I read a quote today that caught my attention from a December incident:

“It was a trivial problem that…occurs every year…No one was arrested because all those involved were men of God,” stated Palestinian Police Lt. Col. Khaled al-Tamimi about the December 28 Christmas fight that broke out among several dozen Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests cleaning the Church of the Nativity.

Sounds almost like a Baptist business meeting…just kidding.  But, I found it difficult to determine if laughing or crying would be the right response…until my eyes were drawn to the words “men of God.”  It hit me again; how sometimes as Believers we forget in our human disagreements that a world is watching, and our behavior not only reflects on us…it also reflects on God. I wonder if at times we may be a greater witness to an unbelieving world on how we respond to one another in our times of disagreement than when we easily agree.  Can we create barriers to fulfilling the Great Commission in how we react to one another in times of disagreement?

What would an unbeliever write about us as Kentucky Baptists if they observed us as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission together?  After all, sometimes I feel strongly about Kingdom directions that differ with some of my brothers and sisters of the faith. What a tragedy, if in those times of disagreement an unbeliever might write, “It was just another one of those Baptists’ meetings…really rather trivial…they do it all the time…but we don’t arrest them despite their fighting because they are people of God.”

Should Christians be able to disagree without being disagreeable?  Just something for us to think about…as a world watches.

It’s good to be reminded of what our work is really all about. Here’s the baptism testimony of a young man who came to Christ, in part through the ministry of Baptist Campus Ministry at Kentucky State University.

The Point Community Church is a Kentucky Baptist Conventon church that is part of Franklin Baptist Association.

The apostle Paul made an impact on an escaped criminal’s life by the name of Onesimus.  Paul then urged Philemon to accept Onesimus as a Brother in Christ and to come alongside him upon his return home.  The apostle wrote:

“I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains.  Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and me.”   (Philemon 1:10-11 )

Satan continues to shackle untold multitudes.  Consider these facts:

• In the United States, approximately 1600 people will leave state and federal prisons each day according to correctional data.
• Nearly two out of three will return to the greater Louisville area in Kentucky.
• More than four out of ten of these released will be back in the prison system within three years.
• Less than one out of five of these being released will have participated in any kind of pre-release program that prepares them to re-enter society.
• Almost all prisoners eventually get out.
• Children of prisoners are seven times more likely to end up in a state correctional institution.
• Children of prisoners are nine times more likely to drop out of school and ten times more likely to abuse chemical substances.

Tragically, this vicious cycle repeats itself day after day all across Kentucky. It touches the families and neighbors of Kentucky Baptist churches from Ashland to Paducah as the Enemy continues to destroy lives. 

But, there is good news; God is stirring a life-changing ministry inside the fences of correctional institutions in Kentucky and opening doors in other correctional facilities through the Malachi Dad and Rubies For Life Programs.  These relational Discipleship/Mentoring programs are transforming the lives of prisoners and their families by helping them to enter a relationship with Jesus Christ. The ultimate goal of the programs is  to enable men and women to live transformed lives.  Through the Kentucky Baptist R-6 Mentoring program this life transformation continues upon release from prison.

Listen to one testimony from a graduate of the Rubies For Life Program:

“I have struggled a lot with guilt – guilt over crime…guilt over not being a mother to my son…guilt for breaking my parent’s heart.  How could a perfect and judgemental God love me? I can’t forgive myself… All my life I knew about God…but I didn’t know God. Through Rubies I have come to know who God really is-He’s my loving father and I am important to Him.  He does forgive me and remembers my sin no more….I am a better Mom, a better daughter..I see things now.  I’m a Ruby!”

God is changing lives, but the workers are few.  There is a great need for volunteers or churches that would be willing to break the cycle by serving as a leader, team member, or mentor in the Malachi Dads, Rubies For Life, or R-6 Mentoring Program.  Is God calling you?  Would you make a difference for Christ’s sake for a forgotten Onesimus today?

Contact the R-6 Mentoring Program at the Baptist Men on Mission Department  at (502) 489-3527 or randy.foster@kybaptist.org, and allow God to use you to become a Paul to a forgotten Onesimus. 

The R-6 Mentoring Program is a work of the Kentucky Baptist Convention and supported by gifts to the Cooperative Program and the Eliza Broadus Offering for State Missions.

