The Gathering
Whenever I meet someone new, it usually doesn’t take too long for them to ask the standard question, “So, what do you do?” I’ve had my current job for nine years, but I still don’t have an easy answer to that question. But whatever answer I give, it usually, eventually, involves the word, “Baptist.” And that often leads to another question, “So, what kind of Baptist are you?”
It’s actually a good question because, as most CBF folks know, there are all kinds of Baptists. There are Baptists who protest at funerals of military personnel who paid the ultimate sacrifice. There are Baptists who boycott Disney. There are Baptists who treat women like second-class citizens. There are Baptists who put a sign on the lawn in front of their meetinghouse that says, “All are welcome,” but, in reality, if some persons tried to enter, they would be turned away at the door. There are Baptists who say things like, “God Almighty will not hear the prayer of a Jew.” So I quickly say, “I’m a different kind of Baptist from the ones you usually hear about in the news.”
But in response to these misunderstandings and misapplications of the Gospel, Paul provides us with some of his most memorable writings, not the least of which is the thirteenth chapter in which he describes the greatest gift of all: Love.
Of course, Paul was simply echoing the central teaching of Jesus himself. When Jesus was asked to name the greatest of all the commandments, he didn’t hesitate:
What kind of Baptist are you?
by Larry Hovis, CBFNC Executive Coordinator
Although this is an oversimplification, I believe Baptists, and all religious people, fall into two general types. Some Baptists focus their attention on the holiness of God. They believe that God cannot tolerate sin or impurity or un-holiness of any kind. So, when they encounter what they understand to be unholy behavior or people, their response is to condemn it and even stamp it out if possible.
Other Baptists focus their attention on the grace, mercy and love of God. They believe that God forgives sinners and desires to reconcile all things unto himself. They see in Jesus Christ God’s ultimate act of love. They believe that people can best be won to God’s side through expressions of love, mercy and grace, so they relate to others on that basis.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
(Matthew 22:37-40)
So, even though there is scriptural merit for both approaches to the Christian faith, Paul and Jesus both make it perfectly clear that the greatest gift and the greatest commandment are all about love. All other scriptures should be interpreted in light of the greatest gift and the greatest commandment. Other scriptures should be interpreted in light of the command to love, not viceversa. If we must err in our interpretation and application of the scriptures, then we are on the safest ground if we err in the direction of love.
When it comes to our shared mission, what does it look like for our Fellowship to be engaged in ministry together? What does it look like for us, corporately, to let all that we do be done in love?
In CBFNC’s missions and ministries, we are striving to take seriously the command, “Let all that you do, be done in love.”
When we support self-funded CBF global-missions field personnel, in NC and beyond, it’s done in love
Some Baptists lean in varying degrees toward the first position. Other Baptists lean in varying degrees toward the second position. I fall into the second camp. That’s why I’m part of Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. CBF is a community of Baptist Christians and churches who are striving to be the presence of a loving, gracious God in our communities and in our world.
For this reason, I’m very pleased with the theme chosen for CBF of North Carolina’s inaugural Mission and Ministry Offering. “Done in Love” is taken from 1 Corinthians 16:4, where Paul says, starting with verse 3, “Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.”
The church at Corinth, the one to which Paul wrote in these letters, was a messed up church. Corinth was characterized by divisions (the Apollos faction vs. the Paul faction); sexual immorality (a man living with and having sexual relations with his father’s wife); church members suing one another in the law courts; the rich abusing the poor when celebrating the Lord’s Supper; and misusing spiritual gifts.
When we strengthen bonds with Hispanic brothers and sisters and support their efforts to reach newcomers to our state with the Gospel, it’s done in love
When we hold a children’s missions day, it’s done in love
When we plan a youth retreat, it’s done in love
When we minister on college campuses, it’s done in love
When we support theological education for the next generation of ministry leaders, it’s done in love.
When we help churches find ministers and ministers find churches, it’s done in love.
When we plant new churches, it’s done in love.
When we offer local mission engagement grants to encourage churches to partner with others to minister in their own communities, it’s done in love.
When it comes to all of our various and diverse ministries, we strive to do them all in love.
What kind of Baptist are you? We’re the kind of Baptists about whom I pray others will say, “They do everything in love.”
Welcoming
your neighbor
When the world moves into its community, a local church has a choice: the church can ignore the new neighbors, the church can reject the new neighbors, or the church can be neighborly. First, New Bern, chose to be neighborly. Many Asian fami lies have moved into New Bern in the last several years.
Brenda Hardee directs First’s afterschool program for 7th-12th grade Asian youth. The group meets on Wednesday afternoons from 3:30-5:15. Church members pick the youth up from school and deliver them home. There have been up to 25 students involved. “We could have twice as many if we had more drivers with CDLs,” Brenda laments. “But our volunteers are very faithful. If someone volunteers just once or twice, they will keep coming back because you can’t help but fall in love with these students!”
by Rick Jordan, CBFNC Church Resources Coordinator
Some of these young people are immigrants – the families choose to move to New Bern. Most, however, are families that were under severe persecution. They had to leave their native country as refugees. Originally, the af terschool program focused on acclimation to their new country, with its idioms and culture and mores. The children were taught how to read a menu. Then, they went to the restaurant to order and eat. They learned the importance of planning ahead, of becoming more time conscious and the need to give eye contact in conversation.” All of these things help the students gain more confidence.”
