Posted: 8/8/03
Mexican Baptists and Texas Baptists
launch three-year partnership plan
By John Hall
Texas Baptist Communications
The National Baptist Convention of Mexico unanimously approved a three-year partnership with the Baptist General Convention of Texas at its July 23 annual meeting in Mexico City.
Formal cooperation is slated to run through 2006, but leaders on both sides expect to see the partnership continue substantially longer, said Joe Bruce, projects director for the BGCT Texas Partnerships Resource Center and chairman of the BGCT team involved in the cooperation discussion.
| The annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention of Mexico drew a record crowd of 3,000 participants and 700 registered messengers, double the previous year's numbers. At the summer assembly, convention officials joined with Charles Wade, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, to sign an agreement to work together in mission efforts on both sides of the border. |
Leaders envision the partnership, called the Mexico-Texas Baptist Network, as Texas and Mexico Baptists flowing back and forth across their shared border to help each other in prayer, evangelism efforts, church starting, missions, social ministries and leadership training.
“This is not just them asking and us sending or vice versa,” Bruce said. “It will be a free-flowing exchange of people and resources as we attempt to work together to minister in Christ's name in both Texas and Mexico.”
The BGCT Executive Board must approve the network before it becomes an official partnership.
Mexico and Texas are linked in several ways, including culturally, historically, economically and religiously, according to Bruce. Baptists from each side of the border commonly cooperate in ministry.
The partnership recognizes what is already happening and attempts more strategically to focus on the agreed ministry objectives, Bruce observed.
Network leaders seek to build on the long Texas-Mexico relationship and help Baptists identify needs in both places, Bruce said. Convention leaders will work together to help churches, associations, compañerismos and institutions find places to minister.
“This is not doing away with border ministry,” Bruce said. “This is to amplify opportunities for Texas Baptists to work throughout Mexico, and for Mexico Baptists to minister here.”
Dexton Shores, director of River Ministry and a BGCT representative in the partnership discussions, said the network will expand Texas Baptist ministry beyond the border areas. Texas Baptist churches will be able to partner with central Mexico Baptist churches or travel directly to meet needs in the heart of the country, he explained.
“There are regions in the interior of Mexico that have never received mission groups,” Shores explained.
Cooperative efforts also can help the Mexican convention meet its goal of starting 8,500 churches in the next 10 years, Shores said. About 1,500 churches currently comprise the 100-year-old convention. Mexican Baptist churches are serving less than half the 62 native language groups in the nation, according to Shores.
Leaders expect Mexico Baptists to help start new churches in Texas as well, particularly in primarily Spanish-speaking areas.
In addition to working cooperatively in the two regions, Bruce said he hopes Baptists will “know each other as true friends as well as being involved in ministry for the building of the kingdom of God in Mexico and Texas.”
He imagines the Mexico and Texas conventions working together to do evangelistic work in a third locale.
“Not only are we neighbors,” Bruce said, “we are also partners in sharing the good news in Mexico and Texas.”
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