Dr. Hammond, the president of the North American Mission Board, is currently sharing about NAMB. He’s talking about what NAMB does and how it does it. NAMB, unlike IMB, partners with our state conventions to do missions here. Now we have 5,643 missionary personnel serving in North America, about 400 up from last year.
In 2007 NAMB had helped mobilize 155,107 people to be on mission throughout North America to help fulfill the Great Commission. He reminded us that North America is a mission field.
He shared experiences he has encountered on the mission fields of Utah/Idaho, Iowa, Wisconsin and Canada, He reminded us that one of our greatest assets is our missionaries. Our desire is to mobilize our people to pray for our missionaries in the field.
Sharing Christ–Starting Churches–Sending Missionaries: these are the three objectives that are the focus of NAMB. We want to do contextualized ministry in the field in these areas.
He gave an illustration of a developed Native American strategy that uses Haskill University, “the Harvard of the Native American educational world.” A church planting training center has started there on the campus.
“Parnership is about tearing down the walls, in order to pass things across the walls.” Lower the walls a bit, and let others pass something across the walls to you and your ministry.
Two hundred DOMs across North America are appointed missionaries. David Meacham will be our first Senior Strategist for associations. He will not work of them directly, but alongside state leadership personnel. If the associations don’t buy into the national evangelism initiatve, it will not be effective.
The National Evangelism Initiative, known as GPS (God’s Plan for Sharing), will one of our major focal points in Southern Baptist life. It has been germinated over the past two years; a comprehensive strategy for the next 12 years (through 2020). Pray, Engage, Sow, and Harvest are the four objectives in the strategy. “Every Person Sharing, Every Person Hearing.”
We have to introduce the nation to Southern Baptists again. A national media campaign can be found at http://WeAreSouthernBaptists.org.
In church starting, every church will be sought to engage all people groups in North America. Now we have almost 48,000 churches and missions underway. All ought to be involved in church planting in some way, not simply as a sponsor.
Every Southern Baptist involved in crossing cultural and spiritual barriers on short and long term mission endeavors is another goal of the NEI. “Being a missionary is what every Southern Baptist can do…You will not recognize our convention in 2020 if God helps us reach these goals.”
He shared growth expansion in Asian, Hispanic, Native American and African-American church in our convention. Non-Anglo membership up 101% and churches up 48%. In our hearts, we want to become a diverse convention.
We are working on a people group index for North America. 587 people groups are already categoried on our continent. 169 are less than 2% Christian. 54 ohters are less than 10% Christian. The Groups Spectrum includes Kinship Groups (blood), Geographic Groups (place) and Association Groups (interest). These changes are a kind of “moving target,” as they assimilate into North American life.
What kind of leaders will it take for Southern Baptists to see every person to get involved in our mission efforts for Jesus? It will take missionaries prepared to chase lions. Missionaries like Daniel, who have Character (Daniel 1:8), Courage (1:12), Consecration (6:5-6), are Collaborative (Daniel 1:6), was Cross-Cultural (1:4) and he was a Catalyst for Change (6:26). As a result, Daniel influenced two empires and four kings. We must be Daniels in the 21st century. So engage the culture, rather than embrace the culture.
