More than 4,500 Baptists from 105 nations gathered for the 20th Baptist World Congress July 28–Aug. 1 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The event is held every five years and sponsored by the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), which represents 219 Baptist conventions, unions and fellowships around the world with a membership of more than 37.3 million baptized believers.
Among those gathered were members of the Sanctuary Choir of Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, Birmingham, who sang in four Congress-related events, performed in churches and shopping centers and participated in hands-on missions projects in local homeless shelters.
Speakers and Bible study leaders from around the world helped participants understand the Congress theme, “Hear the Spirit.”
BWA President David Coffey told opening session participants that human efforts and creative strategies are futile apart from an anointing by God’s Holy Spirit.
Coffey, former general secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain, completed his five-year term at the international gathering.
“We can be a purpose-driven church. We can be a seeker-sensitive church. We can be an emergent and creative church. We can be a justice-and-peace church. We can be a conservative Calvinist church. But if we fail to hear the Holy Spirit of the living God, then all our serving will be futile and fruitless,” he said.
Baptists run the risk of having “the appointing without the anointing,” Coffey warned, noting whenever Baptists choose to follow their own methods and timing rather than God’s, they fail to follow the Spirit.
“The Holy Spirit is integral to the birth, the identity and the missions ministry of Jesus,” he observed. “So why is it we so often choose to go it alone?”
Pablo Deiros, president of International Baptist Theological Seminary in Buenos Aires, Argentina, told participants, “As Baptists, we need to realize the proclamation of the good news is the central task of the church. There is no church without this proclamation. And there is no other mission for the church than to proclaim Jesus as Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Christians take their mandate from the testimony of Jesus recorded in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Deiros said, quoting, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because He has anointed me to preach good news, … He has sent me to proclaim freedom.”
“As witnesses today around the world, we need to recover this confidence,” Deiros said. “We need to grow in the conviction that we are not representing ourselves before the world but we are facing the world in the name of Christ the Lord and with His authority and power (through the Spirit).”
Lance Watson, pastor of Saint Paul’s Baptist Church, Richmond, Va., declared, “It is the business and mission of the church to make a difference in the world.” He urged Baptists to step down into the “deep valleys of human need, rolling up your sleeves, signing up for service, getting off your seat, standing on your feet … getting involved with hurting humans.”
But the Christian needs to draw on the power of the Holy Spirit in order to perform such tasks, Watson said.
“(If you) try to visit the sick or serve the poor on your strength alone, you can’t do it,” he said. “You can’t serve God, sing to God, sacrifice to God, please God, walk with God, praise God or preach God without God.”
Other major speakers included Alongla Aier, co-founder of Oriental Theological Seminary in Dimapur, India; Janet Clark, vice president and academic dean of Tyndale University College & Seminary in Toronto; Ngwedla Paul Msiza, president of the All Africa Baptist Fellowship; Allan Demond, senior pastor of NewHope Baptist Church in Melbourne, Australia; and Karl Johnson, general secretary of the Jamaica Baptist Union.
In addition, Bible studies were offered in nine Asian and European languages. Focus groups considered a wide array of theological, social and ethical issues, including pastoral leadership, worship, Christian-Muslim relationships, human trafficking and the environment.
During the final session, participants accepted a report asking them to
• spread the truth of God in Jesus Christ as the hope of the world,
• develop greater familiarity with the teachings of Christ,
• cultivate a rich prayer life,
• bear witness to the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ and
• provide examples of godly living reflecting the values taught by the Lord of the church.
Those present also agreed to support the values reflected in the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, including helping remove “the scourge of poverty and hunger,” supporting efforts to provide universal education and working for environmental sustainability.
John Upton, executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, was elected BWA president. Upton served as a Southern Baptist Convention representative to Taiwan and a Virginia Baptist pastor before accepting a position with the state convention. He will serve through the 2015 Congress scheduled for July in Durban, South Africa.
BWA officials lamented the fact that more than 1,000 people who registered for this year’s Congress were unable to attend because they were denied visas by the U.S. government.
Neville Callam, BWA general secretary, acknowledged nations’ desire to protect themselves but added, “It is difficult when general secretaries and presidents (of national Baptist conventions and unions) have saved to come to a conference and they are denied a visa.”
Callam said other global Christian bodies also have been impacted by American visa denials. (TAB)
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