May 5, 1999
Texas, other states gearing
up for new Northeast initiative
___COLUMBIA, Md. (ABP)--An initiative by the Baptist General Convention of Texas and several other state Baptist conventions to evangelize in the Northeast has moved a step closer to reality.
___Representatives of 11 state Baptist conventions voted unanimously to proceed with the partnership at a recent meeting at offices of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware in Columbia, Md.
___Participants endorsed Bill Causey, retired executive director of Mississippi Baptists, as coordinator for the new "Impact Northeast" project. They also authorized Causey to name a coordinating council to help implement the ambitious state-led initiative.
___Causey, who will continue to live in Clinton, Miss., chose executive directors of six state Baptist conventions to serve on the council. They are Bill Pinson of Texas, Jim Futral of Mississippi, Reggie McDonough of Virginia, David Waltz of Pennsylvania/South Jersey, Ken Lyle of New England and Charles Barnes of Maryland/Delaware.
___Representatives from Alabama, Tennessee, District of Columbia, North Carolina and New York also attended the March 29 meeting. Other states may join the initiative later, Causey said.
___Leaders said Impact Northeast will concentrate on four priorities set at an earlier meeting: new church starts, reaching college and university students, leadership training and church growth.
___Larger state conventions from the South will focus resources and volunteers in partnership with Baptists in the smaller Northeast conventions, Impact Northeast leaders said.
___The Virginia and Mississippi conventions already have appropriated more than $100,000 each for use by Impact Northeast.
___But leaders of the Northeast bodies emphasized they want to give as well as receive.
___"Northeast Baptists want to share freely with Baptists of the South," said Barnes, whose convention will provide an office and clerical support for Impact Northeast. "We have crossed racial and ethnic lines. We know how it feels to be a small minority in an overwhelming majority. We understand urbanization as do few people in the South."
___The Southern Baptist North American Mission Board traditionally has played a major role in Southern Baptist missions in the Northeast.
___More recently, additional support has come through one-on-one partnerships between older, established state Baptist conventions and newer conventions in the Northeast.
___But the Northeast project is entirely a state-led initiative. State leaders emphasized it will not compete with NAMB and is not motivated by any ill will against the Southern Baptist missions agency. Instead, they said, the new program would seek to fill in the gaps and provide resources in areas that are beyond NAMB's focus.
___Two NAMB representatives attended the meeting as observers and expressed their willingness to cooperate wherever possible.
___Additionally, Woman's Missionary Union in Birmingham, Ala., will transfer a staff member, Associate Executive Director Bobbie Patterson, to the office of WMU of Virginia in Richmond on special assignment to work with Impact Northeast.
___Causey summed up a recurring theme of the meeting: "This is not a state-to-state partnership in the traditional sense, but a new regional paradigm aimed at marshalling cooperative resources to bring as many people as possible to Jesus Christ."Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!