – Haiti.”

In addition to giving, you can also be preparing to go when the doors open. There will be much work to do for a long time so you can think now about when you might be able to go in the future. To go with a Kentucky Baptist disaster relief team, you will need to go through training to be certified so if you are not now a trained volunteer, plan to participate in an upcoming training session.

Pockets of violence and looting, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, are hindering the delivery of relief supplies, like this shipment from the Samaritan's Purse relief organization. Photo by David Uttley/Samaritans Purse/Genesis Photos

Southern Baptists’ disaster assessment team is in Haiti after a grueling trip over the mountain range that separates the island nation from the Dominican Republic to its east. The five-member team, which includes Disaster Relief Associate Coy Webb from the Kentucky Baptist Convention, is now at work setting up the logistical structures that will be needed for a prolonged Southern Baptist response to the island.

Conditions are extremely difficult and disaster relief experts are warning volunteers desiring to help to make sure they are prepared physically, psychologically and spiritually for dealing with what will be harsh conditions for the foreseeable future. Specialized teams with very specific missions will be the first to go in initially with additional work crews added in the weeks and months ahead.

Haiti will be a place in which Southern Baptists will be working for the long term — long after the cameras and reporters have left. Right now, be in prayer, give to support those who are helping on site and, if you feel called, begin preparing yourself for an upcoming opportunity for hands-on service.

Here’s the latest on the team’s arrival in Haiti from the Kentucky Baptist Convention:

Disaster Relief Team Arrives in Haiti, Begins Assessment

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI – Kentucky Baptist Convention Disaster Relief Associate Coy Webb and the rest of the five-person Southern Baptist Disaster Relief team have arrived in Haiti and are now working to assess the devastation caused by last week’s 7.0 earthquake.

Currently scheduled to stay in Haiti until Jan. 25, the team’s primary goal this week is to determine how Southern Baptists can help the people of Haiti.

After arriving in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on Jan. 19, the team joined missionaries from the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board and began the 160-mile journey across the island to Haiti.

According to a report from the North American Mission Board, the team spent the night at the Good Samaritan Hospital in the border town of Jimani, Dominican Republic, before finishing the journey and arriving in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 20.

In addition to Webb, the team includes Jim Brown, U.S. office director for Baptist Global Response; Don Gann, disaster relief coordinator for the Mississippi Baptist Convention; Bruce Poss of the North American Mission Board; and Ralph Shealy, medical consultant for the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

Upon their arrival in Port-au-Prince, the five-member team distributed supplies to an orphanage in the area and is now working to connect with Florida Baptist representatives who are also serving as initial responders. The entire Southern Baptist relief effort is being led by the Florida Baptist Convention, which has had ministry relationships for more than 20 years and has staff members stationed in the country.

Meanwhile, the KBC is keeping one medical team on standby, as well as one non-medical team of specially trained Kentucky Baptist disaster relief volunteers. According to Baptist Men on Mission Director Randy Foster, the teams could possibly be sent to Haiti as early as Jan. 25.

No additional volunteers are needed for the initial response teams at this point, said Foster, but many Kentucky Baptists will be called upon to help in the coming months and years. After the assessment takes place and a more detailed plan is in place, the KBC will communicate the need for volunteers, he said.

According to the North American Mission Board, the effort may not open to other disaster relief teams for another 90-100 days based on the difficult logistics and conditions surrounding the disaster.

Kentucky Baptists desiring to help are encouraged to give monetary donations through the KBC’s fund designated for the Haiti relief effort. Contributions may be sent to the KBC, P.O. Box 856300, Dept. 124, Louisville, KY 40285-9900. Please note “Haiti Earthquake” in the check memo. Online donations are also being accepted at www.kybaptist.org/dr.

Trained Kentucky Baptist disaster relief volunteers interested in serving on a team once opportunities become available are being asked to express their interest by emailing cindy.henderson@kybaptist.org. Volunteers should indicate their availability, contact information and what type of volunteer work they are able to do.

