June 06, 2008

 By David Roach

For the next three years, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary will partner with Baptists in eastern Canada to plant churches in one of North America’s most unreached corners.

Beginning Jan. 1, Southern’s Church Planting Center teamed up with the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists (CCSB) for three years during which time Canadian Baptist leaders will recruit church planters from among seminary students. Participants will plant congregations in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland/Labrador and a portion of Nunavut.

The Church Planting Center is a partnership between the seminary and the SBC’s North American Mission Board.

“There are three practical components to this partnership,” said J.D. Payne, associate professor of church planting and evangelism and director of the Church Planting Center. “First, each semester for the next three years, a representative of the church planting work in eastern Canada will be on campus recruiting students and speaking in classes.

“Second, through the Great Commission Center, each year Southern will send at least one short-term mission team to serve with church planters in eastern Canada. Third, twice each year, professors from the seminary will be traveling to the region to work in leadership training with Canadian church planters and pastors.”

Gary Smith, CCSB church starting coordinator for Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces, said the spiritual opportunity in eastern Canada and the missions interest at Southern came together to inspire the partnership.

“We saw the great need and the great opportunity together, and so far great fruit has been yielded from the partnership including multiple mission trips and multiple church planting leaders coming to Canada from Southern,” Smith said.

The partnership appears to coincide with the God’s working in eastern Canada, Payne said.

“In addition to hearing of the need for missionaries to preach and plant Gospel-centered churches, I also discovered the Lord is presently doing amazing work in eastern Canada,” he said. “I was told that the CCSB saw more churches planted in eastern Canada in just the past few months than they experienced all of last year.”

The partnership has given Southern the opportunity be a part of several “firsts” in Canadian missions. Through NAMB’s Nehemiah Project two church planters from Southern were recently called to Newfoundland and became the first Southern Baptist missionaries in that province. In addition to other mission trips, Southern will send a team in 2009 to Iqaluit, the capitol of Nunavut, which will be the first organized Southern Baptist missionary work to that area.

Pioneering mission work is necessary in eastern Canada because of the huge number of unchurched people there, Payne said. Quebec contains the five most unchurched cities in North America, and only half a percent of all Quebecois are evangelicals, he said, adding that many small communities throughout the country have no evangelical witness.

As one of the world’s most multi-cultural cities, Toronto has many residents from unreached people groups.

“Whenever you reach the cities of Canada,” Payne said, “you have the potential to reach the world.”

Both Smith and Payne said they anticipate Kingdom-impacting results from the partnership.

“My hope is that this partnership will be used by the Lord to glorify Himself through the multiplication of disciples, leaders and churches throughout eastern Canada and beyond,” Payne said. “Also, I hope that this partnership will develop and strengthen the relationship between the seminary, North American Mission Board and the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists.

Source: Towers Online

The current president of my seminary, SBTS, Dr. Albert Mohler is finally now a candidate for President for the Southern Baptist Convention. This announcement is a heart-warming one, though not a surprise as rumors have been floating around throughout 2007. There is no better time than now for Mohler’s leadership to help take Southern Baptists forward into the 21st century with fervent passion for Gospel proclamation throughout the world.

Here is the press release from Towers (see also the Southern Baptist Texan):

FBC Dallas pastor to nominate Mohler for SBC presidency
January 02, 2008
By Tammi Reed Ledbetter

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. provides “the kind of visionary leader Southern Baptists need to communicate a missional conservatism and biblical clarity to the world,” stated Robert Jeffress, pastor of the historic First Baptist Church of Dallas in announcing his intention to nominate the 47-year-old Mohler for Southern Baptist Convention president in June.

In a news release provided to the Southern Baptist TEXAN Jan. 2, Jeffress said his decision is the result of prayer and concern for the future of Southern Baptists’ global witness. He said he believes Mohler would “motivate Southern Baptists to unite around cooperation for global missions and evangelism.”

If elected on June 10 when messengers meet in Indianapolis, Mohler would become the sixth seminary president to serve in the top denominational office.

Before moving to the Dallas congregation last August, Jeffress served 15 years as pastor of First Baptist Church of Wichita Falls, Texas. He hosts the “Pathway to Victory” television program and broadcasts a daily sermon series heard in 13 countries.

“When Southern Seminary seemed to be lost to liberalism and irrelevancy, Dr. Mohler put his life and ministry on the line for the truth of God’s word and the urgency of sharing Christ with a lost world,” Jeffress said. “Since that time, he has led Southern Seminary to be a boot camp for young men and women training to take the gospel to the nations—whatever the cost.”

Mohler’s experience as a spokesman for Southern Baptists in the public square is another reason he should be president of the SBC, Jeffress added, noting the seminary president has been recognized by influential publications such as Time and Christianity Today, with Time calling him the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S.”

“For years, Southern Baptists and other Christians have seen Dr. Mohler stand for biblical revelation on programs such as “Larry King Live,” Jeffress said. “And, each and every time, no matter what the issue, Dr. Mohler has been a strong witness, telling lost people how they can come to know Christ. That kind of truth-telling with gospel compassion is the kind of leadership we need in these tumultuous times,” Jeffress added.

“Southern Baptists will be blessed to have a president in Dr. Mohler who can walk into the Oval Office or into the pulpit of your local Baptist church and say the same thing, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ with clarity and conviction,” Jeffress said. “Whether the issue is the family and marriage or Islamic terrorism or the religious liberty of Christians to share the gospel freely anywhere in the world, Dr. Mohler represents Southern Baptists well in pointing to Christ and his word,” Jeffress said.

He added that a Mohler presidency also would be critical in emphasizing the necessity of a strong and healthy Cooperative Program, pointing to Mohler’s experience in denominational leadership on the Program and Structure Study Committee that made recommendations for sweeping reorganization of the denomination in 1995 and to his work with fellow SBC entity heads on the denomination’s Great Commission Council.

Ever since I arrived in Louisville three weeks ago, I have been in search of a spiritual home and checking out different churches in the Louisville area.

So far, I’ve been to Sojourn Community Church, Clifton Baptist Church, as well as Louisville Chinese Christian Church–all of which are in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention. (I have been a member of an ethnic, Chinese church all my life, hence I don’t feel called to join another one.)

I don’t want to be critical of all these local congregations, and have no intention of evaluating them for the sake of evaluating which is “better”, but I am trying various churches out in search of one in which I can become an active member in.

It came as a surprise to me that all of the churches I’ve been to so far are significantly different in their musical worship styles, even as all are baptist. It’s ranged from very contemporary to very traditional. Teaching and preaching at all churches are on par with what I expected of solid, biblical, Southern Baptist churches, and I am just trying to find a church where I feel the love of the body of Christ and where I can most freely express myself in musical worship. know how much longer this time of transition will take, but I am in no rush, though it would be easier on my heart if it were sooner!

In one sense, one could label me as church “shopping”, or in a better Christ-bride analogy, I could be considered “dating” churches.

Schedule / timetable for my 1st semester @ Southern Seminary:

The statistics previously reported by the Baptist Press were erroneous (Southern Baptists are 30 times more likely to be obese than non-Christians and are the most obese of any denomination studied in the United States). They have since edited and corrected the article to be a bit less detailed:

Baptists are more likely than people in other denominations and religious groups to be obese, according to a study released by Purdue University in 2006.

Hmm… must find the report for this study!

See also this Resolution on gluttony that did not make it to the floor for a vote at the 2007 SBC annual meeting.