JIM AND KAREN TURNBO | GRANTS, NEW MEXICO


SHEPHERDING NEW MEXICO W


By Mickey Noah


ith New Mexico’s vast deserts, mountains, mesas and small communities—the state conjures up visions of the Old West. To the north are the Native Americans— the Navajo Nation and the Laguna, Acoma and Zuni Pueblos. To the south are the Anglos, including the cowboy culture. This is Jim and Karen Turbo’s mission field.


“Eighty percent of our people are in the open country. . . so you have isolated, relatively small communities,” Jim says. “But each pocket of people deserves the gospel and so that’s what we’re here for. “We have a mission field of 90 percent lostness among the people groups identified in the four coun- ties we serve. Most of them are in isolated pockets in communities that can never support a full-time church.


God has placed a core group of Christians here as His instruments for getting the gospel to them.” While his official title is regional associational missionary for the Mountain and Western Baptist Associations, Jim is first and foremost a church


in New Mexico.


Jim supports 25 churches, and only four of them have full-time pastors with seminary training. The other 21 are served by bi-vocational staff, many of whom are indigenous lay leaders Jim has developed


Eighty percent of our people are in the open country. . . so you have isolated, relatively small communities. But each pocket of people deserves the gospel and so that’s what we’re here for.”


ON MISSION • Spring 2011 37


planter. When he’s not planting new churches, he’s a loving gardener tending established churches, ensuring their continued healthy growth. And in his “spare” time, Jim is a coach, developing a cadre of discipled leaders among Baptist pastors and laypeople


PHOTOS BY JAMES GREGG


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