Missions pioneer – Dub Jackson, longtime leader in Baptist volunteer missions and former missionary to Japan, stands with two Japanese women who made professions of faith in Christ during a chapel service at a Tokyo hotel in early February.Imagine a time when it was virtually unheard of for Southern Baptist volunteers to share the gospel overseas.
That was the reality in 1950, the year that W.H. “Dub” Jackson and six Southwestern Baptist Seminary classmates traveled to Japan to share their faith.
For Jackson, it was his first trip back to Asia since World War II, when he was a P-38 fighter pilot zeroing in on Japanese-held targets stretching from New Guinea to China.
In 1951, after graduating from seminary, Jackson and his wife Doris returned to Japan as missionaries to help turn hearts toward Christ in a nation that had sought world domination but had met with humiliating destruction and defeat.
“In the midst of the glaring needs, those of us there were overwhelmed with the need to tell the Japanese of Christ. As bad as the physical needs were at the time, the need for men and women to bow and receive Christ as Savior and Lord was the greatest,” Jackson said. “The workers were so few and the needs so great, partnership became a way and a hope for us to share the message for so many in need.”
These days, partnership is a common word in Baptist life, typically referring to commitments by state conventions, churches and associations to partner with Baptists in another country in evangelistic initiatives, church planting, and construction and recovery after natural disasters.
But in the 1950s, “partnership” was a new word for Baptists, defined by Jackson’s pioneering call for U.S. pastors and laypeople to spend a week or two in Japan to witness alongside pastors, church members and the Southern Baptist missionaries there.
Over the years of partnership campaigns in Japan, Jackson began to sense a need for such partnerships on mission fields worldwide. In 1970, he launched the World Evangelism Foundation, now named Partnership Evangelism.
Today, at age 81, Jackson remains on the job.
Partnership Evangelism campaigns – open to volunteers from any church across the country – are slated this year in Spain from July 19-31 and in France from Oct. 11-23. In 2007, partnership efforts are slated in Germany, May 30-June 11, and Korea, Oct. 31-Nov. 13. In 2008: England, July 30-Aug. 11, and Japan, Oct. 1-13.
As many as 2,000 volunteers will be needed for the six efforts during the three-year span.
“It is unlikely that Southern Baptists would have ever embraced partnership missions had it not been for Dub Jackson,” said Jimmy Draper, who retired in January as president of the SBC’s LifeWay Christian Resources.
“No one has had more contact with more Baptist leaders around the world in the last 50 years than Dub Jackson,” Draper noted.
Jackson’s distinctive approach to partnership missions is marked by invitations extended by a country’s Baptist leaders who, over the course of about two years, do the primary planning for the various facets of utilizing volunteers from the States.
“We never compromise our message,” Jackson said, “but we learn to work with complete confidence in God’s leading through his people overseas.
“These are not our programs and plans but theirs, representing the best thinking of the God-called leaders in each place,” he said, adding, “You cannot overestimate the value of that kind of invitation.”
Attentive class – Graham Gutting, associate pastor of First Baptist Church in Buffalo Gap, Texas, sketches out a chalk drawing for a group of children during a Partnership Evangelism campaign last year in Hong Kong.Graham Gutting, associate pastor of First Baptist Church in Buffalo Gap, Tex., where Jackson also is a member, said he and his wife Dinah “have formed lasting bonds with other team members, but most importantly, we have met brothers and sisters in the Lord in each country we’ve visited and have had a part in changing souls for an eternity.
“I had always desired to do mission work on foreign soil. By going on Partnership Evangelism trips, I have begun to fulfill that lifelong desire,” Gutting said.
“There are many needs in our world today, but the greatest need is for men and women to know and receive Christ as Lord NOW,” said Jackson, who speaks the word emphatically and who regularly writes it in capital letters. Partnership Evangelism is rooted in the conviction that people can trust Christ “NOW,” wherever they are and whenever they hear a witness to his saving grace.
Editor’s note: Persons interested in volunteering may contact the Partnership Evangelism office at (325) 698-8480.