New Initiatives in NAB International Missions
Our Triennial Conference was a wonderful experience in so many ways, and I want to share with you some of the fruit that we are reaping from this investment. I am so pleased by the positive response of our guests representing six of our international partnerships (Argentina, Cameroon, Hungary, Japan, Philippines, and Russia). They were overwhelmed. They felt truly honored and loved, and many asked me to express their appreciation to the people of NAB.
Our time with these leaders was rich because we had the opportunity to build relationship in the context of Mission. We are already pursuing discussions on how we might increase our influence in various countries. Some leaders want to learn from NAB churches on how to plant missional churches in their setting. Some want to explore partnership with our youth ministry. We took further steps forward in having our two seminaries partner with the Cameroon Baptist Convention. We launched a capital campaign to invest in many of these countries. God is granting NAB favor in the eyes of our international partners, and we are excited to step into these opportunities.
At our Thursday morning breakfast breakouts, we distributed over 300 copies of Paul Borthwick’s book, Western Christians in Global Mission. Each breakout was hosted by one of our international guests, and the theme of each room was the changing role of NAB participation in their respective countries. It is not a question of whether we are needed, but of how we best participate in this new age of international missions.
The best practices in international missions are largely shaped by emerging partnership models with national leaders and workers. We rarely do work “for” our partners. We always aim to work “with” our partners.
One of the new initiatives that we are pursuing is the establishment of NAB financial grants to partner organizations in order to help establish the foundation for new ministry. These grants may go toward staffing, infrastructure, or training, but they have a term limit. We are creating the opportunity for substantial NAB investment without creating long-term financial dependency.
We are still working on the details and I will be travelling to Central Europe in September to discuss this initiative with our current ministry partners in Hungary, Serbia, and Romania. I hope to launch this new resource in January 2016.
This initiative will give our NAB churches an opportunity to give directly to the work of our partners. Up until now, your giving has been designated specifically to our NAB missionaries and to short-term special projects. This new investment in national leaders reaching their own countries will require dedicated funding so you will hear more about this in coming months.
We will monitor the work through our NAB missionaries on the field, and when appropriate, we will have the flexibility to redirect grant money to new projects. I am very optimistic on how this will strengthen both the national work and our partnership.
So we are breaking new ground. We are entering new countries. We are exploring new models that reflect the best practices of partnership in global mission. It is our privilege to pursue these on behalf of our NAB churches.
Norman Poehlke
Vice President of Ministry Outreach