by James G. Smith, Associate Mission Director
How were you trained and prepared for the ministry that you are doing? How could we do a better job training the next generation of missionaries? Those were the general ideas behind this issue of Global Partners.
If the churches of the Baptist Bible Fellowship International want to be more effective in accomplishing the Great Commission, it seems to us that improving the preparation of our missionaries is essential. Who better than the missionaries themselves to help us see where and how to make those improvements?
We are an interesting assortment of servants of the Lord. People outside of our movement sometimes have trouble identifying us. We have a wide variety of opinions, preferences, and beliefs. What pulls us under the same BBFI tent are our strong beliefs in the authority of Scripture, the sufficiency of Christ for salvation, the autonomy of the local church, and the responsibility of the Great Commission.
With any given issue of Global Partners we aspire to have between ten percent and 25 percent of our missionary force participate. It is never the same list of missionaries. Different subjects are interesting to different people at different times. This issue was addressed by the wide gamut of our demographic. We heard back from all the continents and from many different ministry styles and approaches. The respondents include the oldest active BBFI missionary and several on their first term.
Some questions were statistical while others were philosophical. More than half of the respondents said they have a post-baccalaureate degree. Most of them said it has been beneficial to their ministries. Many of them indicated that more education always opens doors.
We are thrilled with the responses we received this time from our global partners. We think our readers will benefit from this discussion, but none more than the missionaries themselves. The newer ones and the more experienced ones will all benefit from the comments and suggestions from our peers. We hope all the missions professors at our various schools will take heart and take note of what is being said. We are fairly certain this issue of the Tribune will be highlighted in the Missionary Candidate School this summer! As always, your response is also welcome.
GlobalPartners@bbfimissions.com
To read the entire May 2013 Global Partners click here.