PRESIDENT’S LETTER


Revitalizing to reach North America


W Serving together,


Kevin Ezell President, NAMB


e have a big job ahead of us as Southern Baptists. Maybe this is hard to believe, but there are places in North America that have no evangelical presence. There are places where Southern Baptist work is so scarce as to be non-existent. Do you think it's possible to find someone in the United States or Canada who has never heard the


gospel of Jesus Christ? This reality is more common than you think. The task is big, but many of our churches are not prepared. The number of


churches that have plateaued or are declining in growth is around 70 percent. That tells us these churches probably are not having much of an impact on their communities. We lose nearly 900 churches every year. You probably could name some in your community that have become statistics, and you may have seen it coming for a long time in your own church not knowing what to do. I firmly believe there is something we can do to reverse these trends and to see fewer


and fewer churches drift toward closing their doors. Just as Send North North America is a strategy for linking existing churches with church planting efforts, it's also a strategy to help existing churches that are on the brink of death re-launch with new life. Visit namb.net/revitalization to see how we are ramping up efforts through Send North America to help reduce the number of SBC churches that close their doors every year. By partnering with pastor Johnny Hunt and state convention leaders, we are creat-


ing a framework that helps Southern Baptists do what they do best—join together for kingdom expansion. If we're going to see God work through us in the unreached areas of North America, we first need a majority of Southern Baptist churches that can carry out the work He has called us to do. And I truly believe this is our opportunity to see that future ministry is built on a solid foundation of healthy, growing, sending, giving and going churches.


ON MISSION • Winter 2013 22


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31