2013 North American Mission Board Ministry Report

The North American Mission Board (NAMB) exists to work with churches, associations and state conventions in mobilizing Southern Baptists as a missional force to impact North America with the gospel of Jesus Christ through evangelism and church planting.

Introduction

To penetrate lostness in North America, the North American Mission Board (NAMB) believes we must 1) plant more evangelistic Southern Baptist churches, and 2) discover and develop the next generation of missionaries who will lead the way in taking the Gospel to North America.

Evangelistic church plants — At the turn of the century in 1900, Southern Baptists had one church for every 3,800 people in the United States. By 2011, that ratio had slipped to one for every 6,169 people. Southern Baptists have continued to grow, but we have not planted nearly enough churches to maintain pace with population growth over the years. In Canada, there is only one SBC work for every 115,040 people. These numbers are driving our priorities and our Send North America strategy.

We challenge Southern Baptists to commit to starting 15,000 churches over the next 10 years in the United States and Canada. Doing that will help us keep pace with population growth and overcome the loss of more than 900 churches removed from the Southern Baptist Church Directory each year. This means we must start 1,500 churches a year.

Next-generation missionaries — Planting 1,500 new evangelistic churches each year requires great resources, but we are confident Southern Baptists have the money to fund this endeavor. The bigger question is “Where will we find the planters?” We must be praying that God will raise up more workers to go to the harvest fields. To more systematically train and ready more missionaries for the field, NAMB’s new “Farm System” will intentionally recruit and train tomorrow’s missionaries. It starts with a concerted effort to give thousands of student missionaries a more focused, ministry-oriented experience when they serve in North America. God will use this time to develop a heart for long-term, full-time missions service or show them how they can very effectively serve God while working in a secular vocation.

Those already on a track toward long-term mission service can serve as church planting interns. This one-year role will give experience and training specifically geared toward serving in a local church and church planting, with an emphasis on regions outside the South where churches are most needed. A church planter apprentice role is for those who know they want to serve as a church planter. These positions will be available in NAMB’s Send Cities with an emphasis outside of the South region. Apprentices will serve in a church plant and work directly with a church planter. To plant 1,500 churches each year, we will need 1,500 individuals completing this process every year. This means more people need to be involved and the cost will continue to rise. We need Southern Baptists to continue giving faithfully and praying for more workers who will be sent into the harvest.

Church-based evangelism — Our entire Send North America strategy is focused on sharing the Gospel—penetrating lostness—in North America. It is our reason for existence. Every church we help Southern Baptists plant will be focused on reaching new people for Christ and ministering in the community. In addition, our evangelism efforts are all focused on helping local churches share Christ and leading new believers to the local church. Evangelism ministries include LovLoud, Chaplaincy, GPS (God’s Plan for Sharing), Disaster Relief, Collegiate, and Church Revitalization.

Thank you for allowing us to partner with you and your church in reaching North America for Christ. Southern Baptists have been greatly blessed to be used by God, and we believe if we can maintain a strong Gospel presence in North America, He will continue to use us all around the world. We greatly appreciate your prayer, support and leadership.

Southern Baptist Convention Ministry Assignments to NAMB

• Establishment of New Congregations 
• Evangelism 
• Appointment and Support of Missionaries 
• Missions and Missions Education 
• Leadership Development 
• Disaster Relief 

Establishment of New Congregations

Ministry Statement: Assisting churches in planting healthy, multiplying, evangelistic Southern Baptist churches in the United States and Canada. 

In 2012, partners reported 929 church plants, identified as such by the assigning of an SBC ID number for the church during the reporting year. Church to population in 2012 is one SBC congregation for every 6,194 people. In Canada the ratio is one Canadian National Baptist Convention (CNBC) congregation for every 115,040 people.

NAMB continues to increase awareness and understanding of and participation in our Send North America strategy. More than 2,300 churches have registered for involvement in church planting through NAMB’s Mobilize Me. Of that number, roughly 19 percent are ethnic churches. The Send North America Conference held July 30-31, 2012, at First Baptist Church, Woodstock, Ga., had a total attendance of more than 2,000 people. Participants included NAMB missionaries, church planters, pastors, NAMB staff, and state convention leaders. More than 45 workshops and breakout sessions were offered, as well as insight and motivation from inspirational speakers from various walks of SBC life.

City Plans have been developed for each of the 30 Send Cities. Plans for each city are determined by a local strategy team, a group of people representing the city’s local churches, church planters, church planting catalysts, Send City coordinators, regional mobilizers, and NAMB and state convention staff. Send City information and updates can be found at namb.net/cities. 

