The SBTC is mailing a letter to churches explaining the process of online registration for messengers to the convention’s annual meeting Oct. 26-27 at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center in Lubbock.

Tom Campbell, SBTC director of facilitating ministries, said churches should receive the letter in early September.

For additional questions regarding electronic messenger registration, e-mail Campbell at tcampbell@sbtexas.com.

DALLAS?The 2009 Student Evangelism Conference at the Dallas Convention Center Aug. 7-8 drew more than 1,900 people to hear speakers such as Afshin Ziafat and Ed Newton and bands such as Santus Real, Brandon Heath and Dutton.

In all, 91 students registered salvation decisions, and 92 other spiritual decisions were recorded during the annual conference.

One highlight of the SEC was on Saturday when speaker Ed Newton called Colton Williams and Tony Ramos of First Baptist Church of Cooper to join him on stage.

Williams, a guest of Ramos at the conference, prayed to receive Christ on Friday night and in his excitement following the event, he told a man on the treadmill next to him at the hotel fitness room of his newfound faith.

The man seemed interested and wanted to know more, so Williams called for his friend, Ramos, who told the man in more detail how he too could have a relationship with God through Jesus.

The students invited the man to the event on Saturday, offering him a ride.

To their surprise, the man was Saturday’s keynote speaker, Ed Newton. In the top photo, Newton is relaying the story to the audience after he called the young men up on stage with him and is lauding them for their willingness to share Jesus with others.

“Overall, the conference went extremely well because all the volunteers, the speakers and artists, pulled together and fulfilled their assignments. The student groups were enthusiastic, and they walked away with a passion to reach their world for Christ,” said Jared McIntire, SBTC student evangelism associate.

VIDOR?Nehemiah’s Vision, a disaster rebuild ministry begun by Southern Baptists in Southeast Texas after Hurricane Rita in 2005, has named James Hall as its chief executive officer.

Hall spent the previous 15 years with Atlanta-based Walk Thru the Bible Ministries, retiring in 2008. With a business and ministry background, Hall said he was energized by seeing the ministry of Nehemiah’s Vision along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Based in Vidor, a town hard hit by Rita and battered again last fall by Hurricane Ike, Nehemiah’s Vision has been a ministry partner of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention in recovery and rebuild efforts after Rita and Ike in 2008, coordinating the work of hundreds of Southern Baptist volunteers and other church groups desiring a reputable ministry to partner with in aiding disaster victims.

Upon meeting countless volunteers and hearing stories of lives touched by the ministry, it confirmed something Hall already thought was true: “When disaster happens, the best response comes from Southern Baptists.”

Hall said he wants to build relationships with more churches able to assist with volunteers and material needs and to raise the visibility of Nehemiah’s Vision, which still has much work to do nearly a year after Ike.

First Baptist Church of Vidor pastor Terry Wright is chairman of the board that oversees the ministry. FBC Vidor was an integral partner in beginning Nehemiah’s Vision and continues to work closely with the ministry.

“We can name what the Scripture tells us: there are good works in Heaven,” Hall stated. “Jesus said, ‘I know your works.’ When you get involved in a ministry like Nehemiah’s Vision, your works are not lukewarm.”

Jim Richardson, SBTC Disaster Relief state director, commented: “We enjoy a great relationship with Nehemiah’s Vision in the disaster relief rebuild ministry area. Their ministry plans and coordinates the rebuild ministry opportunities in the aftermath of disaster events. I look forward to serving with Jim Hall as he brings his leadership and vision to the CEO role for Nehemiah’s Vision.”

To contact Hall, e-mail him at jhall@nehemiahsvision.com.

Another North American Mission Board president has left the scene and NAMB trustees once again find themselves in the unenviable position of having to explain to their Southern Baptist constituents why they can’t seem to find and keep a president. Of course the dismissal of Geoff Hammond is not really the biggest issue on the table. With respect to Hammond I’m sure the trustees did what they felt they needed to do?after all, they know things the rest of us do not. No, the bigger issue, which has merely been accentuated by Hammond’s departure, is that from all appearances NAMB looks like a ship without a rudder, adrift in a sea of changing denominational tides. The fact that they can’t seem to find a captain simply exacerbates their already desperate situation.

From my point of view as a pastor of a missions-minded church, NAMB appears to be antiquated, unfocused and ineffective. NAMB needs to break with the past. If our meeting in Louisville taught us anything, it is that a new day has dawned in the SBC and that our people are not willing to allow things to be done as they’ve always been done, especially when what’s being done is not effective. As the mission board charged with reaching our country, NAMB should be leading the way, not lagging behind.

Perhaps NAMB should take a cue from its sister organization, the International Mission Board of the SBC. It seems that NAMB is still operating with a structure the IMB jettisoned years ago. Let me explain in very simple terms:

Before the present administration at the IMB, many missionaries, while commissioned by the then Foreign Mission Board, in reality worked for a variety of national conventions around the world. For instance, if a missionary was stationed in Spain, where I served with the IMB, the missionary would actually be paid by, report to and work at the direction of the Spanish Baptist Convention. The FMB paid the national conventions which in turn paid the missionaries. Such missionaries were employed by the FMB, but worked for the national convention in their country. The result was that instead of the FMB having a unified purpose, vision and strategy, there were as many strategies as there were national conventions. IMB administration changed that some time ago. While agreeing to coordinate efforts with national conventions, the IMB has implemented a very effective church planting strategy for all of their missionaries around the world. The missionaries now work for the IMB, not for the national conventions.

