Friday, June 25, 2010

Director of Missions Report

I have had the opportunity to attend a Florida Director of Missions Conference, A National SBC Director’s Conference, and be a messenger at the Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Florida. Those opportunities came while having the privilege to meet with pastors, visit and proclaim the gospel with several of our churches, here are some observations and encouraging words for pastors, church leaders, and Christians today.

Church leaders and researchers from our local churches and in various areas of our Baptist and evangelical network are seeking ways to turn the trends around and seek a new prosperity, evangelism, discipleship, and transformation of the local church.

The SBC in the national convention affirmed the answer to be in a resurgence of Great Commission focus as the local church focuses on Biblical evangelism and mission giving that prioritizes reaching persons and people groups all over the globe with gospel of Jesus Christ. They deeply challenge tradition and doing things as usual. Instead, they emphasis radical change and deep passion exclusively toward the Biblical goal of reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

LifeWay Resources is producing books and materials with the Romans 12 emphasis declaring that effective and growing churches changing lives and communities are in their term “transformational” churches. A term that will be used abundantly in the months and years ahead. A name they have picked up to declare what it takes to be an effective Godly church and a truly Christian disciple in today’s culture setting. The way we do things are challenged in the traditional church setting and the way we measure our mission and ministry demands new score cards that involves a deeper or more extensive way of measuring what we are doing.

National mission leaders and the network of new church planting indicates that to effectively reach the communities and to have thriving churches the pastors and church officers have to become and apply effective leadership. They must become aware of who they are in Christ Jesus, identify their visionary passion calling, and intentionally apply their calling in the setting of the people groups and culture where they live, and the times we live. A vital foundation is that Christians and the church members allow the Holy Spirit to be the empowering, creative, and personal leadership to define the church and its intentional mission in today’s world.

As Baptists even though we have the same faith and message, we observe that local churches will continue to be diverse and no longer are going to be seen as similar in buildings or institutional structures. They will not only have different “score cards” but will be viewed differently by one another and their communities. There is a greater emphasis on defining the Church as Biblically viewed in the New Testament by our Lord. This is a definition that doesn’t claim it to be an event, a place, or a building rather it is a people and more theologically defined as the people who are the body of Christ on mission. As some of the leaders declare it is redeemed missionary-evangelistically Christians who are “live and sent” into a lost and hurting world.

As difficult and sometimes discouraging as it may be to live during our transitional times I find that it has tremendous opportunity to follow our Master. Let us not let the world or the religious societies or religious politics define us; rather let us let our Lord Jesus Christ and His calling consume us.