 
 Evangelism

Ministry Statement: Assisting churches in the ministries of evangelism and making disciples. 

As part of GPS, the 2012-2013 emphasis focuses on attractional evangelistic events in communities to reach the lost for Christ. Participating churches are involved in prayer walks to distribute invitations to their events one to two weeks beforehand. Following the events, participating churches are encouraged to follow-up with those who attended. Promotional materials were prepared and distributed which helped facilitate such events as Area Crusade, Evangelistic Block Party, Event Highlighting the Arts, Felt-Needs Conference, Friend Day, Local Church Revival, Ministry Servanthood Evangelism Project, and Sporting Event. Event planning templates were also provided for 25 different kinds of events.

In promotion of the annual Southern Baptist Call to Prayer emphasis in January, more than 2.5 million prayer cards were distributed to SBC churches in 2012. Through this emphasis, partnerships were strengthened as NAMB and the International Mission Board worked together to challenge Southern Baptists to pray for the lost, developing video and tools focused on this task.

Through chaplaincy endorsement, NAMB is able to significantly extend Southern Baptist evangelism efforts. At the end of 2012, the number of SBC chaplain endorsements was 4,287. Since chaplains can have more than one endorsement, the total number of individual chaplains was 3,597. The 4,287 number represents chaplains serving in the following settings: 1,434 military; 629 hospital; 621 disaster relief; 607 public safety; 356 correctional; 208 corporate; 404 professional; and 28 pastoral counselors. Quarterly reporting from chaplains were higher in 2012 (4,351 reports) than in 2011 (2,632 reports), and noted that the gospel was presented 99,861 times, with 22,649 professions of faith recorded, resulting in 4,684 baptisms. In 2012, the Chaplains Commission endorsed 261 new chaplains, and updated 378 endorsements.

NAMB’s Evangelism Response Center (ERC) relates to 42 state conventions, 10 SBC agencies and 25 non-SBC agencies. A total of 960 new Telephone Encouragers, 138 Internet Encouragers and 44 Regional Facilitators were trained during 2012. There were 41 churches that registered to become Covenant Churches. The ERC has trained a total of 7,366 Telephone Encouragers across the United States and Canada. All certified Telephone Encouragers and Internet Encouragers are required to give 30 hours of service per year. In 2012, ERC received 26,578 calls for an average of 2,215 per month. In 2012, a total of 1,302 people accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior through ERC and its partnership ministries. In addition to these decisions, there were 676 salvation inquiries. ERC referred more than 1,300 people to covenant churches.

Through Crossover events preceding the 2012 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, more than 1,500 Southern Baptist volunteers from 59 New Orleans area churches and many others from across the nation shared the Gospel in New Orleans. Their efforts stretched from the Lower Ninth Ward outward to Metairie and Kenner. Counting 38 block parties held June 16, as well as special events and door-to-door community evangelism efforts throughout the week, at least 870 people made decisions for Christ.

Appointment and Support of Missionaries

Ministry Assignment: Assisting churches by appointing, supporting and assuring accountability for missionaries serving in the United States and Canada. 

Streamlining the missionary categories and bringing clear focus to development helped create the NAMB missionary Farm System in 2012, with placements including 1,122 Student Missionaries serving in diverse contexts and amongst multiple ethnic groups. This number included 454 semester missionaries (some of whom served multiple terms) and 668 summer missionaries. In addition to this category of service, NAMB placed 60 Church Planting Interns; 29 Church Planter Apprentices; and 50 Church Planters.  A total of 1,122 student missionary positions were filled in 2012. 

To centralize and expedite the placement process for Southern Baptists who are exploring missionary service through NAMB, a  new online application system was developed in 2012 and will be launched early 2013.

NAMB is intentional about initiating strategic partnerships to increase the ethnic diversity of those serving through NAMB. There are many missionaries who identify themselves as non-Anglo who serve in one of our missionary categories (e.g., church planter, church planter intern, evangelism missionary, church planting catalyst, and church planting strategist).  NAMB works with churches, associations, and state partners to encourage and support the planting of ethnic churches. Approximately 49.9 percent of SBC church plants in 2012 were non-Anglo.

NAMB is working to strengthen the strategic placement of missionaries into under-reached and underserved areas by moving toward having one Church Planting Catalyst (CPC) per million people (outside the south region) and prioritizing the deployment of other missionary categories towards areas of greatest needs. There are approximately 178 CPCs serving in regions outside of the south. In 2012, NAMB-support Directors of Missions (DOMs) transitioned to the role of CPCs.

