IMB must mobilize ‘ordinary Christians’ for missions, Platt insists

Southern Baptists’ International Mission Board must mobilize “ordinary Christians”—students, retirees and professionals whose jobs take them overseas—to work alongside full-time vocational missionaries, IMB President David Platt told an Internet audience.

Platt presented his vision for the missions agency’s future during a one-hour live streaming webcast March 3.

He acknowledged the financial struggles that necessitated a reduction in paid IMB personnel. In mid-February, he told the board’s trustees 983 missionaries and 149 stateside staff left the IMB as a result of its voluntary retirement and resignation programs, leaving about 3,800 missionaries on the field.

“We’ve walked through difficult times,” Platt said, acknowledging the “grieving process” that continues.

But with the cuts, the missions agency is in “a healthier financial place” and will achieve a balanced budget by year’s end, “Lord willing,” he said during the webcast.

Platt told the Internet audience he didn’t want to “spend time talking about all that.” But with 6,000 people groups unreached by the gospel and a smaller pool of full-time paid missionaries, he acknowledged the challenge the mission board faces.

Platt presented a five-part vision to guide the IMB:

• Exalt Christ.

“That seems pretty basic,” he admitted. But the missions agency must resist the temptation to “let pragmatism rule the day,” and instead be guided and empowered by the Spirit of God and “tethered to his word,” he said.

“Instead of starting with what works, start with God’s word,” he said.

Christ will receive glory when his people operate through his power and according to his plan rather than their own, he insisted.

“Ask God to do what only he can do,” he said.

• Mobilize “ordinary Christians.”

Platt expressed his hope to see an “exponentially increasing missions force” as church members respond to the call to serve long-term or short-term to supplement the work of full-time career missionaries.

“We are limited in our capacity to send” fully funded career missionaries, he acknowledged. Platt insisted it is “not tolerable” for Baptists to pray that God will call workers to serve overseas, only to have the IMB tell them, “You can go, but not with us.”

Instead, the missions agency must change its structures and systems to encourage involvement of “ordinary Christians on an extraordinary mission,” he asserted.

“There are limitless opportunities if we will open our eyes to see them,” he said.

• Serve and equip the church.

“I don’t see the IMB in the pages of the New Testament,” Platt said. Instead, he insisted, Scriptures emphasize the “centrality and primacy of the local church.”

Platt answered questions submitted via Twitter during the webcast. In response to one query, he described a “three-legged stool” of families and individuals who feel called to go as missionaries, churches that send them and the IMB that provides logistical and strategic support.

He described training resources for churches the IMB is developing—a six-week introduction to the biblical foundations for missions, a six-month mentorship program that focuses on disciple-making in a cross-cultural context and intensive two-day training for pastors and church leaders.

• Facilitate church planting.

“When we say ‘church,’ we need to make sure it is the biblical picture of the church,” Platt said.

Rather than “dilute definitions,” he insisted the IMB must focus on planting healthy churches that proclaim the gospel, make disciples, grow spiritually and reproduce.

While continuing to spread the gospel to remote places among unreached people, the IMB also must be strategic in its church-starting strategy, Platt said.

Since more than half the world’s population lives in global urban centers, the IMB must start healthy churches in ethnically diverse global cities that are hubs of business and culture, he stressed.

• “Play our part.”

“God is raising up a global army to reach the nations,” Platt said.

Southern Baptists will not reach the entire world with the gospel working alone, but they must do their share while other Christians “play their part” in fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission, he said.

One Webcast participant asked Platt via Twitter if the IMB reasonably could expect to fulfill the Great Commission “given the threat of radical non-Christian religions” globally.

“Not safely,” Platt answered. “It will cost us deeply. … There is much risk but far greater reward.”