Kentucky Baptists are part of a larger network of Southern Baptist volunteers trained to respond to disasters by manning mass feeding operations, using chainsaws to clear downed trees and limbs, clear mud out of flooded homes and more. Together, Southern Baptists comprise the third largest relief organization in the United States.

To learn more about Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief, go to www.kybaptist.org/dr.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention is a cooperative missions and ministry organization made up of nearly 2,400 autonomous Baptist churches in Kentucky. A variety of state and worldwide ministries are coordinated through its administrative offices in Louisville, Ky. including: missions work, disaster relief, ministry training and support, church development, evangelism and more.  For more information, visit www.kybaptist.org.

– Robert Reeves

CBS News screen capture of Haiti damage from Baptist Press.

I am sure everyone is already in prayer for the people in Haiti and the chaotic situation there today but let me give you a few specific items to add to your prayer list in the wake of this terrible tragedy.

First, pray for the Southern Baptist assessment teams that are going into Haiti this weekend and on Monday to determine how our disaster relief volunteers can best be of help in the coming weeks and months. Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief Associate Coy Webb will be part of a team of five that is flying in on Jan. 18 and will spend four to six days on the ground.

Additionally, the Florida Baptist Convention has an assessment team going in this weekend. Please be in special prayer for this team as 18 of the 21 Haitian employees of the Florida Baptist Convention are still missing. The Convention has received word from a third party that the FBC’s mission center there has been destroyed. Florida Baptists have a 15-year partnership with Baptist in Haiti and have helped plant 890 churches during that time.

“They are like our family,” Craig Culbreth, director of Florida’s Partnership Mission Department who has traveled to Haiti for the past 11 years, told Baptist Press. “They have been in our homes and we have been in theirs. We have laughed together and we have cried together, we have walked side-by-side and shared our vision for the nation of Haiti to come to Christ. They are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters and they are hurting right now. Many of them have small children. Some of their homes may be damaged and they are sleeping in the streets. It is a desperate situation there.”

Thirdly, be in prayer for Haitian congregations here in the United States as their members worry and seek to contact loved ones. We have four Haitian congregations in the Kentucky Baptist Convention. The Convention has been in touch with each pastor and there are numerous families still awaiting word on the fate of family members and friends.

Finally, be in prayer for God’s leadership in how we can best respond in the months and years ahead to bring physical and spiritual healing to this incredibly poor nation. Right now the effort is still on finding survivors in the rubble, getting water and food to a people still in shock, helping people find shelter and dealing with the public health issues that are associated with so much death and destruction. The U.S. military, the United Nations and relief agencies around the world are responding in massive ways to deal with this initial situation.

But we all know that this outpouring of emergency aid will be only the beginning of what is needed in the months and years to come. This is where Kentucky Baptists and Southern Baptists will be able to do the most good. We are known for being there not only when the cameras are rolling but when the hard work of rebuilding goes on and on. Pray that God will use us for His glory and that many will come to find new life in Him out of this tragedy.

Here’s the latest release about the assessment team’s trip from the Kentucky Baptist Convention:

Webb Scheduled to Leave for Haiti Jan. 18

Coy Webb

LOUISVILLE – Kentucky Baptist Convention Disaster Relief Associate Coy Webb is one of five team members scheduled to travel to Haiti on Jan. 18 to assess how Southern Baptists can help those devastated by the Jan. 12 earthquake.

According to Webb, the team is planning to stay four to six days. Their primary goal will be to “determine when Southern Baptist teams can arrive and what they can do to help once they are there,” he said.

Webb will joined by four other representatives from a variety of Southern Baptist organizations, including: Jim Brown, U.S. office director for Baptist Global Response; Don Gann, disaster relief coordinator for the Mississippi Baptist Convention; Bruce Poss of the North American Mission Board; and Ralph Shealy, medical consultant for the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

Two additional representatives from the Florida Baptist Convention are scheduled to travel separately and coordinate with the team’s efforts upon arrival in Haiti.