Missions Personnel

As NAMB works with its partners to penetrate lostness in North America, a key element to accomplish that must be that we have the right personnel in the right positions and places. NAMB’s missionaries and chaplains are excellent role models of people committed to being obedient to Christ in all things so that more will come to know Him. While strategically deployed, our missionaries are also highly accountable, giving Southern Baptists confidence that they are good stewards of the all resources provided to them in their work.

 

Missionary Categories 

As mentioned in last year’s report, NAMB combined some of the more traditional missionary categories in order to more clearly define some of the roles of each. The list below shows the approved categories with which NAMB works through Convention partners to deploy and the method of funding for each.

1.     Church Planter—Jointly or Self-Funded

2.     Church Planter Apprentice—Fully, Jointly or Self-Funded

3.     Church Planting Intern—Fully, Jointly or Self-Funded

4.     Church Planting Team Member—Self-Funded only

5.     Convention/Local Collegiate–University Missionary—Jointly or Self-Funded

6.     Summer/Semester Missionary—Fully, Jointly or Self-Funded

7.     Faith and Work Missionary—Self-Funded only

8.     Evangelism Catalyst— Self-Funded only

9.     Church Planting Catalyst—Fully, Jointly or Self-Funded

10.  Convention Director of Evangelism (non-South conventions only)—Fully, Jointly or Self-Funded

11.  Convention Director of Missions or Convention Church Planting Director (non-South conventions only)—Fully, Jointly or Self-Funded

12.  Convention/Local LoveLoud Missionary (non-South conventions only)—Fully, Jointly or Self-Funded

13.  Mission Support Specialist—Self-Funded only

Methods of Funding Missionaries 

1. Some missionaries are fully funded through and by NAMB, meaning 100 percent the missionary’s approved funding (whatever that may be based on their category) is from NAMB. These personnel may be national or regional missionaries, student missionaries, apprentices, interns, or even state convention missionaries who are fully funded for the state convention by NAMB.

2. Some missionaries are jointly funded through and by both NAMB and state convention partners. The ratio of funding varies per state convention and is outlined in an agreement between NAMB and the state convention.

Many church plants/planters are jointly funded through money set aside as Church Planting Funds (CPF) in the cooperative budget with each convention. The amount of funding each church planting missionary receives is ratio-based. The amount varies depending on the strategy of a convention, age of the plant, the trajectory of the plant, the plant’s location, and the amount of other funding sources available to the plant (sponsoring church, association, state convention, etc.).

3. Some missionaries are self-funded (also known as Mission Service Corps [MSC]-funded). Although these missionaries raise their own funding, they are approved/appointed and are held accountable through and by NAMB. 

The table below shows the breakdown of missionary units by funding method described above. Please note: 

• These numbers are as of January 1, 2013.  Missionary count is fluid. Missionaries can begin or end their service at any point during the year.
• These numbers include appointed/approved missionaries only. The numbers do not include non-appointed/non-approved spouses. Prior to 2012, many missionary reports from NAMB included non-appointed/non-approved spouses.
• These numbers do not include many pastors and other practitioners who perform essential missionary functions on a limited-time contract basis.
• These numbers do not include Chaplains (3,597) or Student Missionaries (1,122)

Missionaries by Funding Method 

Funding Method	Missionary Units
Fully	77
Jointly	1,382
Self (MSC)	1,029

Missions and Missions Education

Ministry Assignment: Assisting churches by providing missions education and coordinating volunteer missions opportunities for church members. 

Realizing that the most effective method for educating Southern Baptists about missions is to involve them in hands-on, active, intentional experiences that foster a thriving missional lifestyle, NAMB believes that the missions education “classroom” includes the mission field itself. NAMB is committed to working with Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) to promote and provide resources for critical age-level missions education organizations, while also affirming additional avenues for missions education for churches through mobilizing opportunities that allow churches to see, engage, and get excited about missions firsthand.

NAMB completed a smooth transition of transferring the Royal Ambassadors and Challengers missions education organizations to WMU. All assets were transferred, as well as associated trademarks. From the March 2011 announcement that RAs and Challengers would be transferred to WMU through the September 1, 2012, completion, NAMB and WMU worked with special sensitivity to the gender-specific focus of the materials and have ensured the longevity of these organizations. NAMB continues to provide missions education resources for SBC churches through avenues such as Baptist Men and in partnership with LifeWay and the International Mission Board.

