Archive for March, 2015
From the Heart of the Mission Field
Jeana and I have just returned from twelve days away, with much of that time in the heart of the mission field. As we conversed one-on-one and in several meetings with our missionaries in challenging fields all over the Middle East, we were able to hear their hearts loud and clear. As I have thought about this upon my return home, I feel it is incumbent upon me to share what I am able to within the boundaries of security.
What do you want me to share with our churches back home?
In each meeting, I asked this question of our missionaries: What do you want me to share with our churches back home? The missionaries and their leaders were not timid at all. I want to highlight the things they shared with me.
1. Pray For Us
Without any question, the need for prayer rang loud and clear! They are fully aware they are called to forward the gospel message in territories of the world where this message has never been heard before. They know their giftedness in and of itself cannot penetrate the lostness of the ethnicities of people they are trying to reach. They know they need what only God Himself can do.
In fact, one of the biggest challenges for which they pleaded for prayer is the ability to learn the language of Arabic. This is an ongoing challenge for them, and for a segment of their initial term, it dominates their schedule. To the level of learning and articulating the language will be the level of their ability to live cross-culturally and share Christ effectively.
Since they realize the places they serve are in the harder places of the world, they are always in need of prayer for their flexibility, security, and welfare. Yet, they are more than aware God has them there and are convinced He will use them in all kinds of places in the world. While they may intend to go one place, the doors close, and they have to adjust to the Spirit’s leadership rapidly.
Pastors and churches, pray for our missionaries. Begin to pray daily for them personally and more regularly in our churches.
2. Pray For Open Doors
With every global crisis you see through the media, realize it is time to pray for our missionaries to have an open door for the gospel. The call of God upon their lives drowns out their fears. They know God has called them, and to that call they are committed.
They believe the Arab world is more open to the gospel now than ever before. Many in the Muslim faith are evaluating their religion now more than ever before due to the extreme practices of some. God is using the ISIS crisis to expose the darkness of a life without purpose and a relationship without God. In fact, our missionaries said to us again and again, “Tell the American people to not judge the Muslim people by what ISIS and others may be doing. They are friends, astounded themselves by what is happening, plus we are trying to reach them for Christ.” They are just like us: They need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
We all need to pray that even for those within ISIS themselves, that our God would reveal His power to many of them, converting them to be Christ-followers. He did it with Paul who was a persecutor of Christians; therefore, God can do it again.
3. Partner With Us
Almost every missionary was passionate about desiring true partnership with our churches in America. They greatly desire personal correspondence of any kind, whether it comes in the form of emails, notes, or even through gifts of encouragement of things back home. Additionally, they desire the sense of family created through relationships.
Churches partnering with our missionaries may also result in churches going to the regions, serving alongside of the missionaries. Not serving as tour guides, but ministry partners. Perhaps as some mentioned, rather than sending teams, send their friends who know them well, and can help with the endless challenges of raising children, taking care of the house, the needs of the children, and the friendship of sharing burdens which exist on the mission field.
Missionaries need partner churches because they lose identity, even with their home churches. At times, their Pastor leaves the church, or leadership of the church transitions, or even the church goes through such transition in the course of one, two, or more terms of a missionary that they do not even recognize the church any longer. Therefore, they need our churches to do all we can to establish a relationship with our missionaries, becoming real partners with them.
If your church has been fortunate to have missionaries called to serve on the field, then your church, as ours does, must take this seriously. Our prayer support must be tremendous, our relationship strong, and our partnership defined and fulfilled at every level. They need to know we are with them as they serve overseas.
4. Thank You
Endlessly, the missionaries asked me to tell our churches thank you! Therefore, thank you to the Southern Baptist churches that give through our Cooperative Program to help place our missionaries on the field. They also wanted me to tell you thank you for your generous support of the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. Their thank you was not only endless but generous.
They also wanted to say please do all you can to continue to give generously and grow in giving sacrificially so we can have more missionaries on the field to do all we can to help advance the gospel to the world, including the hardest places on this planet. Therefore, Southern Baptist churches, please continue to give and increase giving through our Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions.
