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Missions fulfills the Great Commission
Churches to Churches: The Church Planting Network
By Buck Burch | Catalyst bburch@gabaptist.org, 770-936-5241
Working in collaboration with asso- ciational mission strategists around the state, the Georgia Baptist Mission Board is launching a new church planting network designed to meet the needs of our church planters. The demographic landscape of Georgia’s population has changed drastically over the last decade, and the percentage of lost people has in- creased, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives.
With frugality, accountability and deliberate strategy, one central piece of this joint effort is an intentional part- nership among the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, the sending or moth- er church pastor, associational Baptist leadership, a regional missions consul- tant and the church planter. All of the partners will understand their intercon- nection and the goals of the network from the pre-launch to the celebration of the new church. They will covenant to share resources, of-
fer accountability and coaching, create mis- sional opportunities for sister churches and undergird the en- tire process in prayer.
This covenant will
include a commit- Dr. Rolando Castro ment to a code of
conduct and adherence to Baptist be- liefs. It will also foster a greater depth of understanding of our Baptist identity and purposes for missional giving and allow time for meaningful associational involvement with sister churches. And with partner churches taking mission trips to help the new plant, this collabo- rative effort does not have to be so lonely.
In order to build a greater church-planting pipeline in Georgia, on- going recruitment, assessment and cele- bration will highlight the milestones in the new church’s birth. A primary tenet for this new network will be the under- standing that churches plant churches.
Dr. Rolando Castro will serve as the Church Planting Network consultant. A native of Costa Rica, Castro has experi- ence as a church planter there as well as in Maryland. Castro has served for the past year as the Northwest region mis- sions consultant, which has given him experience working with local Georgia Baptist churches. His role will be to en- courage the communication between planting assessment teams, mother church, association, missions consul- tants, sister churches and the planter. Castro will remain a part of the Mis- sions team, which is a part of the larger Church Strengthening team.
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By Buck Burch | Catalyst bburch@gabaptist.org, 770-936-5241
A key component of church strength is its ability to fulfill the Great Commission. In Acts 1:8, Jesus outlined four geographic mis- sion fields: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the earth’s uttermost parts. Each church can contextualize those fields into missions ac- tivities that are local, regional, national and international in scope. The Georgia Baptist Mission Board has employed missions con-
tional leadership as well as the International Mission Board and other Great Commission Christian missionaries (including Guatema- la, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Argentina).
The Lord is raising up virtual strategy co- ordinators (VSCs) all over the state to help facilitate strategic direction within those partnerships. Using a master plan strategy, a church can engage in a zip code, in another state or in another country and know that its work is playing a significant role within a larger scope of ongoing missional activity.
Many churches have limited resources in planning, promoting or leading missions trips. Missions consultants within the GBMB are there to help a pastor or missions team simplify what might seem a complex task. Using calendar management strategies, a church can keep missions in front of its peo- ple year-round.
Using connections with sister churches, a church can expand its ability to pursue mis- sions in ways never before thought possible. And using the team preparation tools locat- ed on gabaptist.org, a team can rest assured that its members are ready to take the trips and grow its people through missions.
Starting May 1, 2021, Chuck Johnson joins the Missions team as a consultant for churches in the West Central and East Central regions.
sultants to walk alongside churches to help them discover strategic partner- ships in all of those fields and to help them increase the participation rate of ongoing engagement.
Each of the six regions in the Georgia Baptist Convention are being supplied with potential church-to-church part- nerships, opportunities to connect with church plants, and resources to
equip their trips and to learn Spanish. For lo- cal missions, churches are being encouraged to utilize the expertise of their association- al mission strategist. For regional missions, each region has an identified “most lost zip code” for coordinated missional engagement and church planting. For national missions, six state conventions (Utah/Idaho, Michi- gan, New York, Penn/South Jersey, New En- gland, and Puerto Rico) are working to help connect their churches to ours. For interna- tional missions, six countries in Central and South America are engaged with their na-
Next Gen strives to reach kids, teens with gospel
By Chris Trent | Next Gen Catalyst ctrent@gabaptist.org, 770-936-5222
A fairly well-known Barna sur- vey taken a few years ago reminds us that 76 percent of Christians accept Christ before the age of 21. It serves as a great reminder that ministry to the “Next Generation” is of the utmost importance. The Next Gen team of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board wants to help. This team exists to strength- en churches in Georgia in their efforts of reaching kids and teen- agers with the gospel. The team is accomplishing this in many dif- ferent ways.
opportunities like the student pas- tor training weekend called Con- clave, the student camps Super Wow and Impact, or a weekend student conference like Move. It also happens through network meetings throughout Georgia.
There is also a great Facebook group of student ministry vol- unteers and student pastors that serve throughout Georgia. You can find it by searching for the Georgia Student Ministry Net- work group.
Perhaps the biggest way the Next Gen ministry wants to help Georgia is to make the team avail- able to you to encourage, equip and strengthen your ministry to
kids and teenagers. That could happen in person, over a phone call or simply through an email.
The team would love to connect with you and help you with any needs you may have related to reaching the next generation. Find all contact information on the website. Please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Chris Trent
For kids ministry, it happens
through events like VBS trainings, the Kids Ministry Summit or kids ministry roundta- bles that take place around the state. There is also a Georgia Baptist Kids Facebook group where you can find a great network of other Georgia kids ministry volunteers and chil- dren’s pastors.
For student ministry, it happens through
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