Here’s a great feature story about a Kentucky missionary. By the way, the story was written by another Kentucky missionary, Shirley Cox, a Mission Service Corps missionary.

Pastor’s Widow Starts Ministry to Internationals

GEORGETOWN –While some Kentuckians perhaps were viewing the influx of Hispanics with a wary eye in the 1990s, Garnett Jones placed a large sign beside the front door of her white frame house in Georgetown that read, “bienvenidos, amigos.”

“Welcome, friends.”

That welcoming spirit continues today.

In 2010, the Hispanic ministry that originally began in her home involved 18 different nationalities, including immigrants from Ethiopia, India, Jordan, Ghana and refugees from the Congo.

“Congolese refugees who come to the U.S. may have a university degree from South Africa, but they have never used an ATM or had a bank account,” Jones said. “I take them shopping, teach them to drive and loan my car for driver’s tests.”

Jones said she first heard God’s call to missions at age 16. She and her husband, Clarence, a pastor, worked in ministries ranging from inner city to Appalachia. “I loved being a pastor’s wife,” she said.

After 36 years of marriage, Clarence died suddenly, leaving Garnett alone.

“Lord, you know me better than I know myself,” she prayed. “Please help me find something to do.”

She was not prepared for the answer. “God moved me to study Spanish at age 67.”

The following summer, Jones went on a mission trip to Ecuador. After she came home, she began working with a Hispanic ministry. The next summer, she returned to Ecuador to study Spanish with a private tutor and at a language institute. Later, she worked as a teaching assistant to Hispanics in Dry Ridge, and taught English to Hondurans in Cincinnati.

The third summer Garnett went to Ecuador to work in a medical clinic, she was injured when she fell down a mountain.

“They used two tree trunks and horse blankets to make a stretcher to carry me up the mountain,” she said. Following surgery, however, she developed complications. “A doctor said my leg was so badly injured that amputation might be the only solution.”

When the Hispanic community back in Williamstown heard about her accident, they prayed aloud over and over, “Let Garnett’s antibiotics start working.”

And her leg began to heal.

After Jones was well enough to return to Kentucky, she became a Mission Service Corps missionary. Gradually, her home in Georgetown developed into a school and social center for Hispanics.

“The Hispanic women brought their children and we studied English in the kitchen” she said. In the evening, she taught classes for the men and women who worked outside the home.

Her home also became a place where her Hispanic friends could invite loved ones for birthday parties and other special occasions.

Eager to serve, Jones approached internationals in grocery stores or Walmart, asking whether they spoke English and inviting them to her classes.

“In 14 years, I never had an international that was not receptive,” she said.

She has found students in other unusual places. Once, while Jones was posting a notice for English classes for Hispanics, a motel owner asked her, “What agency do you work for? Who pays you?”

“I work for the Lord,” she answered. The man asked Jones to teach English to his 60-year-old wife, a Pakistani, who could not converse with anyone.

“It was so neat to see how the Hispanic women welcomed her,” Jones recalled.

She also enrolled several Chinese students the day she went to a local Chinese restaurant to post a bulletin for Hispanics.

A certified instructor for English as a Second Language, Jones teaches three evenings a week for the local school district and every Wednesday at Georgetown Baptist Church.

The Woman’s Missionary Union of Georgetown Baptist purchases materials and provides other support for the Wednesday classes.

Jones has become an advocate for internationals. She contacts lawyers, helps with legal papers, provides information about immigration laws, attends court hearings and helps obtain visas.

“I recorded 100 questions and answers on CDs to study for citizenship,” she said. “The internationals know enough to converse but these words are unfamiliar.” She also interprets at doctor and dentist offices and provides comfort and reassurance.

On Sunday evening, Jones teaches 14 children at Iglesia Bautista Ebenezer, a Hispanic church she helped plant that meets in the basement of Gano Baptist. “We began the church with two people and now we have 40 to 50,” she said.

With the help of a businessman, she founded the Georgetown/Scott County Hispanic Initiative, an organization of local citizens and community leaders that addresses issues related to the Hispanic community. Currently, she serves as president.

Jones doesn’t seem to be thinking of slowing down anytime soon.

“I don’t see anything in the Bible that we are supposed to retire,” she said. “Jesus was compassionate about people’s needs. There are people all around us who are hurting.”

