July 29, 2002
WMU LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE:
'Don't be the missing piece in missions'
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___WACO--God's plan for missions is like a jigsaw puzzle missing one piece unless each believer recognizes her part in it, speakers told Baptist women at the Texas Leadership Conference.
___About 900 women attended the statewide training event, sponsored by Woman's Missionary Union of Texas July 18-20 at Baylor University.
___Tim Cummins, a Mission Service Corps volunteer serving with Whirlwind Ministries in Atlanta, challenged Texas Baptist women to "take the church to the people."
___Cummins, who grew up as a missionary kid in Africa, said churches need to "scratch where people are itching" by meeting individuals at their points of need.
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| FRANKIE HARVEY of Nacogdoches, a member of the Texas WMU African-American Advisory Council, visits with participants at an African-American Fellowship event focused on the "Sisters Who Care" network among Women on Mission. |
___That may be done most effectively by laypeople who have relationships with spiritually lost people in their communities, rather than by professional clergy ministering in the four walls of the church building, he added.
___"Professional preachers--and I am one--have done you a
disservice," Cummins declared. "You may be the missing puzzle piece. Nobody is going to reach your friends and your community like you can."
___One missing piece of the puzzle for too many Christians is the biblical call to "treat all people justly," according to Gaynor Yancey, former home missionary in inner-city Philadelphia and now director of the bachelor's degree program in social work at Baylor University.
___Biblical justice focuses particularly on loving treatment of the most vulnerable members of society, she noted. Yancey led a Bible study on the second chapter of the New Testament book of James.
___"If you say you are following Jesus Christ, the world ought to see the difference. And the way they will see it is by how you treat the poor," Yancey said.
___"Authentic love has to come from inside us because we have trusted Jesus Christ as Savior. Authentic believers end up displaying authentic love."
___Rick and Nancy Dill, missionaries to Germany with the Southern Baptist Convention International Mission Board, described a partnership linking their church in Weimar with First Baptist Church of Garland.
___Dill told how a team from the Garland church helped the German congregation lead a five-day series of evangelistic services. On the first night, a lawyer named Dittmar and his wife came to the service. Although they were self-proclaimed atheists, they returned each night.
___After five nights in the worship services, the lawyer told Dill that he and his wife were "looking around" spiritually. Although they had examined everything from Jehovah's Witnesses to Eastern mysticism, nothing seemed as genuine as the faith they saw among the Baptists.
___"I want to believe. Come and get me," he pleaded with the missionary.
___During the Texas Leadership Conference, Baptist women gave more than $3,400 to the WorldTouch fund, an endowment established by Texas WMU. Income from the endowment is used to help women become involved in mission projects and to provide support for the ongoing ministries of Texas WMU.
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