Don Wilton, pastor of First Baptist Church, Spartanburg, is among 24 Southern Baptists from a cross-section of the denomination – theologians, missiologists, practitioners, denominational leaders and pastors of churches of varying sizes and ethnicities – who will comprise a new North American Great Commission task force.
The group was to meet for the first time on June 23 prior to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Louisville, Ky.
Commissioned by North American Mission Board president Geoff Hammond, the task force is designed to dovetail with the Great Commission Resurgence declaration issued by Southern Baptist Convention president Johnny Hunt, who will be kept apprised of the group’s progress. To date, more than 3,700 Baptists have signed Hunt’s call for a return to the Great Commission.
“The North American Mission Board joins with our SBC president in this focus and takes this call seriously,” Hammond said. “NAMB is called, and is in the unique position, to mobilize this convention in a Great Commission resurgence.”
Hammond has appointed one of his senior associates at NAMB, Steve Reid in Alpharetta, Ga., and Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research in Nashville, to convene and co-facilitate the task force.
The initial “working meeting” of the task force will take place in late July in Atlanta, according to Reid.
Following six scheduled meetings during 2009-10 – both face-to-face and via the Internet — the task force has been charged by Hammond with drafting a final report of its findings, which Hammond will unveil at the 2010 annual SBC meeting in Orlando, Fla.
“The essence of the task force will be to look at SBC activities and actions from both a biblical and missiological standpoint,” Reid said.
“Everybody will be coming together to take a fresh look at how Southern Baptists should look at the Great Commission in times such as these.”
“North America has changed,” Reid continued. “Everyone knows that intellectually. But in terms of how we do church and approach communities and peoples, I’m not sure that fact has hit home. Southern Baptists in the United States understand and associate the Great Commission with overseas missions.
“However, North America itself is now a mission field, and this task force will re-focus on the homeland of North America as the mission field it is,” Reid said.
Task force co-facilitator Ed Stetzer said, “Southern Baptists stand at a historic crossroads and need to make decisions on whether we will continue in decline or move forward with a renewed focus and passion on the Great Commission.” – NAMB