It was a day of pageantry, praise, proclamation and prayer.

It was also the first commissioning service for North American missionaries held in South Carolina since the Home Mission Board was renamed the North American Mission Board nine years ago – and perhaps the first ever.

(Clarification: The March commissioning service at First Baptist Church, Spartanburg, for the North American Mission Board was not the first, but, to date, still may have been the largest. Sixty-five NAMB missionaries were appointed during a commissioning service held Nov. 14, 2000, in conjunction with the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, which met at First Baptist Church, Columbia, that year. NAMB president Bob Reccord also delivered a challenge to the new missionaries and to convention messengers at that service.

One hundred and forty-three new missionaries processed into the sanctuary of First Baptist Church, Spartanburg, March 5, led by the flags of 50 states, U.S. territories and Canadian provinces, as the sanctuary choir, directed by Steve Skinner and accompanied by an orchestra, sang “Lift High the Lord Our Banner.”

“This is who we are as God’s people – a people on mission for Christ Jesus,” host pastor Don Wilton said in welcoming the missionaries and NAMB president Bob Reccord. “You will be witness to a commissioning of the most precious people, as they step out in obedience to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. You will never forget this time, and I know God is calling many of you,” Wilton told the 6,400-member congregation.

“This is a picture of our giving through the Cooperative Program at work,” as Southern Baptists seek to tell the world about the Savior, emphasized Wilton, president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. “Your giving means that you can go and serve through others who have been called to the (mission) field. You are making a difference,” he affirmed.

Each of the 143 missionaries introduced themselves and told how they would be sharing the gospel in North America, now the fourth most unchurched nation in the world, according to Reccord, who delivered keynote addresses at all three morning services.

“As you listened as they introduced themselves, you heard people serving from the plains to the inner cities, from the East Coast to the West Coast, from the lower portions of the Caribbean to the upper regions of Canada, that’s where your missionaries – are taking the message of Jesus Christ,” Reccord underscored, thanking Baptists for their support through the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.

Observing that America is no longer a Christian nation, but is instead a mission field, Reccord asked for all of the missionaries present to raise their hands. “The Book says – ‘You will be my witnesses; you will be on mission; you’ll be changing your world right where I’ve planted you,'” Reccord said. “For some, they are going to California and Canada, to the East Coast, the South and the Far North. But for many of you, God has planted you right in Spartanburg.

“You need to understand,” he urged the members of First Baptist, “you’d better be every bit as much a missionary as these folks we are commissioning today.

“Because here’s the bottom line: Church, if you are not a missionary where you live and where you work, the only thing left is that you are a mission field. You are one or the other,” Reccord explained. “So today, which is it for you?” he inquired.

Reccord urged those attending the commissioning service to answer God’s call, tell his story and, in so doing, change their world.

Holding up his Bible, he observed, “Nowhere in this book does it limit God’s call to those who go to seminary.” Emphasizing that every believer is “one called of God to change the world on his behalf,” Reccord advocated raising the call of those who minister in their workplaces, their neighborhoods and their cities. “Where is my mission field?” he urged all believers to ask themselves.

As an example, he told of a Porta-John cleaner who made an impact for Christ among onlooking construction workers by displaying a winsome spirit and singing while he worked. The Porta-John cleaner had taken to heart the verse, “Whatsoever you do, do it as unto the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God the Father through him,” Reccord explained.

“If a Porta-John cleaner can make an impact for Christ, there is not a person or student in this place today who can’t. Not one!” Reccord exclaimed.

He also told of a couple who had moved into a neighborhood as it was being constructed. They prayed for the families that would one day occupy every house on their block as their home was being built. After everyone on their cul-de-sac had become a Christian, they moved to another cul-de-sac, he noted.

Reccord concluded with a story about a Texas businessman, whom he had taught a five-point presentation to share the gospel. When confronted with a challenging witnessing situation, the man had mixed up the points, yet was able to lead a family of five to the Lord.

“God taught me something I have never forgotten” through that experience, Reccord asserted. “It is not about holding every point in the right order at the right position,” he surmised. “It is all about being available and saying, ‘Lord, what I have, I give; whoever I am, you’ve got; change the world through me.'”

Luc Aube, a missionary serving in Canada, shared a brief testimony with the Spartanburg congregation about how Impact Church, a church he was helping start on a collegiate campus, is making a difference for Christ. “Less than 1 percent of the population of Quebec claims to be evangelical Christians,” he noted. “So Montreal, a city of about 4 million people, is a very dark place spiritually,” Aube added.

“But it is exciting because God has planted a young church there called Impact, and it’s a university church plant in downtown Montreal,” he said. “We hope to be a place of hope, and a place that people around us can come and hear the truth.”

God called him at age 17 while serving on a short-term mission trip to Thailand to be a missionary, Aube shared. At the time, he thought he would serve in Asia or Africa, but “God has a sense of humor,” he quipped, telling how God has helped him realize that his home province of Quebec is a mission field as well. Aube said he is returning home, where he can use the French language he speaks and his understanding of the multi-ethnic culture there to be a “light in this dark place.”

Jim Goodroe, director of missions for Spartanburg County Baptist Network, concluded the service by having the congregation lay hands on the missionaries as he offered a prayer of commissioning for the 143 new missionaries.

“Lord, we are thankful that we are experiencing Acts 13 all over again,” Goodroe began. “And, Lord, we thank you that the mission work of the church that you began that day has continued through time,” he continued.

“A new chapter is being written here today because, Lord, we’re gathering around 143 choice servants whom you have called out by name,” Goodroe said. Each of the missionaries, he affirmed, “is not only representing Southern Baptists, but most of all representing the kingdom of God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“This past Sunday, First Baptist Church participated in an incredible blessing from the Lord Jesus Christ,” Wilton told The Baptist Courier. “The personal testimonies of each missionary, the personal contact and fellowship, and the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in the entire event proved to be a blessing of monumental proportion. Our people, and I am certain the thousands who worshiped by way of television, were deeply inspired and challenged at the very depths of our beings.”