According to Webb, the entire effort is being led by the Florida Baptist Convention, which has had ministry relationships for more than 20 years and has staff members stationed in the country.

After the assessment takes place and a more detailed plan is in place, Webb said Kentucky Baptist disaster relief volunteers will be needed to help with the disaster recovery. Teams could potentially be needed within a few weeks, but there is no way to know for certain at this point, he said.

Kentucky Baptists desiring to help are encouraged to give monetary donations through the KBC’s fund designated for the Haiti relief effort. While many have already offered to donate supplies and goods, Webb said “there is no good way to get those items into Haiti right now, so monetary donations really are the best way to help immediately.”

Contributions may be sent to the KBC, P.O. Box 856300, Dept. 124, Louisville, KY 40285-9900. Please note “Haiti Earthquake” in the check memo. Online donations are also being accepted at www.kybaptist.org/dr.

Trained Kentucky Baptist disaster relief volunteers interested in serving on a team once opportunities become available are being asked to express their interest by emailing baptistmen@kybaptist.org. Volunteers should indicate their availability, contact information and what type of volunteer work they are able to do.

Kentucky Baptists are part of a larger network of Southern Baptist volunteers trained to respond to disasters by manning mass feeding operations, using chainsaws to clear downed trees and limbs, clear mud out of flooded homes and more. Together, Southern Baptists comprise the third largest relief organization in the United States.

To learn more about Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief, go to www.kybaptist.org/dr.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention is a cooperative missions and ministry organization made up of nearly 2,400 autonomous Baptist churches in Kentucky. A variety of state and worldwide ministries are coordinated through its administrative offices in Louisville, Ky. including: missions work, disaster relief, ministry training and support, church development, evangelism and more.  For more information, visit www.kybaptist.org.

– Robert Reeves

I’ve never heard anyone say specifically that missions work in the United States is less important than international missions work but I’ve certainly come across some who, in their commendable zeal to support our international missions effort, imply it.  If I understand correctly, their thinking seems to be that since we have many existing churches in the United States — especially in the South — there’s no real need for a cooperative effort among Southern Baptists through associations, state conventions and the North American Mission Board to reach the lost here at home. The churches and individual Christians, the logic goes, should be all the missionary force we need here in the United States so all missions giving should therefore go for work outside our home country.

To a certain extent, I can understand and sympathize with this thinking. There’s a sense among some Baptists that having organizations to coordinate missions work at home becomes a crutch for churches and individuals who would rather simply give money from behind the walls of their church buildings than actually get out there and “be” the church by ministering and witnessing in their home communities. They believe that without these broader organizations, churches would come closer to realizing that reaching our communities will take the personal involvement of every Christian.

Probably all of us have at one time or another been guilty of the sin of not sharing our faith. I know that I have certainly failed to take advantage of opportunities to share the Gospel and for those failures I feel ashamed. As many have said already, a true Great Commission Resurgence isn’t going to be about organizational structures or Cooperative Program allocations, but about all of us as individual Christians getting our hearts right, our feet in motion and our tongues wagging about Jesus.

Even so, I believe it is very important for us to use every means possible for reaching those here at home as well which includes making use of various missions and church strengthening organizations to help us be more effective as individual Christians and churches.  To me it’s a matter of recognizing the need and then trying to come up with the best approach possible for meeting that need.

First, let me address the need. All any of us who live in the United States needs to do, no matter where we live, is to drive around our communities, read a newspaper or turn on the television for 15 minutes to see that our nation is far from being reached for Christ.  Even in an old-line Southern Baptist state like Kentucky we see all kinds of lostness.  We see the lostness of individuals who have not grown up in Christian families and whose greatest exposure to Christianity is in driving by church buildings or clicking by TV preachers. We also see the lostness of individuals who have some cultural connection to Christianity, i.e. “Momma used to go to church” or “Granddaddy was a preacher,” but who have no real relationship to Christ themselves because they see themselves as “good, decent people.” We also see the lostness of individuals who are what we call here, the “de-churched.” These are individuals who were once in our churches and have probably “heard” the gospel but for various reasons, real and imagined, have drifted away and show no fruit indicating that they know the Lord.

