The North American Mission Board (NAMB) has entered into the first cooperative agreement with the newly formed Convention of Southern Baptist Churches of Puerto Rico, beginning a historic relationship with Southern Baptist partners on the Caribbean island.
NAMB trustees approved the agreement during their May 19 meeting at the board’s headquarters in Alpharetta, Ga.
The cooperative agreement with the Puerto Rico Convention marked a significant change in a longstanding relationship.
Before the new convention was formed last year, churches and associations in Puerto Rico related directly to the North American Mission Board through national missionaries.
The new relationship is the same as that of state conventions, in which the convention and NAMB will partner on supporting missionaries and missions work. The cooperative agreement spells out the terms of the partnership.
“It gives the churches of Puerto Rico ownership of their work, and we come alongside them as partners to encourage them and assist under the leadership of their staff,” said Harry Lewis, NAMB’s executive director for cooperative strategies.
“It’s something that we have encouraged, and we look forward to the opportunity of working with them,” he said.
During NAMB President Robert E. Reccord’s address to trustees, he called on them to join the prophet Ezekiel in the role of the “watchman” to proclaim a warning to fellow Christians of the consequences of apathy in submitting to the culture’s moral drift.
In a passionate appeal, Reccord cited signs of lost effectiveness in the Christian community and increasing inroads of moral compromise — including the rapid assault on marriage and the consequences on future families.
“Today, I believe God is calling His leaders afresh to the sobering responsibility of being a watchman in our fractured society,” Reccord said, citing the story of Ezekiel’s call to the prophetic role in Ezekiel 33:1–9.
“We are to challenge those who so readily say they follow God to examine themselves and to make sure they are in the faith,” he said, “for the forces intent on undermining biblical Christianity, monogamous marriage, biblical stewardship and religious liberty in which faith can be expressed in the free marketplace of ideas are insidiously and violently on the march.”
In other business, trustees:
4Appointed Mike Carlisle as vice president of a new Strategic Communications Group, which will include all Internet, radio, television, video production, editing, design and marketing functions
4Agreed to begin endorsing chaplains to serve with Southern Baptist Disaster Relief
4Approved 71 new missionaries for the United States and Canada
4Adopted a resolution affirming the Acts 1:8 Challenge, a missions emphasis for local churches (see story, page 1)
4Elected Barry Holcomb, pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Andalusia, trustee chairman for 2004–2005. Elected first vice president was Bill Curtis, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Florence, S.C., and second vice president, Larry Thomas, director of missions for the Little Red River Baptist Association in Heber Springs, Ark. (BP)
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