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PHOENIX—In their first reports to the Southern Baptist Convention, mission board leaders challenged Southern Baptist churches to take steps toward reaching previously unengaged people in population centers of North America and even the remote areas around the world.
Hundreds of people made a public commitment at the closing session of the annual meeting for their churches to “embrace” one of the approximately 3,800 people groups currently not engaged by anyone with an intentional church-planting strategy and where less than 2 percent are evangelical Christians.
“To the best of our knowledge … nobody has them on the radar screen,” shared International Mission Board President Tom Elliff in making the appeal. “It’s like having people standing out in the cold around your house while you’re enjoying a wonderful warm meal. You know they’re out there but you have no plan to go out there and offer them anything.
“We’re going to ask God for a strategy, we’re going to figure out a way to get boots on the ground.’”
IMB workers reported 360,876 baptisms in their work with Baptists overseas, 29,237 churches planted, 920 people groups currently engaged and 114 new people groups engaged. Southern Baptists gave $7,985,000 that went toward hunger and relief, and $145,662,925 to the 2010 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.
SEND North America
North American Mission Board President Kevin Ezell outlined a new “big picture strategy” for church planting, called Send North America, to enable Baptists to penetrate lostness through a regional mobilization strategy.
Ezell promised that, under his watch, future financial stewardship at NAMB will demand “accuracy, transparency, effectiveness and efficiency.” He reported that Southern Baptists planted 769 new churches in 2010, not the 1,400 to 1,500 a year usually reported in the past.
“When the old NAMB counted church plants, they didn’t ask for church names or addresses or planter names. The new NAMB is asking and only counting churches for which those details can be obtained,” Ezell said. “The old NAMB had no system for consistently tracking new church plants across the 42 state conventions. We are working with the states on such a system.
“Also, the old NAMB had no definition of a church plant agreed upon by all of our state convention partners,” Ezell added. “The new NAMB is working on that with state partners, to write a definition we all can adhere to.”
“Biblical stewardship calls us to the highest level of accountability. I am doing everything in my power to spend each dime wisely. We must put more missionaries and more new churches in North America’s least-reached areas.”
Ezell shared how NAMB’s mission board’s staff has been reduced by 38 percent through retirement and separation incentives, saving the mission board $6 million a year. He said the budget has been cut another $8 million, including slashing the travel budget by half.
“These savings will go to place more churches and more church planting missionaries where they are needed most in North America,” Ezell said. “I believe you cannot judge the effectiveness of an organization by the size of its staff, but NAMB is not taking one step backwards. We intend to do more with less infrastructure.”
Compiled from Baptist Press reports.
