By Danny Dunivan - President of General Baptist Ministries

God has called General Baptist Ministries to exist for the church.

We do not exist so that churches can support us. We exist to make it possible for the local church to fulfill the Great Commission. The role of the national organization is not to make disciples. We exist so that the local church can do that work more effectively. Whether we come alongside a church to help them make a bigger impact in their community or give them the ability to extend their ministry to other communities in the US and around the world, our God-given core purpose is to be for churches. Full stop.

We do this by inspiring and equipping churches to make disciples through strategically focusing on developing leaders, engaging with churches, and doing missions. Everything else is a distraction!

The focus on multiplying the local church’s ministry is not a new focus or an accident of our time. We have always been passionate about this common mission! We are loyal to our organization because we believe the mission is worth it! We give ourselves to serve one another because we believe that we can do more together than we could alone. Any time we have strayed from these shared values, we have violated our identity.

Even our doctrinal convictions are a product of these values! We believe that making disciples of all nations means that all people are the object of our mission. Christ died for all, and we are sent to share this good news with all. We have believed that the scope of such a venture requires us to work together.

Despite our shared mission, values, and beliefs, sometimes we have failed to live them out as an organization, as individuals, or as churches. We have sometimes focused on the wrong things and decided that we can do more alone than together. This also is not new!

Recently while looking through some older materials developed by different General Baptist ministries before I was born, we discovered conversations about mistrust or failures to cooperate that sound as they could be from last week. Even as far back as the late 1800s, I have read people decrying our failure to partner and were exasperated because the common mission was so clear!

Our future together is bright insofar as we can leverage our partnership around our shared mission and values! Moving forward, we will continue to focus on how our working together makes us better. I will champion engagement with our churches and lead so that the mission is clearly at the fore, and we will be transparent in the way we operate to accomplish the mission.

We are in a moment of organizational transition that will see new ministries launched in the upcoming months. Regional Ministries will focus on more profound engagement with our churches. Church Revitalization will come alongside churches to help them become healthier. As I write this article, we are searching for vice presidents for these two ministries. I ask that you join me in praying for the right leaders to help us!

Even our existing ministry structures are refocusing to make sure that we are for churches. The budget structure is shifting so that it will be even more clear that we are one organization focused on this one mission. We do not want to be a collection of individual ministries or departments. Still, we want to remove the silos that separate our ministries to focus on what is most important.

In many ways, the previous budget configuration and ministry allocations were a continuing vestige of the board structure prior to the reorganization from the 1990s. I have heard a lot of talk about the current restructure as a return to the old board model. Nothing could be further from the truth. The former structure was a relatively loose collection of ministries unified through sharing of a resource pot (the Unified Budget, to use the older language). We are now a unified organization with a singular vision, and our resources will be leveraged to fulfill the overall mission rather than that of individual departments. As a result, the budget now represents a plan for how the one organization will operate.

In the next few months, we will be placing primary emphasis on engagement. We believe that we cannot do more together unless we are actively involved. As a result, you will see a focus on continued engagement with churches through intentional connections and invitations to the partnership. We are also working on revamping our communications and branding to connect more effectively with as many General Baptists as possible. I am particularly excited to announce that we will begin a weekly podcast starting in January 2022!

General Baptist Ministries will continue to strive to be for the church, but I also want to ask you to be a faithful partner in our common work. There are so many ways that you can do that! Come to a regional event. Pray for members of our Council of Associations. Invite me to come to your church. Participate in Unified Giving. Attend the Summit. Support a missionary or church planter. Be involved in your local association. Sponsor a child at Faith Home. All of these and myriad other options are ways to fulfill the commission Jesus left with his disciples.

In this edition of the Messenger, you will find expressions of how we are working together to do more than any one church could do alone. I hope that you will also see opportunities for deepening our partnerships that the Great Commission may be accomplished through you and your local church!