2010 marks 50th year for directors of missions gathering

The Southern Baptist Conference of Associational Directors of Missions (DOMs) will convene for its 50th meeting June 12–14 in Orlando, Fla. Speakers will include Frank Page, Ed Stetzer, O.S. Hawkins and Jerry Rankin.

The meeting, with the theme “Celebrating 50 Years of Partnership in Kingdom Work,” will begin at 2:30 p.m. June 12 at the Rosen Plaza Hotel with Page, vice president of evangelization at the North American Mission Board (NAMB), speaking.

Following workshop opportunities that afternoon, the group will gather for a banquet at 6:30 p.m. with musical evangelists Billy and Paula Speer.

On June 13, Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research, will preach during a 10:30 a.m. worship service followed by lunch provided by GuideStone Financial Resources.

During the afternoon session, Hawkins, GuideStone’s president, will speak before a business session and an anniversary celebration and remarks by Rankin, president of the International Mission Board.

Those who would like to take advantage of more breakout opportunities can participate in an optional repeat of the workshops on June 14, followed by a lunch for new DOMs sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources and a lunch for retired DOMs sponsored by NAMB. As with the GuideStone lunch, meal tickets are required.

Also during the gathering, DOMs will have a chance to dialogue with a representative from NAMB regarding the report from the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force, according to Ron Davis, the conference president and director of missions for Greenville Baptist Association in South Carolina.

F. Russell Bennett, one of the founding members of the conference, said the group began in 1960 when Harold Gregory, executive director of Nashville Baptist Association in Tennessee, sent letters to 500 superintendents of associational missions, as they were called at the time, asking them to alert him to any interest in an annual gathering.

More information about the group’s founding is available in a book by Gregory called “The Mustard Tree: A History of Southern Baptist Conference Directors of Associational Missions.”

To register for the directors of missions conference, complete an online form at sbcadom.net.            (BP)