FLORIDA BAPTIST CONVENTION WINS TWO TOP AWARDS AT NAMB CONFERENCE
Florida Baptist Witness
August 14, 2008
FL
Geoff Hammond (far right), president of the NAMB, presented NAMB’s
top church planting award to the Florida Baptist Convention for the
planting of 140 new churches in 2007, which led the Southern Baptist
Convention. Shown accepting the award were (L-R) Emanuel Roque,
Rick Lawrence and Maxie Miller.
ATLANTA, Ga. (NAMB)–The Florida Baptist Convention was recently
honored by the North American Mission Board’s church planting group
for "being No. 1 in the commitment to expand the Kingdom of God"
by planting 140 new churches in 2007–an achievement that led the
Southern Baptist Convention in new church starts.
Accepting the church planting award for the Florida convention were
Emanuel Roque, director of the Language Church Planting Department;
Rick Lawrence, director of the Church Planting Department; and Maxie
Miller, director of the African American Ministries Division.
"The Florida Baptist Convention is fortunate to have some of the
nation’s leading church planting practitioners and an executive
director-treasurer, Dr. John Sullivan, who values church planting,"
said Cecil Seagle, director of the Convention’s Mission Division,
which oversees the state’s church planting strategy. "Recognition by
the North American Mission Board is recognition of the outstanding
work of Frank Moreno, Emanuel Roque, Maxie Miller, Rick Lawrence and
their church planting teams."
Moreno serves as director of the Convention’s Language Division.
NAMB’s evangelization group also honored the Florida Baptist Convention
for the state’s increase in the actual number of baptisms in 2007
over 2006. David Burton, director of the Evangelism Division, accepted
that award.
FBC photo by John Swain
Geoff Hammond (left), NAMB president, and Ken Weathersby (right),
NAMB’s senior strategist for evangelism, presented the Florida
Baptist Convention with an award honoring the convention for its
increase in baptisms in 2007. AcceptÂing the award is David Burton,
state director of evangelism for the FBC.
"We are very excited that Florida Baptists continue to be an example
for the nation in the initiatives of soul winning and baptisms,"
said Burton.
"Our work in Haiti has grown over the years and continues to provide
strong baptism numbers, which when combined with the work of our
Florida Baptist associations gave us the highest increase of any
other state in 2007," he explained.
"In the midst of a national downturn in baptisms, it’s refreshing and
exciting to see many of our churches continue to be aggressive in their
teaching and training church members to be active lifestyle witness,"
added Burton. "I believe this is the reason many of our churches have
high baptisms because they encourage their members to be soul winners."
More than 500 attended the largest NAMB summer leadership meeting in
the mission agency’s history in Atlanta, July 27-31. Representing
Southern Baptists from each state of the Union, Canada and Puerto
Rico, attendees included specialists in evangelism, church planting,
ministry and academics from state conventions, local associations,
all six SBC seminaries and NAMB.
"North America is increasingly a lost mission field," Hammond told
the crowd packing the Airport Westin Hotel ballroom. "North America
has always been a mission field. It was a lost mission field that
Jesus Himself came to."
Hammond challenged Southern Baptist leaders to pray for a spiritual
awakening in the changing North American environment, emphasizing
the changing population and diversity of the U.S. and Canada.
"Among the world’s industrialized countries, Canada and the
U.S. continue to have growing populations, legally and illegally," said
Hammond. "Canada admits into their country 250,000 legal immigrants
each year. The U.S. population is 303 million and will be 400 million
in the next 35 years. Over 100 million will be Hispanic."
Illustrating the continent’s exploding diversity today, Hammond said
100,000 Ethiopians now call Atlanta home. Some 166,000 Armenians
live in Los Angeles. In Toronto, 911 calls are handled in any of 150
languages, according to Hammond.
In his first address to state convention, local association and NAMB
staff, new Southern Baptist Convention president Johnny Hunt delivered
a wakeup call.
