Southern Baptists virtually celebrate sending 61 missionaries

The International Mission Board commissioned 61 missionaries in a virtual Sending Celebration on June 9. The missionaries represent churches in 15 states and will be serving in all nine of the IMB’s affinities.

Sending Celebrations provide a forum for Southern Baptists to commission new missionaries and hear their call to missions. IMB trustees voted on and approved 59 of the missionaries this spring in a virtual board meeting.

The commissioning event was originally scheduled to be held at the 2020 SBC annual meeting in Orlando. Cancellation of the annual meeting because of the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t prevent Southern Baptists from celebrating the missionaries. Instead, many gathered around computer screens across the country to watch a video of the missionaries’ testimonies of how the Lord called them to the mission field.

This was the first Sending Celebration since November 2018 that featured missionaries who will be welcomed by all nine IMB affinities: American, Central Asian, Deaf, East Asian, European, Northern Africa and Middle Eastern, South Asian, Southeast Asian and Sub-Saharan African.