Mission Service Corps is a North American network of self-funded servants who assist state/regional Baptist conventions, local Baptist associations, and individual congregations and ministries.

Learn more about Mission Service Corps at www.kybaptist.org/msc or contact Teresa Parrett, missions mobilization coordinator for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, by e-mail at teresa.parrett@kybaptist.org or by phone (606) 875-3079 or (866) 489-3530 (toll-free in Kentucky).

Make a resolution this year to pray regularly for Kentucky missionaries! Please download this interSEED calendar as a helpful tool to help you remember to pray for them on their birthdays.

You can also watch this page or the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s Facebook page and Twitter feed to find out when each month’s page is available.

We hope interSEED will help cultivate a renewed environment of prayer in Kentucky Baptist life.

Questions? Contact the KBC Mission Service and Ministries Department by e-mail at ministries@kybaptist.org or by phone at (502) 489-3530 or (502) 489-3530.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention has recently released a video about the ministry of missionaries Greg and Alice Whitetree at the Freeda Harris Baptist Center in Easter Kentucky. I had the opportunity to visit the center earlier this summer. Greg and Alice are truly examples of people who are giving more for Christ. Although they were initially trained in and called to children’s ministry in urban areas, they have given the past 28 years of their lives now to ministering in Kentucky’s coal country.

Life can be hard in this area of the state as high rates of unemployment, poverty and drug abuse are prevalent. Greg and Alice live humbly and minister generously to share the love of Christ and meet the needs of the people. They are the Great Commission in action!

Click here to download this video. It’s a great piece to help your church understand how Cooperative Program, Eliza Broadus Offering for State Missions and Annie Armstrong Easter Offering gifts are being used to minister in Kentucky.

The KBC Great Commission Task Force at work at the Kentucky Baptist Building.

Kentucky Baptists will move to an even distribution of Cooperative Program receipts with the Southern Baptist Convention and set an ambitious goal of increasing missions giving under a plan being proposed by the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Task Force.

The Task Force’s recommendations will be presented to messengers for approval at the Kentucky Baptist Convention annual meeting at Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington on Nov. 16.

The report was released today to give Kentucky Baptists adequate time to understand and react to four recommendations, said Task Force Chairman Hershael York, pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort and a former KBC president.

Here’s the text of the report:

Last year Kentucky Baptist Convention President John Mark Toby appointed a Great Commission Task Force. The 17 Task Force members appointed were:

• Hershael York, pastor of Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Chair.

• Paul Badgett, pastor, First Baptist Church, Pikeville

• Charles Barnes, member of Hurstbourne Baptist Church in Louisville

• Joy Bolton, executive director-treasurer of Kentucky Woman’s Missionary Union

• Jeff Crabtree, director of mission, Warren Baptist Association

• Rusty Ellison, pastor, Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville

• Chad Fugitt, pastor of First Baptist Church in Monticello

• Greg Faulls, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Owensboro

• John Hale, deacon at First Baptist Church in Mount Vernon

• Bill Henard, pastor of Porter Memorial Baptist Church in Lexington

• James Jones, pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Campbellsville

• Bill Mackey, executive director, Kentucky Baptist Convention

• Don Mathis, president, Kentucky Baptist Convention

• Jessica Milburn, member of Union Baptist Church in Union

• Sam Rainer, pastor of First Baptist Church in Murray

• Kevin Smith, pastor of Watson Memorial Baptist Church in Louisville

• Dan Summerlin, pastor of Lone Oak First Baptist Church in Paducah

Over the course of the past 8 months, the Task Force has met in prayer, deliberation, and commitment. Every member of the Great Commission Task Force agrees that this has been a significant spiritual milestone in our lives as we have seen God work among us and bring us to a unanimous consensus about our recommendations.

In order to reach our conclusions and recommendations, we first reached a consensus about our foundational guiding principles. The include the following:

Principles we believe

We believe that Jesus Christ is worthy of all our praise, honor, worship, and resources.

We believe that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, and that explicit faith in Christ as Lord and Savior is necessary for all morally accountable persons to have eternal life.

We believe that faith in Christ comes only through the proclamation of the gospel applied by the Holy Spirit.

We believe that Jesus has commanded us to preach the gospel to every person on earth.

We believe that churches should evangelize the lost, baptize and disciple the saved, plant churches, and reach our nation and the world through commissioning missionaries, participating in missions personally, and giving a significant portion of income and resources to missions, especially through the vehicle of the Cooperative Program.