Now, the program focuses more on academic needs with a lot of writing exercises. One of the students told Brenda, “I want to learn everything I can.” As a retired public school teacher, those words are music to Brenda’s ears. It has motivated her to find donations of computers and printers. At the end of the school year, the students have a church-sponsored camp. They go on field trips to the aquarium, to a church member’s beach house and to play miniature golf.
First, New Bern, hosts First Chin Baptist Church. The Chin are a people group from Burma (Myanmar). They recently ordained the new pastor, Vanbawi Ven. As a Christian student involved in the Freedom Fighters, Vanbawi was forced to flee Burma. Many college students who were trying to establish a democracy were arrested, tortured and even killed. Vanbawi had been arrested and tortured. With two other friends, he fled Burma to live in a refugee camp in India, where he lived for five years. He now lives in the U.S. with a refugee status. In 2011, he and others started the Chin Baptist Church. “Many Chin do not speak English,” Vanbawi says. “We who are Chin want to be able to worship in our own language.” Last month, this congregation became the newest CBFNC partner church.
First, New Bern, church member Taylor Alligood interviewed refugee families for her high school senior project. She created a book with 28 heart-rending stories. “If one were to ask Amy, a seemingly ordinary girl, about her past, it would be discovered there was nothing ordinary about what she and her family have overcome. The strong majority of the [Chin] are shy and quiet; however, within them they hold remarkable, unbelievable and inspirational stories that deserve to be heard.” Taylor, now a freshman at UNC, also created a video of an interview with an 8th grade student for CBFNC’s Children Mission Days, which focused on ministry to refugees.
First, New Bern and First Chin continue to explore how they can strengthen relationships with one another. CBFNC is interested in creating a network of churches that have an international ministry emphasis. Contact Linda Jones to be a part of this network, ljones@cbfnc.org
march 28-29, 2014
First Baptist Church in Greensboro
Friday, March 28
Welcome and Orientation
Ministry Workshop Sessions
Fellowship Dinner (requires pre-registration)
Evening Worship featuring musical guest Ken Medema
Preaching: Larry Hovis, CBFNC Executive Coordinator
20th Anniversary Celebration
Saturday, March 29
Educational Partners and Friends Breakfast
Ministry Celebration (including a special presentation by the 20th Anniversary Vision Team)
Ken Medema Concert and Worship
Workshops include:
Hands On: Children Construct the Ark of the Covenant; The Gospel and the “Nones”; The Improvisational Leader; Leading Positive Change; Handling Conflict in the Church; Innovative Church Staffing Models; Using New Media to Enhance Bible Study.
All are welcome!
Reversing the
great commission
The first meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention I ever attended took place in June of 1988. That meeting is famous (or infamous) for several unpleasant things, including a resolution championing pastoral authority over the priesthood of all believers, and the recent “departure” of Randall Lolley from Southeastern Seminary.
Despite the politics and other distractions, a highlight for me was a sermon by then-Foreign Mission Board President Keith Parks that included a call for everyone in attendance to consider responding to the Great Commission by becoming a foreign missionary.
by Larry Hovis, CBFNC Executive Coordinator
Many of us grew up in a Baptist culture in which missionaries were at the top of the heap, the best of the best. Part of that is because of how we understood the Great Commission. We believed that we had the Gospel, most of the world didn’t, and we were called to go into all the world to share the love of Jesus Christ. Since most of us couldn’t go, we needed missionaries to go for us.
A great deal has changed in the last two decades. Much of the world has access to the Gospel. In fact, Christianity is growing at a rapid pace in many parts of the world where we have historically sent missionaries. At the same time, much of the U.S. is no longer shaped at all by the Gospel and many folks never take the opportunity to avail themselves of it. The U.S. is seen by many to be a mission field, and Christian groups in other nations are sending missionaries to our land.
Our churches, which have lost a place of privilege in the culture, are becoming less and less relevant to growing portions of our population. Church leaders are struggling with the most basic tasks of making disciples. In the old days, we had a church-building and church-program centered discipleship process. Twenty-five years ago (when Keith Parks gave his sermon), active church members could be expected to attend church three times a week. Nowadays, an active church member might show up only two or three times a month.
One bright spot in this otherwise gloomy picture is the engagement of ordinary Christians in short-term mission experiences. The number of American Christians who leave home for a few days to a few months to serve in another country or in an underserved part of the U.S. has grown exponentially over the past few decades. For many of them, it is the most spiritually enriching experience they have all year. In fact, when you consider the money spent on these experiences and the impact they have on the people groups they purportedly serve, it may be that the most significant benefit of these experiences is the transformative effect they have on those doing the traveling. This is happening in spite of the fact that much of the time we are not particularly intentional about preparing mission teams for these experiences or debriefing them after the fact.