NAMB delivered missions education and awareness through its resources, conferences, and missionary and staff speaking opportunities. On Mission, NAMB’s flagship magazine, has three print and digital formats and is circulated to more than 177,000 people. Promotional material for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering, as well as the North American Mission Study for all age groups were delivered to and made available online for all SBC churches and included print and video pieces. Through the Send North America Conference in July 2012, NAMB provided more than 2,000 people insight, inspiration, and information on its Send North America strategy and how to be involved. Stories related to missions personnel and missions efforts are consistently provided via Baptist Press and both print and video stories are available via the namb.net website. Through NAMB’s exhibit at the SBC annual meeting, messengers and guests interacted with missionaries from all over North America and learned ways they can be involved in mission experiences.

The Bridge, NAMB’s web-based volunteer mission opportunities system was redesigned in 2012, with a new system to be launched in February 2013 at namb.net/volunteer-opportunities. Designed for church planters, churches, associations, state conventions and other partners to post volunteer needs and partnership opportunities will allow volunteers to search for opportunities using an interactive map of North America and respond directly to those making the requests.

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief continues to be a key avenue for entry into and further development of mission education, experiences, skills, and passions.

 

Leadership Development

Ministry Statement: Assisting churches by providing leadership development. 

NAMB provides a variety of training opportunities to equip pastors and other church leaders, as well as church planters and missionaries. More than 45 churches participated in five Churches Planting Churches Training events and 40 more in one Multiplying Church Training. The Send North America Conference provided training and networking opportunities for more than 2,000 attendees. 

In addition to training events, Flourish.me is a website that engages ministry wives for that addresses unique and specific needs of ministry. Sendnetwork.com provides a variety of training tools for planters as well as other resources that help them to develop in their effectiveness.

NAMB began work on a program of assisting bivocational planters and pastors in acquiring a customized associate’s degree in cooperation with a number of SBC institutions of higher learning. 

Disaster Relief

Ministry Statement: Assisting churches in relief ministries to victims of disaster and other people in need. 

Working in partnership with state conventions, NAMB coordinates response to disasters with trained volunteers and compassionate care. Disaster Relief ministries have reported deploying volunteers to various incidents following fires, floods, hurricanes, ice storms, and wind storms. Last year, 397 professions of faith and 2,254 Gospel presentations were recorded, along with 59,583 volunteer days, and 2.3 million meals prepared. Updated numbers and current relief efforts can be found at namb.net/dr. As of January 1, 2012, total Disaster Relief equipment/units numbered 1,530.  There are more than 80,000 trained Disaster Relief volunteers.

To further support these efforts, NAMB purchased and placed into service three road tractors and trailers, four Western Hauler trucks, two equipment trailers, and one mobile command post. In addition, other tools needed for volunteers and their efforts included tents, cots, portable lighting, chainsaws, pressure washers, wheelbarrows, hand tools, personal protection equipment , and rolls of roof sheeting. 

As the need for disaster preparedness grows, NAMB developed a Disaster Ready Church resource to assist local congregations to prepare, connect and respond to disasters, with 95 churches now registered for this initiative.

In 2012, NAMB developed a student initiative to engage college students in Disaster Relief efforts.  There were 189 college students reported engaged in relief efforts in the aftermath of Kentucky’s winter storm in March 2012. More than 250 college students served in New York in December 2012 as a part of Super Storm Sandy response.

Funding North American Missions

2012-2013 NAMB Budget Summary 

North American Mission Board 2011 Revenue/Expenses 

Cooperative Program (38 percent of NAMB’s budgeted revenue) 

The Southern Baptist worldwide missions enterprise is funded in large part through the unique, efficient, and equitable Cooperative Program. A portion of the undesignated tithes and offerings of individuals received by SBC churches becomes Cooperative Program dollars. In 2010, these churches sent more than $500 million through the Cooperative Program to their state conventions to support work within the state and the Southern Baptist Convention. As determined by messengers to the annual session of each state convention, a percentage of these Cooperative Program receipts is sent to the SBC Executive Committee for distribution to SBC entities. In 2010, an average of 62 percent of total Cooperative Program receipts was used for state convention ministries, and roughly 38 percent was forwarded to the SBC for national and worldwide ministries.

Annie Armstrong Easter Offering (49 percent of NAMB’s budgeted revenue) 

In addition to Cooperative Program giving, an annual offering is received to benefit missions in North America. Named in honor of Annie Armstrong, a passionate advocate of missions who lived 1850-1938, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering® is the primary funding channel for Southern Baptist mission work in the United States, Canada, and their territories. A special offering which churches historically collect during the spring (though it can be collected at any time during the year), all funds (100%) go to the support of North American missionaries and their work, primarily as salaries and ministry resources. Each penny given represents the trust that Southern Baptists place in our missionary force, and our missionaries are excellent stewards of these funds. In 2012, receipts to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering totaled more than $57.2 million. To learn more, visit www.anniearmstrong.com.