Future of Texas Baptist missions depends on education, collaborations & communication

Posted: 11/02/07

Future of Texas Baptist missions depends on
education, collaborations & communication

By Teresa Young

Wayland Baptist University

MARILLO—Future mission work by Texas Baptists will require a concerted effort in missions education, collaboration and communication to be successful, said a panel of Baptist General Convention of Texas representatives during a workshop held as part of the BGCT annual meeting.

Don Sewell, executive liaison for missions relations with the BGCT, began the workshop with a video detailing the partnerships and mission work already going on around the state and introduced a new BGCT website designed to connect missions efforts.

The site—www.beonmission.org—will serve as a clearinghouse for missions opportunities and work being done around the world, with the idea that others can join in existing efforts or learn about areas not being covered by missions work.

“We really wanted to pull Texas Baptist missions together and communicate that work. We do not have an institution in Texas that is not involved in missions work, yet there is not a lot of connection between them,” said Steve Vernon, pastor of First Baptist Church in Levelland, BGCT president and workshop panelist.

“In my day, to do missions you prayed and you gave … it was missions by proxy. But churches are not satisfied with that anymore.”

Vernon noted that to continue the success and impact being made by Texas Baptists, a greater focus on missions education would have to exist in churches.

“We have to raise up missionaries. They don’t just come out of the woodwork when they turn 25,” Vernon said. “Our students, for example, are excited to go, and they’ll go anywhere. We don’t need to harness that. We need to release it and send them out.”

BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade echoed that sentiment, adding that churches and pastors must be intentional about missions endeavors.

“Missions must be done from the inside out, working on the missions heart of the congregation and individuals,” he said. “And we need to help churches discover their missions DNA, the specific talents, skills and interests they have to do missions effectively.”

Wade also encouraged churches to partner with universities and human care organizations that regularly do missions work; to be deliberate in sharing missions stories and illustrations with their congregations; and to realize the calling all Christians have to be blessings to others.

In the future, Wade hopes the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas missions can be expanded to reach a wider audience and make a greater impact.

In response to an audience query, Wade noted traditional, career missionaries will be of utmost importance to future work as they provide a needed link between countries and people groups and work needed to be done in the area.

They also have the ability to follow up on missions work done by outside groups and ensure progress continues.

The future will be a great testimony to the role of church associations, Wade said, as related churches in geographic proximity to each other work together for greater impact and not feel isolated in their missions work.