We in CBFNC are paying attention to this phenomenon and believe that what is needed now is a mission-centered discipleship process. We need to reverse the Great Commission and use missions as a way to re-disciple our people to re-evangelize our communities.
debriefing at the end of the experience. CBF also has grants to help churches defray an intern’s stipend. Student.Go, CBF’s collegiate missions program, provides opportunities for students to serve among and advocate for the most neglected people.
Value and DNA
by Wanda Kidd, CBFNC College Ministry Coordinator
Positions include a variety of locations and types of ministry, serving alongside alongside CBF Global Missions field personnel and ministry partners. Aspects of the two programs are compared below.
of CBF student summer missions
STUDENT.GO
Student.Go is related to Global Missions of CBF.
Placements can be for a summer, a semester or a year.
Student.Go students are supervised by CBF Field Personnel or others who are engaged in missions.
Students are oriented to work in cross-cultural placements— whether in the US or abroad—through an orientation with other Student.Go students.
CBF pays students a small stipend for their placements; housing, food and local transportation are provided for most summer assignments; some placements require students to raise additional funds.
Student.GO students are selected and placed by CBF personnel and may or may not be placed in teams.
For applications and more information go to studentdotgo.com
Student.Go contact is Amy Derrick at aderrick@thefellowship.info or 770-220-1667
Reversing
continued from page 5
Here are a few ways we are trying to move in this direction:
• We have consulted with Canadian Baptist mission leaders, who have already developed intentional processes for short-term mission participants.
• I shared these thoughts at a summer gathering of about 50 CBF global missions field personnel this summer, following the national CBF General Assembly in Greensboro, and received a very positive response.
• We continued the conversation with eight field personnel at a fall gathering in the CBFNC offices to further refine these ideas.
• We are working with Matt and Michelle Norman, CBF field personnel in Barcelona, Spain, to develop a “missional learning lab” to implement these concepts. We will send small teams from NC to Barcelona to visit with and learn from the Normans and their Spanish friends. Participants will be required to perform pre-trip
COLLEGIATE CONGREGATIONAL INTERNSHIP
CCI is related to Missonal Congregations of CBF.
CCI interns serve during the summer.
Interns are assigned a CCI Encourager but are supervised by staff or members of the local church.
CCI is designed to help students engage and appreciate the calling of a local congregation, either as clergy or laity. Interns join 50-100 other students for orientation and debriefing.
CBF congregations may apply for $600-$1000 CCI grants to help fund stipends for one or more interns in their church. Fifty grants are available each year.
CCI churches may find their own intern or CCI can help them find students who are looking for a CCI internship
A CCI church expectations document along with the application for the student and the church are available at thefellowship.info/collegeinternship
CCI contact is Wanda Kidd at wkidd@cbfnc.org or 828-507-5723
study, engage in reflection while in Spain, and then do post-trip assessment of their own spiritual growth, with the expectation that they will employ what they have learned in ministry in their home communities.
Eventually, we hope to develop curriculum, resources and intentional processes that will enable short-term mission participants to utilize these experiences as an aid to their discipleship development. In doing so, we believe these experiences will not only benefit the participants, but also those they are traveling to serve, and the communities in which they live most of the year.
The Great Commission is not a one-way street. A more humble, authentic and realistic approach to mission in our time involves both giving and receiving, blessing and being blessed. But it won’t happen by accident. It will require all of us – missionaries, churches, and the people groups with whom we share – to work together with purpose and intentionality.
Celebrating
ordination
by Ka’thy Chappell Gore, CBFNC Leadership Development Coordinator
The
ordained ministry includes many categories of persons who have been especially set apart to serve the churches in special ways, including pastors, chaplains, missionaries, seminary professors, regional and area ministers, certain types of denominational executives, and many others.
During the last two years, the CBFNC Leadership Development Ministry Council has gathered and published ordination stories, facilitated conversations and led workshops focused on ordination and collected information with the purpose of providing resources on the ordination process for our Fellowship.
1. Go to www.cbfnc.org
2. Click on Careers & Calling
3. Click on Ordination Matters
With these three steps, you can access valuable ordination information that includes: history of ordination; purpose of the ordination council; elements of the ordination examination; questioning and affirmation of the candidate; and, of course, celebration of the ordination experience. More resources are added regularly.
You can share in the celebration of a recent ordination as well as contribute to a special recognition of ordination at the 20th Anniversary Celebration at the March 28-29, 2014, CBFNC General Assembly at First Baptist Church in Greensboro.
• “A Celebration of the Rich Resource of Ordained Ministers” will be listed in the program book of the 2014 CBFNC General Assembly. Help us recognize this significant group of men and women by submitting a list of all ordained ministers of your congregation—including those who currently serve your church, those who are from your church but serve elsewhere, as well as other retired ministers or those ordained persons that belong to your church and are not serving in ministry positions at this time.
Please assist CBFNC with this recognition and submit these names to cbfnc@cbfnc.org by January 15, 2014.
Family, friends and colleagues gather for Abby Pratt’s ordination worship celebration.
A Baptist Manual of Polty and Practice by Norman H. Maring and Winthrop S. Hudson