International Mission Board of Trustees | Richmond, Virginia
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to address the board. Thank you, Pastor Clint, Pillar Network, Kentucky Baptists, WMU, and other special guests for being with us this week.
What a privilege last evening to be able to celebrate the sending of dozens more missionaries and the record giving of Southern Baptists through the Lottie Moon Offering to support them — and to do so in the church where Lottie Moon herself professed faith and was baptized!
Who but God could have imagined when a young single lady stepped into the baptismal waters that she would also step onto a ship bound for Asia, take most of her life’s steps on the mission fields of China, and never step off the boat that was supposed to bring her home. Who but God could have imagined God’s plan to use her to inspire generations of missionaries to follow in her steps to take the gospel to the nations. And who but God could have imagined that one little girl from the hills of northwestern Virginia would inspire Southern Baptists to give more than $5½ billion to a foreign missions offering named in her honor?
God does indeed choose “the foolish things of the world to confound the wise … the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.”
As we celebrate Lottie’s legacy, we do so during another record Lottie Offering year. With five days remaining in the fiscal year, and more donations in route, we look forward to hearing from Price Jett’s team in October about the official total that, combined with Cooperative Program gifts, will have met every ministry need of the IMB this year.
A good offering is not all we have to celebrate at the IMB. We can also celebrate that we just graduated our largest class of missionaries from Field Personnel Orientation in more than a decade. We celebrate that our missionary application pipeline is higher than it’s been in more than 15 years. We can celebrate that the IMB brand is strong again and we are connecting with more churches than ever before in our 180-year history. We celebrate that the average tenure of service for long-term missionaries is higher than it’s been in many years. And we celebrate that Southern Baptist volunteers serving alongside of our overseas teams this year topped 11,600, an increase of nearly 20% over last year.
We still have challenges. Inflation continues to present significant challenges here at home and around the world, and growing generosity is required to have a growing missionary force. Why is that so important? Because lostness is a growing problem. So we need even more missionary candidates in the application pipeline, and we need the Lottie Offering to grow at a quicker pace so we can send and fully support those missionaries. We press forward because so much is at stake, and God has shown His willingness to bless our efforts.
On a recent trip to Zambia with my wife, Michelle, we were able to host a unique group of partners. Michelle was accompanied by Lynette Ezell, wife of the North American Mission Board president; the wives of state convention executive directors from Michigan and Missouri; church planter wives from Michigan; and the wife a pastor and IMB trustee, Lisa George, from Arkansas. Wes George and a longtime IMB donor from Texas accompanied me on the trip. Daren and Shawna Davis, who lead IMB work in Sub-Saharan Africa, along with our IMB missionaries in Zambia, were our hosts. It was an incredible opportunity to strengthen partnerships, deepen relationships, and see the hearts of these key leaders drawn to the gospel work that Southern Baptists steward.
What we experienced was a great reminder of the lasting impact of IMB work around the world. Our work in Zambia began in 1960. Seven years later, that work included the opening of the Baptist Theological Seminary of Zambia. The first graduation was held in 1972 with 10 students receiving degrees. Over the decades, our missionary professors invested deeply in the lives of their students and mentored them as leaders. The administration of the seminary was gradually entrusted over the years to faithful Zambian Baptists. While we were there, we took the final and historic step of handing over ownership of the seminary to our Zambian brothers and sisters.
In a part of Africa where theology and the gospel itself are perverted by Neo-Pentecostalism and prosperity gospel teaching, the seminary stands as a lighthouse of truth preparing and equipping Zambian pastors and missionaries to preach and teach the word of God and carry out a faithful ministry. Words cannot communicate the gratitude of Zambian Baptists for the gospel impact that Southern Baptists, through their IMB, have made over the decades and continue to make today. Zambia is just one among 155 countries where Southern Baptists sent and supported missionaries this year. We celebrate what God is allowing us to be a part of in His work around the world.
Beating along for hours in a four-by-four into the African bush with our missionaries, joining them for river baptisms, sitting with them and their children in their makeshift homeschool classrooms, and hoping the electricity comes on long enough for a hot shower, was a good reminder of the dedication and sacrifice our missionaries make to obey God’s call upon their lives. And it was an opportunity for Michelle and me to renew our own commitment to God’s call upon our lives.
Six years ago, we felt God calling us to the IMB for a very specific reason. Here’s how I communicate that to our missionaries: We feel called into service with the IMB to do everything we can do to ensure they have everything they need to do what God has called them to do. I spend about a third of my days traveling, mostly across the US speaking, to encourage Southern Baptists to support their missionaries. Along with our team of stateside staff and field leaders, we invest time in building and strengthening support structures and systems to make sure that houses and cars and plane tickets and visas and medical care and TCK educational resources and Member Care and a hundred other things are in place for our missionaries. We do these things because this our part of getting the gospel to the nations. Some are called to go. The rest of us are called to hold the ropes.
One of the areas we are striving to improve is in providing well-equipped, healthy leaders for our missionary teams. And we need to improve in this area. Our leadership pipeline was gutted by the downsizing that took place just before I became president. Leadership development has not had the attention it requires. And, in too many instances, the organization has been too patient with those who have poorly led. Our missionaries deserve better.
So what are we going to do about it? Let me state more clearly the commitment I made during yesterday’s board forum. We are working and will continue to work to develop and equip healthy field leadership for our missionary teams. And we will hold accountable those who fail to care well for their team members. I won’t take the time to recount the dozen examples I shared yesterday of how we are intentionally address this issue, but I did want to circle back to it and give assurance to our board, our missionaries, and to Southern Baptists that our goal is to care for and support our missionaries with excellence, and we will not be satisfied with anything that falls short of that goal. Michelle and I feel called to this role to do everything we can do to make sure our missionaries have everything they need, including good leaders, so they do what God has called them to do. And we are grateful for the partnership of our board members and of Southern Baptists in that effort as, together, we address lostness as the world’s greatest problem with the only solution — the gospel — following the biblical model of sending missionaries to proclaim that gospel. As Pastor Clint reminded us last night, “How else will they hear?”