BALTIMORE — It’s official: Baltimore will become the North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) newest Strategic Focus City.
Baltimore Baptist Association pastors officially have agreed to NAMB’s November 2005 invitation to form a partnership to focus national resources in local church evangelism and church-planting efforts in the Baltimore area.
John Yarbrough, vice president–strategic initiatives for NAMB, credited Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware (BCMD) Executive Director David Lee, BCMD staff, the associational leadership team and pastors and churches of Baltimore with being great mission partners. “They have a passion to reach the lost and see a spiritual transformation occur in Baltimore, and have been on a journey of prayer and preparation that now escalates as they prepare for the launch [of Strategic Focus cities],” Yarbrough said. “Numbers of other state conventions, associations, hundreds of Southern Baptist churches and thousands of Southern Baptist volunteers will be mobilized to join our brothers and sisters in Baltimore to share Christ and start strong, vibrant churches to join the great existing churches to impact lostness in this urban center.”
The actual launch of the Strategic Focus City strategy in Baltimore is scheduled for 2008 or 2009.
The first two Strategic Focus cities, Chicago and Phoenix, implemented their strategic plans in 2000. They were followed by Las Vegas and Boston in 2001, Seattle and Philadelphia in 2002, Miami in 2003–2004 and New York City in 2004–2005. Cleveland currently is being implemented as a Strategic Focus City.
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