North American Mission Board (NAMB) President Kevin Ezell called on Southern Baptists to dramatically increase the number of missionaries and church planters being sent to the North American missions field.
“This year we have 600 student missionaries,” Ezell told messengers during his report June 11 in Houston. “In a convention with 45,000 churches and 16 million members, that is not bad, that is pathetic. We must have 6,000 student missionaries every year.”
Ezell’s presentation included an overview of NAMB’s strategy, spotlighted several key ministry areas and highlighted giving.
“Your generosity to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering resulted in a 1.9 percent increase in giving totaling $57.2 million [in 2012],” Ezell said. “Thank you, Southern Baptists.
“Our mission is to penetrate lostness in North America. Our strategy is Send North America,” he said. “We seek to partner with you and your church to penetrate lostness by planting healthy, evangelistic churches,” Ezell said, reporting that 929 new Southern Baptist churches were planted in 2012, with another 155 joining the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) by affiliation. He noted that 2,589 churches have become engaged in the Send North America strategy.
“Churches plant churches, and we only plant Southern Baptist churches,” Ezell said. “We have raised the bar on our church planter assessment and all planters must affirm the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and give [through] the Cooperative Program and (to) other Great Commission [causes].”
A full 81 percent of people in North America live in cities, Ezell said as he shared that NAMB has identified 32 Send North America cities on which to focus, with a missionary serving as a Send City coordinator deployed to each one.
Additionally NAMB’s goal is to have at least one church-planting catalyst for each 1 million people in North America. Ezell said this is not a hard rule, noting the adjustment in Alaska with a total population of 750,000 people but with three major cities. There will be three catalysts in Alaska.
On balance, in states like Mississippi where there is one SBC church for every 1,385 people, Ezell said Southern Baptists have done well. But he said resources and priorities must recognize places like New Jersey where there is one church for every 78,760 people, or Canada with one church for every 115,040.
A combination of increasing the birth rate of church plants and decreasing the death rate of existing churches is needed, Ezell said, not for the sake of church numbers but for the people those churches will reach — people like Stephanie Barbaro of Detroit who was featured in a video shown at the convention and who came to faith through the ministry of Lakepointe Community Church and planter Scott Blanchard.
“We need a thousand more Scotts because there are a million more Stephanies,” Ezell said, introducing Blanchard and his wife, Karen. Lakepointe launched in 2010 and has baptized more than 60 people.
Ezell said, “We know where the next generation of missionaries are: They are in your churches.” He introduced NAMB’s “Farm System,” a strategy to help reach a goal of 15,000 new church plants in 10 years.
The next level in the Farm System — church planting interns — must grow from the current 125 to 3,000 annually. Church planter apprentices, NAMB’s final level of training before a missionary becomes a church planter, need to increase from the current 125 apprentices to 1,500 per year in order to meet the need for 1,500 church plants each year.
To help existing churches, Ezell pointed to church revitalization. “I pray your church can come alongside [dying churches] and help bring them back to health,” he said, adding that dying churches can become legacy church plants, passing on their resources.
Ezell also introduced NAMB’s new prayer initiative, TenTwo, inviting messengers to join NAMB in praying Luke 10:2 at 10:02 in the morning or evening and to focus on Oct. 2 as an intentional day of prayer for workers for the harvest.
(BP)
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