Missions network participants rally in Arlington
Updated: 11/21/06
Missions network participants rally in Arlington
By Barbara Bedrick
Texas Baptist Communications
ARLINGTON—Seven Texas Baptist churches sponsored a statewide missions rally Nov. 12 to champion a movement toward local-church mission work.
“Missions is messy,” said Dennis Wiles, pastor of First Baptist Church in Arlington. “It’s like a plate of food at a family reunion, but it’s as community-minded as Starbucks.”
| Dennis Wiles, pastor of First Baptist Church in Arlington, leads a statewide missions celebration. |
Several hundred church members praised, prayed and worshipped as several Baptist ministers spoke at the missions celebration Sunday night prior to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting in Dallas.
“I’m passionate about missions, and we are here tonight to acknowledge the work of God through his churches in the task of reaching the world for Jesus Christ,” Wiles said. “We’re not supported by the BGCT but blessed by the BGCT.”
First Baptist in Arlington already is budgeting 23 percent of its funds to direct local mission efforts—its largest church focus, he noted.
“Missions is broken,” Wiles said. “Several churches began meeting last January to discuss missions and challenge each other in Christ.”
| Clarification: This story incorrectly reported that First Baptist Church in Arlington budgets 23 percent of its funds to direct local-missions programs. In fact, the church has designated 23 percent of its World Missions Offering to direct missionary support. The article also left the impression that speakers promoted hands-on local missions over financial support for global missions, when their goal was to encourage churches to mobilize members for missions in both local and global contexts. We regret the confusion and want to clear up any misunderstandings. |
Ministers of First Baptist churches of Arlington, Plano and Richardson, along with pastors of Cottonwood Baptist Church in Dublin and Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston met to talk about ways to reach the unreached by personalizing missions at the local-church level. Several Baptist churches now are partnering in a church-sponsored initiative called Global Connection Partnership Network.
The network calls itself a covenantal community of churches seeking to obey God and establish Christ’s church locally and globally. Together, they plan to train and disciple all people to serve in a partnership with the global body of Christ to reach nonbelievers. The network’s goal is contextualizing churches that are naturally reproducing not only in their own culture, but also in cross-cultural gospel pioneering.
The missions network “serves the local church and its mission through training and strategy development. Its aim is that all people of the earth know and worship Jesus Christ and that his church multiplies,” missions professor Mike Stroope said.
It “will create learning labs that would include missiological strategy and church planting, biblical interpretation, cross-cultural training, team building and character development.”
Stroope, associate professor of Christian missions at Truett Seminary, encouraged rally participants to examine how God’s mission work could be more effective. “Stop playing the game of missions,” he said.
Praising local-church mission efforts, BGCT President Michael Bell voiced his support at the statewide rally.
 • See complete list of convention articles |
“Missions is the heart of Texas Baptists,” Bell said. “If you want to get us thrilled, then talk about church missions. We wanted to come out and encourage your missions work.”
Videos highlighted the global status of evangelism and non-Christians, while pastors emphasized that congregations embrace the challenge of God in unprecedented ways by localizing missions efforts instead of sending money to overseas missionaries.
The rally profiled a 90-year-old church, Cottonwood Baptist near Dublin, as a snapshot of a mission-minded church. Mem-bers traveled to southwest China, where 1.4 million people never have heard the name of Jesus Christ. Their mission began with only two families in China but has led more than 4,000 nonbelievers to Christ and planted more than 400 churches.
Pastor Mike Fritscher stressed that Baptists must not become paralyzed or develop a peripheral view of reachin nonbelievers.
“What we’ve created in Cottonwood is a culture of ‘yes,’” said Fritscher.
“Our calling is to Jesus Christ. Love is the greatest commandment; and we are to love our neighbor, whether they are across the street or across the board or across the ocean.”
Cottonwood is on the front line of this movement of God, Fritscher said, as he told how members also reached out to the local Hispanic community with Spanish-language Bible studies and Spanish-translation headphones for Sunday sermons. In another missions outreach, the church embraced Muslims in Africa, where 1.4 million people practice the Muslim faith.
“God is moving in ways I’ve not seen in my lifetime,” said Bill Tinsley, WorldconneX leader. “Every church has its own DNA, and each is shaped uniquely to fulfill the Great Commission.” Tinsley noted that missions starts not at the budget, but with people and their gifts and talents on the frontlines of the mission battle.
Members are missionaries, and people who sit in church pews are changing the evangelism field, he said.