NAMB Commissions 54 New Missionaries
The North American Mission Board commissioned fifty-four new missionaries to serve as church planters, evangelism specialists and associational missionaries during a commissioning service held earlier this week.
The domestic missions agency of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) commissioned fifty-four new missionaries to serve as church planters, evangelism specialists and associational missionaries during a commissioning service held earlier this week. The new missionaries, consisting of 18 husband and wife couples and 18 individuals, will serve in 18 states, Washington, D.C., and three Canadian provinces.
During Wayside Baptist Church's morning worship in Miami, the new missionaries of SBC’s North American Mission Board were urged to depend on the Lord, one another and Southern Baptists as they go to their part of the North American mission field.
"He understands our prayers no matter what language we pray in," stated Wayside member Rebecca Spam, whose commissioning prayer in Spanish underscored the international context for the Feb. 20 commissioning service.
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"He understands every language and every heart," said Spam, according to the Baptist Press news agency.
Wayside pastor Gary Johnson commented to the missionaries, their families and other out-of-town guests on Miami's multi-cultural nature by saying, "All you have to do to experience other cultures here in Miami is go outside your home. If you just go out to pick up your newspaper, you'll see that your neighbors speak other languages and are from other cultures. And we're called to share Christ with every one of them."
Chuck Allen, NAMB's executive vice president, encouraged the new missionaries as well as Wayside members to minister together, like Peter and John the apostles in Acts 3.
"Today, we are to do our work, our ministries, together," Allen said, according to BP. "He doesn't expect you [missionaries] to do all the work by yourself. God's not counting on you to reach Montana or New York City or Canada by yourself any more than he's expecting you church members to reach your school or place of business or neighborhood by yourself. He tells us we are to work together."
During the commissioning service each missionary couple and individual gave their name, ministry focus and place of service, and each closed by asking the congregation to remember them in prayer as they go to their mission field.
According to NAMB, the agency’s missionary count as of Dec. 31, 2003, is 5,176. Of this number, 3,245 are missionaries and their spouses operating under various levels of cooperative funding with SBC state conventions and local associations, and another 1,931 are long-term Mission Service Corps missionaries with two or more years of service.
[Source: Baptist Press]
