At IMB Dinner, Southern Baptist Pastors Challenged to “Find Your Place in God’s Story”

During an IMB dinner June 9, Christina Lovelace gives a spoken word presentation of “The Story of God” by Matt Papa, a Christian musician and songwriter. The crowd audibly affirmed the presentation with “amens,” “yeahs” and applause. Bill Bangham.

Southern Baptist pastors and members were challenged to “Find Your Place in God’s Story” during a dinner hosted by IMB as Southern Baptists gathered for their annual meeting in Baltimore.

“We believe your heart’s going to be touched. You’ll see where you fit in the picture,” IMB President Tom Elliff said. “And there’s one place where you fit the best.”

God has worked powerfully through Cuban Baptists, Juan Carlos Rojas, president of the Western Cuban Baptist Convention and pastor of Havana’s Calvary Baptist Church, told the dinner group, with the help of a translator.

“The Gospel of Jesus Christ is unstoppable in our nation and in the rest of the world, as well,” Rojas said during the June 9 dinner. “Today, we are able to harvest what many others have planted … with great sweat and tears.”

In 1990 there were 238 Baptist churches in Cuba and now, “to the glory of God,” there are 977, Rojas said. Including missions, house churches and small groups, God’s Word is preached in more than 7,000 places in Cuba every week.

“God has given us a great harvest,” Rojas said. “Yes, this is a great reality, but there’s still a lot to be done. And we … join Him in this one sacred effort together. Brothers and sisters, the fields are white unto harvest. And we don’t only want to preach and bless Cuba; God has also called us to go to the nations.”

J.D. Greear, lead pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., said the question we should ask is not, “‘God, am I supposed to be used for these [billions who have never heard the name of Jesus]?’ The question is only, ‘where and how?'”

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SOURCE: Baptist Press
Laura Fielding