By Paul Baxley

The theme of this year’s campaign for the Offering for Global Missions is “Equipping with Every Good Thing.” But this is much more than a theme. It is a description of a powerful truth. God is equipping our Fellowship with everything we need to participate in the mission of Jesus Christ around the world and in our communities.

The Holy Spirit is equipping us with the gift of remarkable field personnel who serve in the United States and 19 nations globally. At last June’s General Assembly, we commissioned two new field personnel who will serve in Cyprus as well as new Global Service Corps personnel, who serve alongside career field personnel here in the United States. They join an amazing group of women and men who have offered their lives to Christ’s mission. Every time you or your congregation makes a gift to the Offering for Global Missions, you participate in the Holy Spirit’s equipping because every dollar contributed to that offering supports the presence and ministry of those field personnel. By giving, we equip.

We are being equipped through partnerships with the Global Church. In their ministries, field personnel nurture essential ministries with Baptist bodies, congregations of different denominations and faith-related nonprofits. These relationships are reciprocal in that our field personnel further strengthen the ways Christ is at work in these denominational bodies and congregations, but also our Fellowship is equipped because of the ways Christ teaches and challenges us through these holy friendships.

Our Fellowship is being equipped with every good thing as we participate in Jesus’ mission because more of our congregations have become Encourager Churches for our field personnel. Through those focused relationships, our congregations become more involved in ministry in a different part of the nation or world. These Encourager Churches offer support to our field personnel, participate directly in their ministries and build relationships with Christians and community leaders. Through those relationships, the ministries of our field personnel are further equipped.

But those relationships also equip congregations for more faithful ministry in their own communities. As I travel, I hear powerful testimonies of how congregations have found greater clarity about their own missional calling in their communities through participating in Jesus’ mission in other places. Our field personnel become instruments of the Holy Spirit’s equipping for these congregations, as do the other relationships our field personnel bring to those congregations.

I am keenly aware, as I have the privilege of being in many congregations across our Fellowship, of the unique roles our congregations are playing in Jesus’ mission. Our congregations are convenors of ecumenical ministry in their communities even as they are encouragers of vital nonprofit ministries in their communities. Your congregation and your fellow CBF partner congregations are finding ways to offer our gifts, resources and facilities toward a more complete participation in Jesus’ mission of bringing good news to the poor, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed. We are following Jesus, experiencing his relentless love and sharing it in our communities and all around the world because we are finding more and more ways to use the gifts God has given us to equip us for every good thing.

Years ago, I read Sam Wells’ remarkable book God’s Companions. His work establishes the biblical truth that the Holy Spirit always gives the church more than we need to do what God wants. That’s another way of expressing the conviction we read in Hebrews 13, namely that the God of peace is equipping us with every good thing to do God’s will. 

We are being equipped. Let’s pray fervently, give generously and live even more faithfully so that we can participate in the miracle of the mission of Jesus in our communities and around the world!

Rev. Dr. Paul Baxley is the Executive Coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

This article appeared in the Fall 2023 Edition of fellowship! magazine. Read online at https://cbf.net/fellowship-magazine