By Aaron Weaver
September 27, 2024
DECATUR, Ga. — “Whom shall I send?” and “How can they proclaim Christ unless they are sent?”
CBF Executive Coordinator Paul Baxley reflected on these two questions during an opening devotion to the Fall meeting of the CBF Governing Board, led by CBF Moderator Juan Garcia and gathering in a hybrid format in Decatur, Ga., and virtually due to Hurricane Helene.
Following a time of prayer, Baxley read Isaiah 6:1-8 and Romans 10:11-15 and shared his reflections.
“I’ve been living the last couple weeks caught between two questions: Whom shall I send and how can they proclaim him unless they are sent,” Baxley said. “As I’ve sat with those questions, I’ve been reflecting on the fact that over and over again the life of faith begins with an invitation.”
“Our participation in the life of faith always begins beyond us,” observed Baxley, referencing Abraham, Moses, Isaiah and Jesus. “I believe that sending is a movement that flows from the heart of God. You see it in Jesus as he prepares to ascend to heaven.”
Baxley noted that in the Isaiah text, “God is in the business of sending in the midst of a time of dramatic change and challenge.” “We know what it is to do life and ministry and leadership and a season that’s harder than it used to be….We live in a time of instability—it’s unstable in politics, and unstable internationally and unstable in church. And the interesting news is that the God we serve is in the business of doing God’s most dramatic sending into the seasons of instability. God is a sending God. We see it over and over again,” he continued.
“The ministry of the church depends on every generation waking up to the reality that God is sending them into some kind of leadership among God’s people,” Baxley said. You have to have pastors, deacons, field personnel, chaplains. How will they hear unless some are sent? How will there be a ministry of love and justice and joy unless some are sent?
“As I travel around to visit congregations in the last year, I’ve wondered how many young people, and not so young, in each of these congregations are being sent by God—and they don’t know it yet….I think one of the reasons CBF is being sent into the world still is to participate in that inviting and join that equipping toward God’s transformation.”
Reports and Updates
Governing Board members conducted business and met in committees during the two-day meeting, hearing reports regarding Development, Advocacy, Finance and Partnerships.
CBF Director of Fellowship Experiences Carrie Harris presented to the Governing Board, alongside CBF Strategic Engagement Officer Adam Granger, about entering into a season of assessment of General Assembly in the months ahead. “As we enter into the planning stages for the 35th gathering of Cooperative Baptists at the 2025 General Assembly in St. Louis, Mo., we are also entering into a season of General Assembly Assessment—addressing key questions about audience, purpose, format and engagement,” Harris shared. “We approach this assessment knowing that we as a Fellowship are changing, evolving and innovating, and that our gathering together may also need to change, evolve or be innovated to match that energy and momentum.”
Baxley noted that the assessment process has no specific outcome in mind, but he wants to “make space to see if there are new questions, new needs, or if there are new assumptions that govern the way we first imagined General Assembly that no longer hold in the world in which we live.” Prayer during election season
Baxley observed the strain of the election season and noted that CBF will be inviting Cooperative Baptists to pray through weekly prayer prompts for congregations, to launch in October and continue through January.
“Recognizing the political diversity within CBF, we have no delusion that everybody in our Fellowship hopes exactly the same things about this election cycle,” Baxley said. “And as I travel, I hear enough stress and anxiety and struggle around this election season that I think we would be irresponsible as a denominational community if we do not unleash our capacity to pray.” “CBF is uniquely positioned to offer a witness against pulverizing polarization, because our congregations are offering a witness for how to come together to do something in the name of the Lord that most spaces in our culture, because they’re so partisan, cannot accomplish,” he continued. “And so we’re not just going to invite people to pray, we’re going to invite people to act however they feel led, and we believe that’s a way of calling us to a heightened awareness for what this season means.”
Baxley concluded the Fall meeting on Friday morning with an expression of gratitude to the Governing Board for the work accomplished and the conversations shared during the two-day Fall meeting. “This Board continues to live more fully into the vision we have for it, just as our staff is more fully living into a truly collaborative way of working that we make each other better by speaking the truth to each other and challenging one another with greater excellence. It is a privilege to get to show up every day at work among folks, like our staff and governing board in the room and on the screen, as well as the other governance bodies and the congregations I visit every Sunday.”
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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.