Connecting Texas Baptists churches with God’s mission

I write to you from the Tampa Bay area where I am attending a meeting of Baptist state convention executive directors from across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. Every state convention is different but we all agree about the importance of partnership.

Texas Baptists have partnerships with several of these state conventions. Like Paul, we can pray with joy and thanksgiving because of the partnership in the gospel we share with other entities.

I mentioned in my update last week about our recent visit to Brazil. During our November Annual Meeting in Waco, we renewed an agreement with the Brazilian Baptist Convention’s National Missions Board and signed a new agreement with their World Missions Board.

Brazilian Baptists are leading the way in Latin America when it comes to mission sending. They currently have 2,000 national missionaries working along the Amazon River, reaching Indigenous people groups, starting new churches across the country and doing ministry in the cities.

The Brazilian Baptist Convention’s World Mission Board is supporting 3,200 Brazilian missionaries internationally. According to a recent Lausanne report, the U.S. remains the top missionary sending country (135,000), followed by Brazil (40,000) and South Korea (35,000). 

While the need to send and support missionaries from the U.S. remains a priority in the Great Commission task, it is also strategic to partner with national Baptist conventions’ missionary sending initiatives. We are blessed to partner with Brazilian Baptists in this effort.

As I gave greetings from the podium at the annual meeting of Brazilian Baptists, standing by Executive Director, Fernando Brandao, I repeated their slogan in Portuguese, “Juntos Somos Melhores” (We are better together).

The convention sessions were joyful celebrations of worship and what God is doing in Brazil and around the world through Brazilian Baptists. The Bagbys, Baptist missionaries from Waco, Texas, started the Baptist work in Brazil in 1881. Texas Baptists have remained closely connected to Brazilian Baptists since then.

More recently, Texas Baptists developed the Missionary Adoption Program (MAP) patterned after a Brazilian Baptist initiative. This work has now grown to 69 missionaries working in 17 different countries and various national Baptist conventions sponsored by individual Texas Baptists churches through the BGCT.

One of our pleasant surprises during our visit to Brazil was to be hosted by a young lady from Brazil who serves as a MAP missionary in Greece among Muslim immigrants, thanks in part to the support of one of our churches in West Texas. That’s partnership at its best!

Space prevents me from sharing about other Brazilian Baptists ministries we visited. Suffice it to say that our purpose in our partnerships with national conventions is to connect Texas Baptists churches with God’s mission. As churches are led to engage in international missions, Brazil offers multiple opportunities; we facilitate strategic ways to connect.

We want to strengthen a multiplying movement of churches to live out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. This is one way in which we connect churches to God’s mission.

On a separate but similar note, as Texas Baptists churches reach the nations that have come to our state, several of them have asked how recent changes in immigration policies impact their ministries and worship services. There is concern, confusion and misinformation.

Our Center for Cultural Engagement has prepared a brief document providing some basic information about the nature of these changes. This resource provides an outline of what federal government agencies can and cannot do legally as well as  the freedoms, rights and obligations of churches.

We are currently working on providing additional information so that our churches can continue to do ministry with confidence and compassion. You may also contact our Hunger and Care Ministry Office for information about humanitarian aid grants for churches serving in Jesus' name during this season.

Like Paul, we pray for you, we thank you for your partnership in the gospel, and we ask God to give us boldness and courage for the days ahead.