Therefore, as they have let me share their heart with the churches, I also was able to share the heart of the churches with the missionaries. To God’s glory, we join in this grand task together: Extending the glory of God to the Nations!
Yours for the Great Commission,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Senior Pastor, Cross Church President, Southern Baptist Convention*******
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is currently serving as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest Protestant denomination with more than 15.7 million members in over 46,000 churches nationwide.
To request an interview with Dr. Ronnie Floyd
contact Gayla Oldham at (479) 751-4523 or email gaylao@crosschurch.com.
Visit our website at http://ronniefloyd.com
Follow Dr. Floyd on Twitter and Instagram @ronniefloyd
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
Our 2015 Committee on Committees of the Southern Baptist Convention
One of the most daunting tasks I face as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention is the appointment of the persons who will serve on the Committee on Committees. Since early fall, we have been working through this process diligently. The Committee on Committees has the responsibility to appoint the Committee on Nominations. The Committee on Nominations has far-reaching influence upon Southern Baptist life. They recommend the trustees of our eleven entities of the convention and our Executive Committee to the Southern Baptist Convention.
The Process
After receiving nominations from across our convention and working through our own processes of evaluating and examining candidates, it is with great privilege today that I announce the 2015 Committee on Committees. These persons are very representative of our convention. In fact, this committee is 20% multi-ethnic, which matches the percentage of churches that are multi-ethnic in our convention. This entire committee will work together to determine the very best two people at this time from their represented state or region, at least one of whom must not be employed full-time by or retired from a church, to serve on the Committee on Nominations. After working through this process between now and our 2015 Convention, they will meet together in Columbus on June 15 to determine their final recommendations. On Tuesday afternoon, June 16, they will recommend to our convention the Committee on Nominations. Then, after this process is voted upon by our convention and if the persons are affirmed, the Committee on Nominations will begin their work together to recommend trustees of our SBC entities and Executive Committee at the 2016 Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Missouri.
Our Leaders
The 68 people who will serve on this year’s Committee on Committees will be led by Dr. Bryan Smith, Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Roanoke, Virginia. Dr. Smith is highly gifted in every way not only as a pastor, but is also the former Chairman of the Executive Board of the Southern Baptist Convention of Virginia. He will be assisted as Vice-Chairman by Dr. Alex Himaya, Senior Pastor of theChurch.at in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dr. Smith will chart the work of this Committee on Committees and both he and Dr. Himaya will lead exceptionally well. Pray for them and for our 2015 Committee on Committees.
Our 2015 Committee on Committees
Alabama – Marilyn Foley, Spring Hill Baptist Church, Mobile; Buddy Champion, First Baptist Church, Trussville
Alaska – Todd Burgess, First Baptist Church, Eagle River; Brent Williams, True North Church, Anchorage
Arizona – Scott Gourley, The Way Fellowship Church, Peoria; Brett Carlson, Mountain Ridge Church, Glendale
Arkansas – Tom Hatley, Immanuel Baptist Church, Rogers; Bill Elliff, The Summit Church, North Little Rock
California – Ryan Blackwell, First Baptist Church, San Francisco; Anthony Dockery, St. Stephen Missionary Baptist Church, La Puente