From a functional point of view, today’s North American Mission Board looks a lot like the old FMB. Instead of having a national strategy for church planting, NAMB sends their money through state conventions, just like the FMB did to the national conventions. Each state convention, equipped with its own strategy and priorities, ends up using those NAMB dollars as they see fit, oftentimes to perpetuate jobs that are not effective enough to be self-sustaining. Simply put: there are too many people on the NAMB dole, people with a sense of entitlement or with enough political connections to keep the funds coming their way. Times have changed but NAMB has not changed with the times.

NAMB needs to break the cycle of dependence they have created with state conventions. They need to follow the IMB’s example and develop a national strategy that coordinates efforts with state conventions but at the same time maintains their own autonomy. Their missionaries need to work for NAMB, not for state conventions. They need to stop sending their money and their responsibility on to state conventions and do what Southern Baptists have charged them to do.

If the state conventions are willing to allow the IMB to have and implement its own strategy, why would they not afford NAMB the same opportunity? What has worked for the IMB will work for NAMB if the trustees can put aside the politics and courageously allow their next president to do what needs to be done. Severing the ties with the past is never easy, but is nonetheless necessary if NAMB is ever going to become effective. It’s time to set aside our individual empires and to truly focus on the kingdom of God.

Without a doubt NAMB faces a questionable future. Will NAMB as we know it survive? What kind of confidence do the trustees really think Southern Baptists can have in an organization that has, for whatever reasons, forcibly dismissed their last three presidents? Why can’t they seem to find a president to lead us into the future? Hammond’s forced resignation could not have come at a more inopportune time for NAMB and her trustees. Surely it did not escape their notice that just across town the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force was meeting. If the NAMB trustees don’t order their own house, and do it soon, someone else will order it for them. Southern Baptists are patient people but enough is enough! Orlando is only 10 months away.

?Calvin Wittmanis pastor of Applewood Baptist Church in Wheat Ridge, Colo., and was raised in Texas.He served as an International Mission Board missionary in Spain and serves on the Executive Board of Criswell College.

1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, “Pray without ceasing.” The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force needs your prayer. Please lift up to the Lord the individual members and the group. Ask God to minister to and through the GCR Task Force. We are asking for at least 5,000 to sign up to pray for the GCR. Thank you for your willingness to intercede for us.

Jim Richards
SBTC Executive Director

www.pray4gcr.com
GCR website goes live BP article

NASHVILLE, Tenn.?A website encouraging support for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has been launched at www.pray4gcr.com.

The site, which went live Aug. 1, gives interested people an opportunity to register their commitment to pray, interact with the task force through blogs, Facebook and Twitter, sign up for updates about significant developments and see photos of the 23 task force members.

The task force is asking for 5,000 believers to commit themselves to pray for task force members and a renewed passion for the Great Commission among Southern Baptists, chairman Ronnie Floyd said in a press statement.

“We cannot accomplish the task entrusted to us without a groundswell of prayer support. Surely, thousands will join in prayer together,” said Floyd, who is senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Springdale, Ark., and the Church at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers. “I know Southern Baptists love the Great Commission and will want to join us in praying for this resurgence. The urgency of the hour calls us to pray.

“Southern Baptists have entrusted the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force with a great responsibility. I can assure all Southern Baptists that our final report will reflect the boldest visionary dreams of Southern Baptists to reach the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are ready to get busy with bold thinking, hard questions, fervent prayer, and big dreams. The world is waiting to see how serious we are. I can tell you that this task force is ready to get to work. This is why we are asking you to join us by going to pray4gcr.com, sign the prayer partner list and share it with your friends and family members across the world.”

In a statement posted on the website, Southern Baptist Convention president Johnny Hunt echoed the call to prayer.

“Would you please pray for us daily, weekly, or ever how God lays it on your heart? Also, please encourage your church family to join us in praying that God would help the Southern Baptist Convention to have a Great Commission Resurgence in order that church-planting, as well as church revitalization, would become a priority in our hearts like never before and that we, as pastors and laypeople, would be intentional witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying nation,” Hunt said. “May we give like never before that the Gospel would be taken to the furthest ends of the earth. I trust that it will become the rally cry of our denomination that, as we think of the Cooperative Program, we would all simply say, ‘We can do more.’ I will assure you that if that would be our mindset, only heaven knows what will be given for that cause.”

Floyd said he is asking supporters to pray about three primary concerns:

?for the members of the task force and “for God’s leadership to be upon them mightily, making His direction clear for them;”

?for a Great Commission resurgence “to occur in my life, my church, and through the 50,000 churches and missions in our convention;”

?for a Great Commission resurgence “to occur in the leaders of and through the entities of the Southern Baptist Convention.”

The SBTC’s Richards added,”1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, ‘Pray without ceasing.’ The Great Commission Resurgence Task Force needs your prayer. Please lift up to the Lord the individual members and the group. Ask God to minister to and through the GCR Task Force. We are asking for at least 5,000 to sign up to pray for the GCR. Thank you for your willingness to intercede for us.”

Task force members were scheduled to meet twice in August, the first time Aug. 11-12 at the Renaissance Hotel near the Atlanta airport and then Aug. 26-27 at the Embassy Suites Northwest Arkansas in Rogers. Floyd said the Arkansas meeting will be preceded by a luncheon for area pastors and staff, laypersons serving on SBC entities and “anyone who wants to come.” Reservations must be made by 2 p.m., Aug. 24, by e-mailing Debbie Swart at debbies@fbcs.netor calling (479) 751-4523.

As of press time, 1,300 prayer partners had registered through the site.