Children’s choirs singing “Tell the World” represent the nations of the globe by wearing traditional ethnic costumes during an International Mission Board missionary appointment service March 22 in Tampa, Fla.Forty-five “ordinary” Southern Baptists answered the call of their extraordinary God, signified during an International Mission Board appointment service March 22 at Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa, Fla.
The service culminated an IMB trustee meeting conducted in Tampa – and kicked off an international missions summit focusing on West Africa held at the Idlewild church.
“I was just a regular guy living my life for myself,” said one new missionary who will serve in the Last Frontier – that part of the world with little or no access to the gospel. “But then God saved me, changed my heart, and he showed me there was more to being a Christian than just going to church on Sunday.
“Burdened with a heart for missions, last year, as soon as I got off the airplane on a short-term trip to Asia, I immediately knew that I was standing where God was calling me to go to serve him.”
Of the 45 new missionaries, 41 will serve in areas resistant – even hostile – to a gospel witness, and they cannot be identified for security reasons. Brady and Andrea Nurse of Kingwood, Tex., will serve in Portugal, while Rick and Jill Thompson of Abingdon, Va., will work in Brazil. They bring the total IMB overseas count to 5,050 missionaries who seek to bring new souls into God’s kingdom.
While vacationing in Italy, the Nurses visited some of the largest and most ornate churches in the world. The churches were awe-inspiring – and empty.
“Millions of people in Europe believe it’s a family heritage that will lead them to heaven,” Andrea Nurse said. “They’ve heard of Jesus, but they don’t have a relationship with him. They know where the churches are, but they’ve never been inside. Our hearts ache for the Portuguese people. Our desire is to show them a Jesus who wants to know them and be known by them.”
Some of the new missionaries formerly served as pastors or in other church-staff positions. However, IMB president Jerry Rankin pointed out that many of them were leaving secular jobs to follow God’s call.
The group included an accountant, a computer systems administrator, a benefits specialist, two UPS supervisors, a medical secretary, a housewife, an environmental engineer, a kindergarten teacher, a library assistant, a French teacher and a former U.S. Marine.
Their new role: to be on mission with God to lead people to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Rankin challenged the missionaries to have the mind of Christ, who took the form of a bondservant. He also reminded them to emulate the apostle Paul’s passion to know Christ and to serve him without shame – regardless of the circumstances or results of their life work.
“Really, what your missionary call is all about is that God may be exalted in your life,” Rankin said. “The most effective strategy and witness we could have is you planting your life among people who are lost and allowing them to see the reality of a living Savior in your life.”
“Those who don’t have an opportunity to know that Jesus died for them are a massive sea of lostness and darkness without Christ who are bound for hell,” Rankin told the new missionaries. “They have never heard. No one has ever gone. No one has ever accepted the responsibility of going to them.”
No one was appointed to West Africa during this service, Rankin noted, and no one has answered the call to be appointed to West Africa in the near future. That region of 22 countries – 287 million people – is home to 355 people groups without access to the gospel.
The service kicked off a West Africa Summit held at the Idlewild church March 22-25. This summit, and others that will follow in 2006-2007, will help any church serious about fulfilling the Great Commission through overseas involvement to discover ways to engage the unreached peoples of the world.
Three additional regional summits are planned for 2006: Sept. 13-15 at First Baptist Church, North Spartanburg, S.C., focusing on East Asia; Sept. 27-29 at Silverdale Baptist Church, Chattanooga, Tenn., focusing on Central, Eastern and Southern Africa; and Nov. 1-3 at First Baptist Church, St. Charles, Mo., focusing again on West Africa.