IN FOCUS: Partnerships empower missions

At the recent Southern Baptist Convention and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship meetings, there was growing concern about the lack of funding for missions. We also are facing a world where other religious groups are aggressive and often oppressive, and where the dominant religion in North America and Western Europe appears to be secularism.

How do we make disciples of all the nations with costs increasing, missions giving down and doors closing to North Americans in some countries? Obviously, some of the answers are found in examining our own commitment to Christ and to mission priorities. However, we also must ask the question about mission effectiveness.

Is it better financially and more effective to spend $150,000 a year to put a North American missionary in India, or to spend $1,000 a year to train a student in a Baptist seminary in India?

At the Baptist World Alliance Congress, I realized the world is not waiting for North Americans to deliver them. Forty million Baptists—and millions of other Christ followers—already are scattered around the world.

Adoniram and Ann Judson were the first American Baptist missionaries in Burma in the 19th century. Today, a million Baptists live in Burma, now called Myanmar.

Texas Baptists have assisted indigenous mission work personally and financially around the world. The BWA family provides an excellent network for partnering in these ministries. At the Congress, I was reminded of partnerships we already enjoy and opportunities that still await us. A sample of these include the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Lebanon, Bowen University in Nigeria, partnerships with Venezuela and Spain, and church planting throughout Europe.

Seventy-nine Texas Baptists are in the state of Portuguesa, Venezuela, participating in their annual evangelistic endeavor. Each year, thousands come to know Christ, and many churches are started. A team from Venezuela will come to McAllen this fall to assist us in our evangelistic efforts in the Valley.

This is a small sample of the many partnerships between Texas Baptists and some of our brothers and sisters around the world. The opportunities are endless. A recent letter from Raquel Contreras, president of Chilean Baptists, shares her appreciation.

“I’m writing to express our gratitude in the name of the Chilean Baptists for all the Texas Baptist family is doing for us … after the earthquake,” she wrote. “But especially I want to mention the tremendous blessing for the Chilean pastors to have the first marriage enrichment retreat ever in Chile for pastors with Josue and Lee Ann Valerio from the BGCT. Several of the pastors’ couples that live in the affected area by the earthquake were present. Also, the financing to make this possible was a double blessing, because several of our pastors had never stayed in a hotel before.”

Of course, many of us need to hear God’s call to be vocational missionaries. But we also should be alert to using our vast resources to empower other Christ followers around the world to reach their own people.