We believe in the value of Christian education as a means of equipping Christians to serve the Lord through cultural engagement, church membership and participation, and missionary service.

We believe that a new generation of Kentucky Baptists are not willing to settle for business as usual and that the Cooperative Program will diminish and perhaps die if we do not present a bold, sweeping vision for the future and a refocus of our energies.

We believe that we must devote a significantly larger portion of our resources to reach the 1.7 billion people of the last frontier who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We believe that to be a faithful steward of all that God has blessed us with that each Kentucky Baptist should be challenged to provide a legacy gift for the Cooperative Program and Kingdom causes. We believe that churches, assisted by the Kentucky Baptist Foundation and Mission Board, must lead in training and developing this stewardship vision for all Kentucky Baptists.

We believe that renewed vision and ministry will only result from renewed love for Christ and repentance for our selfishness as evidenced by our decline in witnessing, proclaiming the gospel, personal sacrifice, giving, and going.

We believe that our Kentucky Baptist churches must reverse the decline in cooperative program giving, even while we engage the lost, go on mission, and plant churches.

We believe that to reach our nation and the nations for Christ will require a continued paradigm shift for Kentucky Baptists. First, our churches must become more outwardly focused than inwardly. Second, the Kentucky Baptist Convention needs to shift to a paradigm based more on outreach, evangelism, and missions and less on advising particular church ministries. To do this would require the KBC over time to become more of a facilitator of shared advice, counsel, and experience among churches, pastors, and laity rather than a provider of those services. We recognize that certain ministries (disaster relief, ministry to pastors in transition, etc) are more effective when done by the state convention so we affirm the continued significance and need for the KBC. In fact, we believe that this shift will result in a greater connection between the ministry of the KBC and the churches. We furthermore believe that the local associations are going to become key partners in renewed emphasis on shared ministry, missions, and connections.

To that end and after intense study, interviews, deliberation and prayer, we propose that Kentucky Baptists:

1) Initiate a 3-year emphasis called “More for Christ,” an intentional time of repentance, renewal, and redirection for the future. Kentucky Baptists responded to the “Find It Here” campaign in record numbers and with great enthusiasm and excitement. Our prayer is that we might respond in the same way to a call to personal and corporate commitment to Christ and to the Great Commission.

More for Christ means:

More of myself

• personal surrender
• personal witness
• personal sacrifice

More of my family

More for the lost

More for the needs

More for the nations

We propose that messengers request the KBC mission board, staff, agencies and institutions to seek ways that we can implement this theme in every part of Kentucky Baptist life and that it become a clarion call to our churches and individuals.

Explanation: We recognize that we desperately need a recommitment of our lives, our churches, our families, and our resources. Our prayer is that these recommendations will result in a great movement of the Holy Spirit among Kentucky Baptists. We pray that “More for Christ” will be the theme of what Kentucky Baptists do and give for the future. We pray that such an emphasis will be used of God to remind us and motivate us to strategize, mobilize, and give toward that end.

2) Instruct our Mission Board to move to a reallocation of Cooperative Program funds that results in 50% of our annual Cooperative Program receipts (after shared administrative expenses) being given to the Southern Baptist Convention and 50% to KBC within the next 7 years. Beginning with the 2011-12 fiscal year, the Mission Board shall implement the attached GCTF-Ky CP Percentage Distribution Plan to achieve this goal.

Explanation: To illustrate the differences in this change over the next 7 years and estimating approximately 4% of the KBC budget as shared expenses and 3% growth in CP funds, the division of Cooperative Program receipts after those shared expenses would be:

1st year 2011-12: KBC 53.28% SBC 46.72%

7th year 2017-18: KBC 50%, SBC 50%

The basis for this change in the first year would include a 6% across the board reduction in the KBC budget; eliminating the KBC’s contribution to annuitants by $400,000; reducing contribution to the colleges an additional 7% (which means that the colleges still receive slightly more than they did prior to Georgetown’s departure from the KBC budget); a Mission Board staff reduction of 12%; a total Mission Board budget reduction of 9.85%; an additional WMU reduction of 3.85% ; meaning a total of 9.85%.

In years 2-7 the Mission Board would make further adjustments of $600,000 to achieve incrementally the goal of a 50%-50% allocation between SBC and KBC causes after shared expenses.

