By Aaron Weaver/CBF Communications
GREENSBORO, N.C. — “A new and beautiful dawn full of diversity, newness, wonder and Pentecost power,” is rising in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, incoming CBF Moderator Juan García told General Assembly attendees gathered for the Friday morning business session in Greensboro, N.C.
García, who serves as pastor of the Hispanic Congregation (Primera Iglesia Bautista de Newport News) of First Baptist Church Newport News, Va., began his remarks in Spanish, an embodiment the Fellowship’s growing diversity; Garcia is the first Latino to serve as CBF Moderator.
García challenged Cooperative Baptists to embody a spirit of welcome, embrace diversity and enjoy the journey of connecting with God and one another. He recounted his background as an immigrant from Puerto Rico, becoming captivated by Baptist theology, marrying a Bolivian woman, and his work leading a multicultural and multiethnic Hispanic congregation.
“I think I know a few things about diversity—the kind of Kingdom diversity that we, guided by the power of the Holy Spirit, must continue to strive to fully embrace and experience,” he said.
García based his remarks on a pilgrimage to El Camino Santiago, a spiritual path walked by pilgrims in northwestern Spain; it’s a trip that Garcia took two years ago as a 13-day pilgrimage.
“As I began my walk, I quickly noticed that El Camino—this Christian pilgrimage—is done by all sorts of people from all over the world. People from different nationalities, ethnicities, skin color, languages, political leanings, gender, sexual orientation and religious background.” Despite all their differences, all were driven by the same desire: “to connect or reconnect with the Divine,” he said.
“That helped me to realize the first thing I want to share with you, which is that regardless of who we are, where we come from, what language we speak, what skin color or gender we have, what religion we profess, or how we vote, we are all the same,” García said. “We are all human beings yearning for a spiritual connection with our Creator—seeking direction, purpose and new life for our lives.”
García encouraged attendees to embrace a spirit of openness and welcome the diversity of what he called “fellow pilgrims,” who are “different, yet the same.” “Will we be intentional to continually open spaces to welcome and include our fellow human beings, whoever they might be, to journey alongside us in our quest for a deeper relationship with God?” he asked. “Will we be intentional to invite our neighbors—those fellow human beings—whoever they might be, to have a place at our table so that together we can discern and fulfill the calling God has for us within our own communities as we move forward?”
“I hope so, because that’s my dream for us: to be a community that invites, welcomes and embraces everyone God puts in our way— the full spectrum of humanity—to be a part of this spiritual and redeeming journey we have been called to.”
In his second charge, Garcia invited Cooperative Baptists to focus on the journey, rather than the destination. “It is on the journey where we experience God…where we are transformed by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, where we discover new callings, where we make new friends and where we become familia.”
“Will we dare to shift from a destination mindset to a journey mindset?” he asked. “I hope so because that’s my dream for us: to be a community that embraces, enjoys and is transformed by our journeys with God and with one another as we re-imagine and move forward to where God is calling us.”
“My dream is that we, as a Baptist Fellowship of churches and individuals, will be known by our willingness and courage to step out of the comfort zones–those we so often find ourselves in, based on our own ethnic group, skin color, language, gender, worship style, liturgy, ideology, experiences or theology,” he continued. “So that then we may be able to open ourselves to new friendships, new discoveries, new insights and new possibilities of ministry and Kingdom impact, as we partake with, and get enriched by, this beautiful and amazing diverse group of people that God has brought, and continues to bring together called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.”
Moderator Reflections
Outgoing Moderator David Hull shared his reflections from his year of serving the Fellowship. He invited attendees to consider one question: “Does our appearance match our ID?”
“Does our current appearance as Cooperative Baptists match our identity as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship?” he asked. Hull drew on his 34 years of experience in the Fellowship, pointing all the way back to when the fledgling group of Baptist exiles were considering what to name themselves. “Our identity as CBF is that we are cooperative. It is embedded in our very name.”
“We are not united because we are all in agreement,” Hull continued. “We disagree about things that matter greatly….All our churches in the CBF family are not alike.”
But, Hull suggested, being cooperative, despite differences, comes straight from the New Testament. “Jesus chose Matthew, the hated tax collector who was in cahoots with the Romans and Simon the Zealot who was working to overthrow the Romans in his disciple band of twelve,” he noted.