This lostness is not imagined. It has been documented in a variety of ways. According to research conducted by NAMB, some 251 million people in the United States and Canada — that’s three out of every four — are lost. Here in Kentucky, according to research conducted by the Barna Group on behalf of the KBC, nearly 1 million Kentuckians are unchurched with another 650,000 not committed to the church on whose roll their name appears. The Association of Religious Data Archives estimated that nearly 1.9 million of Kentucky’s 4 million population in 2000 had no affiliation with any religious group. No matter how you want to cut it or whose numbers you want to use, the point is that there is a great need for missions on our own continent and in our own country and state.

So, if there are a lot of lost people all around us, isn’t reaching them the job of the local church? Yes! Definitely! Of course! Communicating to the lost who surround us is the responsibility of each Christian and each local body of believers. This means that I have a responsibility as a Christian to share personally with those in my family, neighborhood and other spheres of influence. My local church has a responsibility to share directly and as effectively as possible with all of those in its local field.

But this doesn’t mean that we can’t or shouldn’t also work together on association, state and national levels. Some strategies work best by pooling our resources. Disaster relief is a good example of this. Our volunteers go out wearing the yellow shirts to meet both the physical and spiritual needs of the people who are served. Sure, a single church can go and do a disaster relief project. But I think we all have seen that we can be much more efficient when we pool resources and coordinate our efforts.

Or, for an even more directly evangelistic example, think about the Find it Here evangelistic emphasis in which Kentucky Baptists are currently engaged. I’ve never seen a more cooperative evangelistic effort as pastors have worked through their associations to divide the geography to ensure that every household we can possibly get to will receive a gospel presentation from Southern Baptists in the weeks leading up to Easter this year. Churches, associations, the state convention, the Kentucky Woman’s Missionary Union and NAMB are working closely in a coordinated fashion that leverages the strengths of each organization for maximum effectiveness on this project.

None of this diminishes the importance of international missions though. We have a world of some 6.7 billion people out there who also need to hear about Jesus so we definitely need to draw attention to this and do all we can to reach everyone. But we’ve got to get beyond wrestling among ourselves for limited resources (which I think is really the bottom line of this myth) and seek instead to enlarge the pot.

For instance, right now on average here in Kentucky, 93 cents of every undesignated dollar that a person puts into the offering plate, stays in the local community for local church operations, ministries and missions. That leaves 7 cents to be divided among the state conventions and Southern Baptist Convention for all of the other work that takes place across the nation and world. And where we’ve ended up in part with the GCR is a scramble for how best to divide up that 7 cents. At times it reminds me of football players trying to recover a fumble on a muddy field.

But what I am most reminded of right now is Jesus’s feeding of the 5,000. When we serve a Lord that took five small loaves and two fish, fed 5,000 men (plus women and children) and then had the disciples collect 12 baskets of leftovers, why are we so worried over the finances of missions? Isn’t our God rich enough to supply the funds needed to meet all of the needs?

I believe SBC President Johnny Hunt got it right when he called all Southern Baptists to a special day of prayer on Jan. 31. And I hope the praying goes on and on and on because I am convinced that when God senses that our hearts are truly broken for the lost and that we have all given up on striving for our own agendas or defending turf, He will open the floodgates of heaven and show us His power in a way that none of us can imagine.

That’s when we’ll know that missions is international, national and as local as the house next door.

–Robert Reeves

Previous Posts in this Series:

• Great Commission Myth Busting
• State Conventions Stretched, Not Bloated