3) Set a goal to increase overall CP receipts from Kentucky Baptist churches and individuals at least 3% per year for the next seven years. This growth would be equivalent to each church increasing CP giving by at least 0.25% of undesignated receipts each year for 7 years.

Explanation: It would be wrong simply to reallocate cooperative program receipts and ask KBC ministries to sacrifice and cut back without also asking more from ourselves. As a tenet of faith, we believe that God has already given His people all the resources we need to do what He has commanded. We cannot deny that in the past 15 years Cooperative Program giving from Kentucky Baptist churches has declined from approximately 10% of undesignated receipts to less than 7%. We simply must reverse that trend and ask our churches and individuals to respond graciously, generously, and sacrificially.

If Kentucky Baptists respond and if we could reverse that trend by growing our receipts by 3% per year for the next 7 years, the results for missions would be staggering. Using the new seven-year reallocation with a 3% growth, the increase for SBC causes would be $23,786,274 meaning that over $11.8 million more would go to the IMB and put missionaries on the field.

This is attainable in several ways. If every church in the KBC increased their CP giving by just ¼% of their undesignated receipts every year for the next seven years, we could do it. If small churches that usually give a fixed amount rather than a percentage would up that amount, we could do it. If large churches that have tended to decrease CP giving in order to support their own programs, buildings, and missions would understand the global importance of the CP and reverse that trend, we could do it.

While designating missions dollars to the IMB or some other agency or effort may seem attractive, only the CP supports missions in North America and around the world, helps train pastors and missionaries through our seminaries, and speaks on moral and social issues through the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. While we encourage multiple mission efforts, we believe in the wisdom and strategic genius of the Cooperative Program which, after all, was born here in Kentucky.

4) Authorize the Great Commission Task Force to remain constituted for the next seven years, monitoring progress and implementation and reporting to the Convention and/or Mission Board each year, making any further recommendations as necessary. Each year the KBC president may appoint members to maintain between 10 and 15 on the committee.

Explanation: This work is significant enough that a single entity needs to work closely with the Executive Director and relate to all parts of the KBC to see how we are doing and make reports on our progress. We also believe that continuity is essential, especially after as extensive a study of all KBC entities as this task force has conducted. For that reason we ask that the current members remain on the committee and new ones be added only as natural attrition occurs.

Addendum

GCTF – KY  CP Percentage Distribution Plan

Fiscal Year (2010-11):

KBC:  62%, SBC:  38%

First Year (2011-12):

CP Percentages — KBC: 51.15%; SBC: 44.85%; Shared:  4%

Percentage of CP after Shared Expenses — KBC: 53.28%; SBC: 46.72%

Basis for Change: 2010-11 Budget = Base Year.  Shared Expenses 4% or $940.000; Reduction in KBC Budget 6%; Annuity Reduction $400,000; College Reduction 7% in addition to 6% KBC Budget, Total = 12.58%; Mission Board Staff Reduction 12%; Mission Board Total Budget Reduction of 9.85%, totaling $750,671; including $237,000 of the Cooperative Agreements absorbed by the Mission Board; WMU Reduction 3.85% in addition to 6% of KBC Budget; Total = 9.85%; and 3% Growth in CP divided KBC 33.1%/SBC 66.9% in years 1 through 7.

Seventh Year (2017-18):

CP Percentages — KBC: 48%; SBC: 48%; Shared: 4%

Percentage of CP after Shared Expenses — KBC: 50%; SBC: 50%

Basis for Change in Years 2 through 7: Mission Board absorbs in years 2 through 7 Cooperative Agreements Totaling $600,000 by Mission Board Additional Staff Reductions Totaling $600,000; $180,000 in NAMB Cooperative Agreements to be terminated; Total Mission Board Funding would be Reduced $1,350,691 or 17.72% the 7th year.

For more on the report and comments from Task Force Chairman Hershael York, click here to read the KBC news release on the report.

Click here to download a copy of the Kentucky Great Commission Task Force report.

–Robert Reeves

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

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Task Force met earlier this week and has announced that it came to a unanimous consensus on the content of its final report to SBC messengers to be presented in Orlando in June. Dr. Ronnie Floyd, chairman of the task force, said the report will be released at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, Monday, May 3, on the task force’s website at www.pray4gcr.com.

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