Converge Worldwide
The following abbreviated article explains how what God has been doing in and through the Baptist General Conference has led its leadership to adopt a new name, “Converge Worldwide”.
Pastor Aaron
The Spirit of God is at work in our family of 1000-plus Baptist General Conference churches. Four years ago we saw him move powerfully when Henry Blackaby called annual meeting attendees to repent and prepare themselves for the purifying presence of the Lord that precedes his blessing. Several hundred pastors, their wives and lay leaders spontaneously knelt, confessed their sins and called upon God for cleansing, power and boldness in the Spirit.
Our Prayer Gatherings for pastors, their wives and lay leaders have multiplied in number and attendance. Our Fire & Reign and Salt & Light Bible studies have called thousands to a more profound dependence upon Spirit-empowered witness and involvement in global missions.
Our international missions efforts have seen breakthroughs among what were once called unreached people groups: the Ibanags and Waray of the Philippines and the Apatani and Nyishis of northeast India. Our hiv/aids ministry in Nigeria is so effective the U.N. sent observers to see what we’re doing. The Decade of Change in the Philippines is producing new churches among the strategic middle class.
Our Prayer Gatherings for pastors, their wives and lay leaders have multiplied in number and attendance. Our Fire & Reign and Salt & Light Bible studies have called thousands to a more profound dependence upon Spirit-empowered witness and involvement in global missions.
Our international missions efforts have seen breakthroughs among what were once called unreached people groups: the Ibanags and Waray of the Philippines and the Apatani and Nyishis of northeast India. Our hiv/aids ministry in Nigeria is so effective the U.N. sent observers to see what we’re doing. The Decade of Change in the Philippines is producing new churches among the strategic middle class.
Our TeAMerica church planting systems have become the benchmark for several denominations, with 47 new church plants this year and a 85-90 percent success ratio. Our recruitment, assessment and coaching systems are being adapted in Japan and the Philippines and copied in the U.S. by several denominations.
Seven couples serving as Intercultural Missionaries are making strong evangelism inroads among Haitians, Japanese, Latinos, Muslims, Portuguese-speakers and Somalis who have made their home in the USA.
God has his hand on the Baptist General Conference.
Since our founding by Swedish immigrants in the 1850s, fleeing the spiritless religion and persecution of their homeland, we have been “a movement of churches whose history has uniquely prepared [us] with a dna that will attract people of all backgrounds who are seeking a heart that is open to God and other people.” Our churches welcome Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, those with no religious background and many others because our history and values emphasize love and truth in love — not suspicion or a judgmental spirit.
Key values unite us:
• Conversion is necessary for forgiveness of sin and spiritual life.
• True faith fully engages both heart and mind.
• The Bible is our sole and sufficient spiritual guide for all of life.
• We emphasize direct access to God in prayer and worship.
• Christ likeness is lived out in relationships and moral integrity.
• We are called by God to bring the gospel to the world.
• We exercise gentleness and fairness when discussing theological or religious controversies.
By history and by choice we’ve chosen to act less like an institution and more like a missional movement.
We also were finding our name, Baptist General Conference, increasingly becoming a hindrance to influencing people in our own country who have negative preconceptions about “Baptists.” And it potentially endangered our work in several nations where a Christian name puts our workers at risk.
Into this milieu God inserted a remarkable convergence of key leaders and events.
In 2006, BGC Pastor/church planter Steve Johnson and BGC president Jerry Sheveland walked into the headquarters of Disney World to talk to its president, Al Weiss, to ask him for $1 million for bgc Florida church planting. Weiss responded with enthusiasm, himself filled with passion for church planting. Together they launched an effort called Vision Florida to start 20 flagship churches with gifted church planters in the Orlando region. These would be the first thrust in an effort to launch a network of daughter churches and granddaughter churches.
Vision Florida began with great success. God’s hand was on it. One day Weiss told Steve Johnson, “I believe God wants us to do this in the 50 fastest-growing cities in the country.” When Johnson related this to Jerry Sheveland, he replied, “That’s bigger than the bgc. We are going to have to build a wider partnership.” So Vision Florida became Vision USA, a multidenominational effort.
Johnson and Weiss knew they needed a training center to prepare leaders for that kind of expansive vision. God led them to nearly 40 acres on a lake directly across the street from Wycliffe Bible Translators and Campus Crusade for Christ’s headquarters. Crusade owned the property, and Johnson and Weiss learned from Crusade President Steve Douglass that one of founder Bill Bright’s last unfulfilled visions was to build a training center on that site. Seeing the matching vision of the two organizations, Crusade donated the property — worth $6 million — to Vision360 to partner with Crusade in building Bill Bright’s dream.
In our next chapter as a movement, we are going to call ourselves by a new name: Converge Worldwide. This missional name means to come together for something significant and important. We don’t merely think about connecting people to do good things. We have in mind a higher convergence. We picture those intersection points where God’s people converge with God’s purposes, those intersection points — whether in Des Moines or Arunachal Pradesh, India — in which God’s people converge with his redemptive purposes and the work he is doing in our world.
Every Christ-follower understands this truth experientially. You experience these converge moments unexpectedly, almost always daily, when you realize you have just stepped into a need or walked into a situation in which you are meant to be the presence of Christ’s love, truth and redemption.
That’s why you will hear us tell Converge stories about our new partnership to plant next-generation churches in universities and communities all across Mexico. About our partnership with courageous believers in northeast India to expand ministry into other neighboring unreached people groups. About the growing partnership of district leaders to see movements of reproducing churches launched in every part of our nation. There are so many stories to tell.
Our mission is the same, only more focused on what we believe God has given us to accomplish.
God is again taking us to new places. The picture of what we will be is not entirely clear. It never is when we are in the beginning of a new work of God.