Lest we need more proof that the SBC is in trouble and that a major overhaul is going to be necessary, the IMB has released this heartbreaking news:In a day of unprecedented global missions opportunity and great harvest, Southern Baptists will be forced to draw down their overseas missions force in 2010 by as many as 600 missionaries, IMB (International Mission Board) trustees were told Nov. 10...You can read the whole article here.
...Because economic realities are forcing IMB to retrench its efforts, the organization must deliberately plan to have fewer missionaries — with implications for a lost world that should distress Southern Baptist church members, said Gordon Fort, IMB vice president of global strategy.
“When doors are swinging open all over the world, when our work force is finding great harvest in some of the most difficult places in the world, we are drawing our force down from 5,600 to 5,000. It just shouldn’t be,” Fort told trustees. When Southern Baptists collected $11.1 billion in offering plates in 2008, according to the denomination’s Annual Church Profile, and 2.77 percent “finally arrives to support the vision of reaching a lost world, and when [Southern Baptists] are structuring ourselves in a way that guarantees we will fail in our mission, it just shouldn’t be,” Fort said.
May God give great wisdom to the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force and our own California State Convention as we seek God's face and look for more effective ways to cooperate and do missions in the 21st century.
amen to all you said. THank you for the post.
ReplyDelete