Florence Baptist Association officially embarked on two new mission partnerships when covenants were signed during its executive board meeting Jan. 17 at Unity Church in Florence.
Representatives from Florence Baptist Association recently signed covenants with mission partners in Ohio and Canada. Pictured, from left: Bob Dockery, Florence Association moderator; Chris Smith, Florence Association director of missions; Martin Jones, associational missionary for Summit Baptist Association, Akron, Ohio; Derek Jones, NAMB missionary in New Brunswick, Canada; Stan Sullivan, task force leader for the Ohio partnership; and J.D. Weed, task force leader for the Canada partnership.Churches in the association have agreed to partner with church planters and mission efforts in Akron, Ohio, and New Brunswick, Canada, for the next three years through prayer and financial support and regular mission trips to those areas.
“I am excited about these partnerships. We will be bringing Christ to a world that needs him,” said Florence Association’s director of missions Chris Smith. “This association has a rich heritage of missions involvement.” Smith said the new partnerships are in addition to mission partnerships that currently exist among churches in his association.
Florence Association churches previously partnered with church planters in Romania for 11 years. When that collaboration ended in 2011, a task force was formed to determine where God was leading them to partner in missions.
During the search, the task force met with Martin Jones, an associational missionary with the Summit Baptist Association in Akron, Ohio, and learned about the needs church planters there have in reaching the community. The group also spoke with Derrick Jones, a North American Mission Board-appointed missionary focusing on church planting for Atlantic Canada, who spoke of a culture mired in “spiritual cement” in Canada.
The task force made vision trips to Akron and New Brunswick before finalizing the partnership choices.
Stan Sullivan, pastor of Sparrow Swamp Baptist Church in Timmonsville, was a part of the original task force and said he is excited to see what God will do through the new missions collaborations. “These partnerships are a natural fit for us and will provide another step for our association in missions,” Sullivan said. As the leader for the association’s Ohio task force, he will take a team from his church to Akron in April to assist in construction and community outreach and to scout needs for future mission trips.
Smith said teams will begin traveling to New Brunswick this summer and will include representatives from different churches in the association who will then lead future groups, all with the goal of church partnerships with individual Canadian church planters.
Tim Rice, director of the missions mobilization group at the South Carolina Baptist Convention, said mission partnerships make him thankful. “When an association begins a partnership, I thank the Lord because they are obeying the Great Commission’s call to go and make disciples. We believe partnerships are the best way to focus resources, people and prayer on the harvest field.” – SCBC