The longtime CBF pastor shared his hope that Cooperative Baptists would remain committed to working together for a common purpose, despite differences and disagreement.
“Our future rests upon us being able to live fully into our name and our identity,” he said. “We are Cooperative Baptists. The more that we can work together for a common purpose as we follow in the way of Jesus, the stronger we will be,” Hull concluded.
Ministries Grants
The CBF Ministries Council awarded four churches and a student ministry with grants for developing innovate projects to minister with their communities. The 2024 grant recipients are Ridgewood Baptist Church, Louisville, Ky., Glenn Allen Baptist Church, Glenn Allen, Va., First Baptist Church, Morehead, Ky., The Baptist Student Center of Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, Mo. and Second Baptist Church, Liberty, Mo. Watch the video below to learn more about these recipients.
Mission Excellence Awards
Three churches were honored with the Mission Excellence Award for exceptional ministry in their communities and around the world. Recipients have shown outstanding service, creativity, deep partnerships and commitment to CBF. The 2024 award recipients are First Baptist Church in Front Royal, Va.; Ardmore Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Tallahassee Fellowship in Tallahassee, Fla.
FBC Front Royal is pastored by Christy McMillian-Goodwin, and was recognized for its engagement in missional practices and focus on global poverty. The church partners with CBF field personnel Anna Anderson. It provides meals to the community four nights a week, partners with a local elementary school to provide tennis shoes to children in need and helped to resettle a Sudanese family with CBF Virginia. They partner with seven other churches to offer a community Vacation Bible School and work with women from Refuge and Hope in Uganda alongside field personnel Jade and Shelah Acker.
Ardmore Baptist Church is pastored by Tyler Tankersley who works alongside Amy Gallagher, minister of missional engagement. The church turned a home into a Welcome House to provide short-term housing for immigrants and became an Encourager Church for CBF field personnel Janee Angel. Through that partnership, the church has traveled to Belgium multiple times to offer a children’s camp, women’s encouragement week and cultural exchange, prayer retreats and more to support ongoing ministry with immigrants.
Tallahassee Fellowship is pastored by Candace McKibben and was formed in 2004 as a home-based church. It has remained committed to this style of gathering. In their words, “we are small in number but big in heart.” In 2021, the church partnered with a local refugee agency to begin supporting a family from Afghanistan. They have also supported families from Syria and Columbia.
Celebrations and Greetings
During the Friday business session, CBF’s Pan African Koinonia (PAK) and the McCall Racial Justice and Leadership Initiative celebrated its 5th anniversary. Read more about PAK in the Summer issue of fellowship! magazine here and watch the video below.
The CBF Foundation was recognized for its 30-year legacy of generous giving to churches, global missions, theological education, chaplaincy, racial justice, advocacy and much more.
“From data dating back to 1999 until today, CBF Foundation has distributed a total of about $77 million to support these causes. That is something to celebrate,” said CBF Foundation President Shauw Chin Capps. “You have taught me that generosity within the context of our faith does not mean that more for you means less for me,” she shared. “At CBF Foundation, we witness the truth that generosity begets even more generosity. So here’s to 30 more years of following Christ, who is the master of turning scarcity into abundance!”
The General Assembly also received special greetings from two global Baptist partners. Mike Pears, Ingeborg le Too and Enoh Seba brought greetings on behalf of the International Baptist Theological Study Centre in Amsterdam, which is celebrating 75 years of ministry across Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.
Rev. Dr. Elijah Brown, president and CEO of the Baptist World Alliance, and Rev. Marsha Scipo brought greetings on behalf of Baptists across the globe. Brown also issued an invitation to “the most diverse Baptist gathering of worship, fellowship and mission in the world,” at the BWA World Congress in Brisbane Australia from July 7 to July 12, 2025.
Business
Cooperative Baptists closed its Friday business session voting to approve the proposed 2024-2025 mission and ministry budget and nominees to serve on CBF’s governance bodies, including selecting former Slovakia-based field personnel Rev. Tanya Parks to serve as Moderator-Elect in 2024-2025.
Learn more about Rev. Parks and find the list of newly-elected governance members here.
The 2024 General Assembly concludes Friday with a late afternoon worship and commissioning service of chaplains and pastoral counselors.
Watch the full Friday morning business session below:
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CBF is a Christian network that helps people put their faith to practice through ministry efforts, global missions and a broad community of support. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.