Missions network board begins to define its task

March 3, 2003

Missions network board begins to define its task
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___DALLAS--Texas Baptists' emerging world missions network will be like a finely woven tapestry. Or maybe it will be more like a computer server, a telecommunications company or a viral epidemic.
___Those were just some of the word pictures board members drew at the network's organizational meeting Feb. 20-21 in Dallas as they wrestled with a way to describe what they plan to create.
___Messengers to the 2002 Baptist General Convention of Texas approved recommendations from the convention's Missions Review & Initiatives Committee calling for creation of the network.
___Texas Baptists agreed to establish the network as a separate not-for-profit affiliate of the BGCT "to help churches, associations, institutions and individuals fulfill their missions calling through both short-term and long-term missions endeavors across the United States and the world."
___Justice Anderson of University Baptist Church in Fort Worth, chairman of the 32-member board of directors, named two seven-member ad hoc committees to help the network take shape.
___The organizational committee, chaired by John Ogletree of First Metropolitan Baptist Church in Houston, will consider a name for the network, propose a purpose statement, develop a constitution and bylaws and recommend standing committees.
___Members of the organizational committee are Mark Dunn, pastor of Crestview Baptist Church in Dallas; Keith Parks of First Baptist Church in Richardson; Jered Sellers of Bellaire Baptist Church in Lubbock; Mike Stroope of Cottonwood Baptist Church in Dublin; Josue Valerio of First Baptist Church in El Paso; and Edna Wood of Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco.
___The search committee, chaired by Albert Reyes of Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, will develop a position description, suggest a profile and consider candidates for the employed leadership of the network.
___Members of the search committee are Carol Childress of Lake Pointe Baptist Church in Rockwall; Karen Hatley of First Baptist Church in Lorena; James Heflin of First Baptist Church in Abilene; Kyle Reese, pastor of First Baptist Church in San Angelo; Paul Swinney of Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler; and Dennis Young, pastor of Missouri City Baptist Church near Houston.
___In a meeting focused primarily on allowing board members to get acquainted with each other and to hear each other's visions about what the world missions network could become, Anderson offered one model for consideration.
___He noted that a network is "a fabric or structure of threads or wires intersecting each other at certain intervals and knotted at the crossings."
___He described some of those threads as the missions enterprises of local churches, directed toward a variety of local, regional and international missions objectives and opportunities. They intersect with state and national Baptist missionary entities and with a wide range of evangelical and ecumenical missionary entities.
___The network's role would be to help bring together those multiple strands and identify those points of intersection to create "a tapestry of missionary service," he said.
___Anderson challenged the board to "run the risk of freedom" and avoid quenching a movement of God's Spirit "with micro management and organizational pride."
___Other board members offered other models:
___ Stroope, veteran missionary and missions professor at Truett Seminary in Waco, and Childress, information broker with the Leadership Network, compared the missions passion to a "virus" that could be transmitted in a multiplying manner, resulting in an "epidemic." Instead of looking at the network as a vehicle for delivering goods and services, Stroope encouraged the board to think of it as a means for spreading an infectious passion for extending God's Kingdom.
___ Tim Randolph, director of missions in Tri-Rivers Baptist Area, envisioned an "infinitely expanding number of hubs" rather than a centralized point where everything intersects. "Churches will go the easiest, most direct route to get the job done," he said. "We need to ask how we can add value and improve the effectiveness of what they do."
___ Ogletree, who serves as vice chairman of the BGCT Executive Board, described a computer network, comparing the world missions network to a "server" unit.
___ Reyes, president of Hispanic Baptist Theological School in San Antonio, drew upon his experience working with a telecommunications company to develop his model. He talked about multiple "switching centers" at different points, processing calls from diverse locations.
___BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade told the board he hopes the network can become a place "where new dreams can be dreamed."
___While pledging a "profound and lasting" commitment from the BGCT to the network, Wade pointed out that it is up to the board of directors to discern God's direction for the new enterprise and follow it.
___"We don't want to get in your way," he said. "And we don't want you to get in the way of what God wants to do."
___Parks, who chaired the Missions Review & Initiatives subcommittee that proposed the world missions network, pointed to the difficulty inherent in "shaping something different" than the traditional mission-sending agency.
___If the board intended for the network to become nothing more than a missions agency with a different name, "we might as well disband today," he said.
___"A network is not an agency," said Parks, who has served as chief executive of two denominational missions agencies.
___The tendency, he warned, is to "revert to old systems" of thinking and established ways of carrying out the mission. He urged the board to keep the network decentralized and to avoid any top-down bureaucracy.
___"I believe God is up to something," Parks said. "Let's not get in his way."
___

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