Colorado – Bryan Barley, The Summit Church, Denver; Missy Kintzel, Applewood Baptist Church, Wheat Ridge
Florida – Matt Crawford, First Baptist Church, Sebring; Trey Brunson, First Baptist Church, Jacksonville
Georgia – Fred Evers, Northside Baptist Church, Tifton; Jeremy Morton, First Baptist Church, Cartersville
Hawaii – Maria Ogle, Ocean View Baptist Church, Ocean View; Steve Gray, First Baptist Church, Wahiawa
Illinois – Adron Robinson, Hillcrest Baptist Church, Country Club Hills; Patrick Pajak, Tabernacle, Decatur
Indiana – Nathan Millican, Oak Park Baptist Church, Jeffersonville; Autumn Wall, Living Faith Church, Indianapolis
Kansas-Nebraska – Derrick Lynch, Blue Valley Baptist Church, Overland Park (KS); Faith McDonald, Lenexa Baptist Church, Lenexa (KS)
Kentucky – Garnetta Smith, Highview Baptist Church, Louisville; John Mark Toby, Hillvue Heights Church, Bowling Green
Louisiana – Stewart Holloway, First Baptist Church, Pineville; Diane Nix, First Baptist Church, Covington
Maryland-Delaware-DC – Bucas Sterling III, Kettering Baptist Church, Upper Marlboro (MD); Zach Schlegel, Capital Hill Baptist Church, Washington (DC)
Michigan – Nathaniel Bishop, Eastside Community Church, Harper Woods; Wayne Parker, Merriman Road Baptist Church, Garden City
Mississippi – Eric Hankins, First Baptist Church, Oxford; Chip Henderson, Pinelake Church, Brandon
Missouri – Malachi O’Brien, The Church at Pleasant Ridge, Harrisonville; Brad Graves, Calvary Baptist Church, Joplin
Nevada – Greg Fields, Nellis Baptist Church, Las Vegas; Kristie Pitman, Hope Baptist Church, Las Vegas
New England – Matt Chewning, Netcast Church, Beverly (MA); David Um, Antioch Baptist Church, Cambridge (MA)
New Mexico – Alan Stoddard, First Baptist Church, Ruidoso; Elio Barrios, Taylor Memorial Baptist Church, Hobbs
New York – George Russ, Ebenezer Mission Church, Oakland Gardens; Salomón Orellana, Iglesia Bautista El Buen Pastor Church, Hempstead
North Carolina – Mike Daniels, Hickory Grove Baptist, Charlotte; Brundi Crawford, Biltmore Baptist Church, Arden
Northwest – Brian Smith, Calvary Baptist Church, Burlington (WA); Mark Ford, First Baptist Church, Longview (WA)
Ohio – Travis Smalley, Lakota Hills Baptist Church, West Chester Township; Rich Halcombe, Jersey Baptist Church, Pataskala
Oklahoma – Felix Cabrera, Iglesia Bautista Central, Oklahoma City; Alex Himaya, TheChurch.at, Tulsa
Pennsylvania/South Jersey – K. Marshall Williams, Nazarene Baptist Church, Philadelphia (PA); John Cope, Keystone Fellowship, North Wales (PA)
South Carolina – Paul Jimenez, First Baptist Church, Taylors; Karyn Wilton, First Bapist Church, Spartanburg
Tennessee – Kim Tucker, Bellevue Baptist Church, Cordova; Jonathan Akin, Fairview Church, Lebanon
Texas – Chuy Avila, El Encuentro Baptist Church, El Paso; Glynn Stone, Mobberly Baptist Church, Longview
Utah-Idaho – Paul Thompson, Eastside Baptist Church, Twin Falls (ID); Ray Sparkman, Central Valley Baptist Church, Meridian (ID)
Virginia – Bryan Smith, First Baptist Church, Roanoke; Tammy Ethridge, Liberty Baptist Church, Hampton
West Virginia – John Freeman, Calvary Baptist Church, Chapmanville; Will Basham, New Heights Church, Milton
Wyoming – Mark Porter, Happy Jack Country Church, Cheyenne; Zachary Edwards, Life Point Church, Cheyenne
Join me in praying for this committee as they work together over the next few months.
Yours for the Great Commission,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Senior Pastor, Cross Church President, Southern Baptist Convention*******
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is currently serving as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest Protestant denomination with more than 15.7 million members in over 46,000 churches nationwide.
To request an interview with Dr. Ronnie Floyd
contact Gayla Oldham at (479) 751-4523 or email gaylao@crosschurch.com.
Visit our website at http://ronniefloyd.com
Follow Dr. Floyd on Twitter and Instagram @ronniefloyd
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.