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MEMPHIS, Tenn. – In celebration of churches on mission with God in the world, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship concluded its 18th annual General Assembly with a focus on missional churches.

 

“We are living in a world where God is up to doing a new thing,” Harry Rowland, the Fellowship’s director of missional ministries, told the Assembly in its closing session. “God is giving his work back to his people. God is giving his work back to his church.”

 

Three church partnerships with CBF field personnel were highlighted as examples of the missional church movement. Members of Royal Lane Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, told of their five-year, five-state tour of ministry sites part of Together for Hope, the Fellowship’s rural poverty initiative. What started as just another annual week-long mission trip “profoundly changed” the church, said member Garland Hamic.

 

In Kiev, Ukraine, several CBF partner churches from North Carolina have been working with CBF field personnel Gennady and Mina Podgaisky, who minister at a foster home for street children called Village of Hope.

 

“Our connection to Village of Hope has energized our church far beyond the ministry to Ukraine,” said Len Keever of First Baptist Church in Dunn, N.C. “[It] has opened our eyes to the needs in our own community. We have discovered a place to participate with God where we may be.”

 

Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., has also been inspired through its local partnership with Karen refugees. Many Karen are Baptist and have been relocating from Burma and Thailand to U.S. cities like Louisville. Each Sunday more than 125 Karen worship at this CBF partner church.

 

“I can’t imagine church without the Karen,” said member Alice Adams in a video presentation.

 

These churches are an example of a missional shift, where the church is at the center of God’s mission in the world, CBF Global Missions coordinator Rob Nash said.

 

“This is the new global mission – the church joined together with field personnel around the world, engaged in mission and ministry with the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Nash said. “Today we have witnessed our field personnel and our congregations joining hands together”

 

“God is at work in powerful ways in this fellowship,” he said.

 

Also during worship, the Fellowship contributed $7,509.25 for the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Offering for Religious Liberty and Human Rights and presented letters that advocate for poverty-reducing legislation. The letter-writing effort to legislative representatives is part of CBF partner Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters.

 

It was the first time a religious group conducted an Offering of Letters as part of its annual meeting.

 

 

At the annual Church Benefits Board (CBB) luncheon Friday, more than 125 people heard David Burroughs, president of Passport Inc., talk about how his organization chose CBB to handle its benefits needs.

 

Burroughs shared how Passport, an international youth mission organization, was recently faced with choosing its benefits provider. He enlisted an independent financial adviser to review plans and tell him the best option. Burroughs even told the financial adviser to suggest his own program for consideration.

 

“He called us back and said he couldn’t touch the benefits package that Gary Skeen and Church Benefits Board had put together, and it was his recommendation for us to choose the CBB plan hands down,” Burroughs said. “I think Gary is called to this work. I think this is an expression of his ministry. I know that because he is worrying about all these things that have to do with retirement, insurance and benefits, we don’t have to. We can spend that time doing our ministry.”

 

Skeen said the Church Benefits Board is focused on meeting the benefits needs of the local church.

 

“Our hope is that the work we do in our office, and the relationships we build with our partners undergirds the ministry that all of you do,” Skeen said. “We never want to take our eyes off the fact that we are here to serve you.”

 

During the Friday morning business session, the Assembly adopted the 2008-09 ministries and missions budget of $16,500,000. The Assembly also approved the nominating committee’s report, including Hal Bass of Arkadelphia, Ark., as moderator-elect and Joanne Carr of Augusta, Ga., as recorder.

 

Jack Glasgow, who begins his term as CBF moderator at the conclusion of the Assembly, was introduced by current moderator Harriet Harral. Glasgow is pastor of Zebulon Baptist Church in Zebulon, N.C.

 

“I am very blessed today to take on this mantle of leadership,” Glasgow said. “I am blessed by those who have gone before and served as moderator. I am blessed to have a church back home who loves this Fellowship and is excited that their pastor can devote time to this organization.”

 

CBF Executive Coordinator Daniel Vestal concluded the Assembly’s time of prayer and discernment with the “Offering of Spiritual Discerning from the Assembly,” representatives from the discernment groups presented feedback documents.

 

“I want to thank you for participating in this first-ever event for us – setting aside time for reflection and prayer, charting the course of how the spirit will lead us in the years ahead,” Vestal said. “We will offer out best insights as an offering and prayer. We will pray that what will emerge out of this is a unity of discerning, unity of vision and mission.”

 

CBF is a fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.