After 45 years, TBM still responds to ‘God-sized invitations’ to serve

A hallway cabinet at the Texas Baptist Men missions equipping center displays a "buddy burner"—a camp stove made from a gallon can, typical of the kind Royal Ambassadors create as craft projects.

Pass through a doorway on one side of the hallway to enter a disaster operations center, where trained disaster relief workers receive last-minute instructions before deployment to a hurricane-damaged area. A doorway on the other side of the hall leads to a bay where volunteers maintain a fleet of fully equipped disaster relief vehicles.

The scene represents the past and present of TBM disaster relief, and it illustrates the growth the organization has experienced in 45 years of missions and ministry.

Bob Dixon—the state Royal Ambassadors director who later served 28 years as TBM executive director—used buddy burners like the one on display to prepare hot meals for storm victims when Hurricane Beulah ravaged the Rio Grande Valley and northern Mexico in 1967, the first disaster relief mission involving Texas Baptist Men.

Today, when disaster strikes, TBM can call on a corps of more than 11,000 trained disaster relief volunteers statewide, including specialists in areas such as emergency food service, water purification, mud-out operations and temporary emergency child care.

They number among more than 20,000 TBM volunteers who serve in 18 ministry areas, from agricultural missions to construction to spiritual renewal events, along with an ongoing commitment to missions education through Royal Ambassadors.

Mike Britt, Royal Ambassadors director at Central Baptist Church in Italy, gives Noah Steinmetz some pointers in book-shelf construction.

Last year, the TBM board of directors unanimously elected Don Gibson as the organization's executive director after Leo Smith retired from the post. Thirty years ago, Gibson quit his job as a manager at Hudson Engineering to become a full-time Mission Service Corps volunteer with TBM. Five years later, he joined the TBM staff as lay ministries director, focusing particularly on lay renewal.

Gibson noted TBM experienced a major course adjustment in 1987 when Henry Blackaby, a director of missions in Vancouver, British Columbia, spoke to the group's annual convention in Fort Worth. Blackaby described the nature of God's call and outlined the importance of Christians being willing to make major adjustments to follow God's will—principles he and Claude King developed into an interactive workbook, Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, published in 1990.

When TBM began to apply the principles detailed in Experiencing God, the organization shifted from a program-driven approach to instead looking at where God is at work and res-ponding to "God-sized invitations," Gibson noted.

"We saw new doors of opportunity open up as God invited us to join him in what he was doing," he said.

When a cholera epidemic hit Peru, TBM worked with Texas Baptist hospitals to provide more than $4 million in financial help and medical supplies.

Military transport planes delivered the first round of emergency aid to Peru, and that initial contact led U.S. Department of Defense officials to call TBM when Kurdish refugees who fled Iraq for the mountains of western Turkey and eastern Iran needed blankets.

John LaNoue (2nd from right) and Gary Smith (right) of Texas Baptist Men pray with rescue workers in Japan after an earthquake and tsunami.

TBM not only provided the blankets, but also worked with missions partners to send medical teams to Turkey and field kitchens into Iran—areas previously off-limits to Americans.

Subsequently, TBM expanded its global reach, providing famine relief and agricultural development programs in North Korea, refugee relief in various parts of Africa, construction projects in the Middle East and water purification projects in more than 50 countries.

At the same time, other TBM ministries likewise flourished. From 1979 to 1985, the TBM Retiree Builders averaged 17 construction projects a year. The next 10 years, that number grew to 38 projects annually. From 1995 to 2012, the group has averaged 70 projects a year, saving churches, Christian camps and other ministries about $35.7 million.

In the last 45 years, more than 232,000 boys and young men have attended Royal Ambassador camps in Texas, drawing about 5,000 per summer in most years.

At least 45,000 have made spiritual commitments—including about 26,000 professions of faith in Christ—directly as a result of the experience.

Since the 1970s, TBM volunteers have been involved in leading about 500 spiritual renewal events throughout the United States and overseas, from lay renewals to weekends providing an overview of the Experiencing God principles—not counting similar events offered in prisons as part of the organization's growing restorative justice ministries.

Working from a hydraulic lift, Bill Pigott, state director of Texas Baptist Men Retiree Builders and a layman from Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, works to install an interior beam between rooms of the new facility for Lake Athens Baptist Church.

Responding to "God-sized invitations" demands faith and funding, Gibson noted.

While the Baptist General Convention of Texas provides ongoing financial support for TBM, it covers only about one-fourth of the organization's $2.3 million budget.

"We are dependent on God when it comes to our future as a God-centered, God-focused organization," Gibson said. "Who we are and what we do largely depends on what God will invite us to do. Our future is in God's hand."

Texas Baptist Men will mark its 45th anniversary at its Oct. 19 annual convention and Oct. 20 open house at the Dixon Missions Equipping Center, 5351 Catron in east Dallas. "Bring Glory to God—Finish Well" is the theme of the convention, scheduled to begin with a complimentary lunch on Friday, followed by business sessions in the afternoon and a worship experience and banquet at 5:30 p.m. Open house on Saturday begins at 10 a.m. and includes lunch served from a disaster relief mobile unit.

To make reservations, contact Cathy Lawrence at (214) 275-1112 or email cathy.lawrence@texasbaptistmen.org.