"If this denomination doesn’t get desperate for God’s Son and a
movement of the Holy Ghost of God in our denomination again, we’re
in trouble," Hunt said. "The great evangelist Vance Havner said,
‘the great tragedy of our day is that the situation is desperate but
the saints are not.’
Attendance at the recent convention in Indianapolis dropped 20
percent. You can’t do that very often and not be in serious trouble."
Hunt, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga., said
Baptists have to go back 50 years to find baptism numbers as low
in North America. Hunt said evangelism is what Southern Baptists
do as a result of what they’ve learned–to be obedient to the Great
Commission. "But revival comes when God touches. We need God to revive
us personally, as churches and as a denomination, and give us passion
for lost people. You let God come down and touch our hearts and we’ll
share. God’s going to have to wake us up, shake us and show us where
we are."
To meet the challenges of spreading the Gospel throughout North
America, NAMB’s senior strategists, under the leadership of Hammond,
homed in on the mission agency’s new National Evangelism Initiative
(NEI), recently introduced at the SBC’s annual convention in
Indianapolis.
"Not often do we have the opportunity to come together at an historical
point with a rallying call to Southern Baptists like the NEI," Hammond
said. "We didn’t come up with NEI in a vacuum. About 96 partners from
state conÂventions, associations and NAMB developed the strategy
after many hours of meetings and travel. After your input here,
it will go national," he told the audience.
With a time-horizon of 12 years, NEI will be launched in early
2009. Its theme will be "God’s Plan for Sharing" (GPS) with the goal
of every believer sharing and every person in North America hearing
by 2020. The four primary focus points of the initiative are praying,
engaging, sowing and harvesting.
"The process of implementation lies in the hands of many of you in
this room," Hammond said. The church is the way Jesus has chosen to
win the world. Our headquarters is the local church. Jesus died for
the church."
Calling associations the "front lines," Hammond said association
offices have most of the contacts with SBC churches. He reminded
the Baptist leaders that in an effort to achieve more focus and
emphasis on associations, NAMB has appointed David Meacham–a former
associational missionary and state executive–to the newly created
post of NAMB senior strategist for associations.
"Is NEI going to be a challenge? Absolutely. Is it anything less
than what God expects of us? No." Hammond told the audience that
they would not recogÂnize the Southern Baptist Convention in 2020
"if God helps us reach these goals."
In addition to the objectives set for the NEI, Hammond stated
additional goals in the areas of church starting and missionary
sending.
Hammond stated he wants each of the 48,000 SBC churches in North
America engaged in starting new churches to reach all people groups by
2020. In addition, he hopes to see every Southern Baptist crossing
cultural and spiritual barriers to serve in some sort of short-
or long-term mission endeavor by 2020.
During the four-day conference, NAMB also presented annual awards for
outstanding achievements in evangelism and church planting to state
conventions and individuals.
Steve Fowler, state director of missions for the Montana Southern
Baptist Convention in Billings, Mont., was presented the "Dennis
Hampton Rural Church Planting Award," while Stanley K. Smith, state
director of missions for the Baptist Convention of Pennsylvania-South
Jersey, was given NAMB’s "People’s Choice Award" for "excellence in
mentoring and coaching peers across North America in church planting."
The Wyoming Southern Baptist Convention was recognized for its 200
percent increase in the number of churches planted in 2007 over 2006.
In addition to Florida, NAMB’s evangelization group recognized three
other state conventions for their increase in the actual number of
baptisms between 2006 and 2007. These included the Georgia Baptist
Convention, the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Tennessee
Baptist Convention.
Four other state conventions were honored for "expanding the
kingdom of God by the increase in percentage of baptisms between
2006 and 2007." These were the Illinois Baptist State Association,
Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention, Southern Baptist Conservatives
of Virginia, and the Convention of Southern Baptists of Puerto Rico.
–Boundary_(ID_hXk7BzJpOnxx1QMxm+UrRQ)–