FROM THE PRESIDENT
Column by Kevin Ezell
Whatever it takes
It has been an incredible 12 months at the North American Mission Board. September 15 marks my one-year anniversary as the president of NAMB. As I’ve traveled around North America and seen what God is doing through Southern Baptist missionaries, I’ve been amazed. God is using Southern Baptists to push back darkness throughout the continent.
Yet the task in front of us is big. While some states in the South have one SBC church for every 2,000 people, states such as New Jersey have only one church for every 76,000 people. And only one Canadian National Baptist Convention church exists for every 123,971 people in Canada. We’ve got a lot more work to do.
We can’t start enough churches to reach North America for Christ using the business-as-usual methods. Business-as-usual isn’t working. We have to do something different.
That’s why the Bible passage in Mark 2 about the four men who brought their crippled friend to Jesus is one of my favorites.
Those four men wanted to get their friend to Jesus, but they couldn’t get him in—at least not using the usual route. Too many people were crowding them out. The four men could’ve just gone home at that point. They had done their job. They brought their friend to the house where Jesus was. It wasn’t their fault he couldn’t get in.
But they didn’t do that. They loved their friend too much. Instead, the four did whatever it took to get their friend to Jesus. They went through the roof to do it! As Southern Baptists we need to have that kind of attitude, too. We may not agree on everything. We may frustrate one another at times. But I hope we can agree to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.
We’re trying to model that at NAMB. In the past year we saved $6 million through staff reductions and $8 million through budget trimming. Through these savings we’ll place more church-planting missionaries where they are needed most in North America.
In the next few months you’ll hear about some new ways we will equip church planters to start healthy, reproducing Southern Baptist churches. Exciting days are ahead! We want to help our friends and neighbors in North America get to Jesus. We’ll go through the roof if we have to.
Every day as our staff comes into the Alpharetta office, they see a big sign in the entrance that says, “Whatever It Takes.” It’s a motto we live by at NAMB. We want to see evangelistic churches started so people will come to Christ, and we want to partner with you to do it. We’ll do “whatever it takes” to see that happen.
That’s why we’re here.
Kevin Ezell
President
48 Fall 2011 •
onmission.com
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