Hispanic Convention adopts strategic plan and goals
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___ABILENE--Messengers to the 91st annual Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas adopted a strategic plan that focuses on developing leaders, making resources accessible to churches and helping each church customize ministry to its community.
___Like the recently adopted strategic plan of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the Hispanic convention's vision emphasizes being "the presence of Christ," and its goals place high priority on church health.
___Meeting in Abilene June 25-27, Hispanic Texas Baptists overwhelmingly adopted the
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OFFICERS of the Hispanic Baptist Convention are (front to back) Joel Ramirez Jr. of Wharton, second vice president; Alex Camacho of McKinney, secretary; Antonio Estrada of Houston, president; Ruben Chairez of Del Rio, first vice president. (Photo by Dan Martin)
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recommendations of a 50-member strategy planning team and 12-member steering team.
___The convention, which attracted 956 messengers and 778 registered visitors, also elected Ruben Chairez, pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Del Rio, as first vice president and re-elected Joel Ramirez Jr. of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Wharton as second vice president. Antonio Estrada of South Main Baptist Church in Houston was elected to a two-year term as president last year.
___Hispanic Texas Baptists also joined in a commissioning prayer for Rick Davis, who recently was named director of the BGCT Center for Strategic Evangelism, and recognized Lorenzo Peña, coordinator of associational missions and administration, as the first Hispanic to serve on the BGCT leadership council.
___Messengers reaffirmed the mission statement adopted at the 2000 Hispanic Baptist Convention in Houston, agreeing that the convention's mission is "to serve its churches and members to fulfill their unique God-inspired vision."
___The convention's vision is "to become a united family of diverse, spiritually healthy churches networking and developing resources, leaders and organizational systems to impact Texas and the world with the presence of Christ."
___The convention voted that its vision would be guided by nine core values--advocacy for churches, Baptist distinctives, Christ-likeness, cooperative missions giving, development of healthy churches, diversity, prayer, the role of the companerismo (regional Hispanic fellowship) and sharing the gospel.
___Messengers to the convention approved the committee's recommendation that the strategic plan be implemented through the BGCT office of Hispanic work.
___The convention also empowered its president along with the chairman of the strategic planning team, Mateo Rendon of Corpus Christi, and the director of BGCT Hispanic work, Jimmy Garcia, to name an implementation team that is geographically representative of the state.
___The convention instructed those same three leaders to name four people to serve as chairs of subgroups to implement priority ministry goals and to report progress annually to the Hispanic Baptist Convention.
___The priorities identified in the strategic plan are identifying and developing transformational leaders, identifying and networking resources to service all churches, and equipping churches by providing tools to help them contextualize ministry to their communities.
___The plan emphasizes the importance of both lay and ordained leaders. It calls for a concerted effort to examine existing programs of leadership development, maximize the efficiency of these programs and deploy the necessary resources for future strategic growth.
___The plan also notes the unique needs of full-time pastors, bivocational ministers and non-traditional students who enter the educational system through the Hispanic Baptist Theological School in San Antonio or the Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center in Harlingen.
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Goals of the strategic plan:
___ Develop a transformational leaders profile for all churches and increase the number of identified transformational vocational ministry leaders by at least 10 percent per year.
___ Provide a multi-level system of contextually appropriate theological education opportunities for all churches.
___ Improve the quality of life and ministry of Hispanic pastors and establish a culturally appropriate ministry leader response team to assist them.
___ Develop a leadership succession model for churches, the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas and its auxiliaries and all other BGCT-related Hispanic leadership organizations.
___ Assist at least 75 percent of all churches in developing a process whereby each member becomes a minister.
___ Assist at least 75 percent of all churches in equipping and mobilizing their members to be involved in transformational church and community ministries.
___ Assist each church in identifying, equipping and developing at least 5 percent of its members to be transformational leaders.
___ Identify, assess and access all existing human and financial resources and create awareness of them.
___ Develop contextual resources for at least 30 percent of churches.
___ Develop and access a comprehensive resource delivery system for at least 75 percent of churches.
___ Develop contextually appropriate assessment tools to measure church health and to measure and discover the needs of each congregation's community.
___ Develop a process of resource analysis whereby every church can connect institutional support to church and community needs.
___ Develop contextual resources for at least 30 percent of the churches resulting in church health and growth.
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