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From the General Secretary
Grace and Truth
In a recent Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) talk, Alexander Betts, British social scientist and director of the Refugee Centre at the University of Oxford, commented on "Why Brexit happened - and what to do next." In his speech, Betts identified the urgent need to rescue globalization from the neoliberal agenda that is elitist and unmindful of the welfare of the entire populace.
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Member Bodies in Action
The
Ghana Baptist Convention (GBC) is experiencing rapid church growth. In 2005, it reported 1,000 congregations and 75,000 members. Today it has more than 2,000 churches and close to 500,000 baptized believers. This is the result of an aggressive mission program undertaken by Ghanaian Baptists.
Over the past few years, GBC established five mission fields in different parts of the country with full time missionaries whose main focus is church planting. In the past year, this has resulted in 27 churches planted in Nzema in the west in the direction of Ivory Coast, 52 in Sefwi in the mid region, 40 in Navrongo going toward Burkina Faso, 16 in the Volta region going toward Togo, and several dozens in Yendi in the northeast.
"In our own policy and practice we have a preaching point, a preaching station and a church," explained Ernest Adu-Gyamfi , GBC executive president. The aim is to establish a preaching point that would, eventually, develop into a Baptist church, duly designated as such.
There is concerted outreach to college and university students, with Baptist campus ministries at tertiary institutions across the West African country. Initiatives include appointing university chaplains on some campuses for these students. There's "a youth coordinator who coordinates all the work of our student campus ministry," Adu-Gyamfi pointed out.
A major GBC project is SHOP, the Students Holiday Outreach Program, which has been running for some 20 years. "Every summer we bring all the Baptist students together," said Adu-Gyamfi. The students typically spend two weeks in the mission field during their break from school. In one year, they had upwards of 600 students involved in SHOP.
The Association of Baptist Business Executives has provided money for the students to go on mission trips over the 20-year period. "This year we brought together 380 students," declared Adu-Gyamfi, who is a longstanding member of the Baptist Business Executive group. Eighty of the students went to Yendi in the north.
"For two weeks they do dawn broadcasts in the morning, house to house evangelism, film shows in the evening. They help revive churches within those areas. They do all kinds of things," Adu-Gyamfi said.
SHOP participants are often sent to targeted areas where there is no Baptist church. A number of churches were established as a result. "That helps us to duplicate churches very, very fast," the Ghana Baptist leader said. "Within the two-week program we deploy about 400 students. By the time they come back we can have a minimum of about 10 churches established across the country."
The Ghana Baptist executives lend their support to the new churches. "The businessmen have a commitment that any church that is planted they will provide the basic things they need," Adu-Gyamfi informed the BWA. This includes not just furnishings and equipment, but helping to support a pastor for the new church for one year.
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Church Spotlight
Mountain Brook Baptist Church
(MBBC) in Birmingham, Alabama, in the United States, has as its motto, "Loving God, living with grace and generosity." As such, it is fully engaged in mission and has committed to providing food assistance to those who experience hunger, particularly to students and those who need shelter.
Monetary and food donations are offered on a regular basis through Cooks On A Mission, a group of Mountain Brook Baptist members. The congregation provides weekly bags of food, as well as hygiene kits, coats and shoes, to more than 20 children at Helena Intermediate School. Lunch or breakfast is offered three days per month to General Education Development students of M-Power Ministries.
Dinner is provided once per month to the Children's Hospital Pediatric Oncology Parent Support Group while side dishes are donated to the UAB Hospital Thanksgiving Feast for families with infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Persons rescued from human trafficking and who are residents of the WellHouse Shelter receive meal assistance, while dinner or breakfast is sometimes served at First Light Shelter.
Assistance is given in other areas, as well. "Every other week, Mountain Brook Baptist sends volunteers at Grantswood K-2 School to help with reading," the church said. "This is an opportunity to give students who are struggling with reading some one-on-one instruction."
The church provides funds for the purchase of Windows-based tablets for M-Power Ministries students in the Ready to Work Program "to help them become employable."
MBBC, a Baptist World Alliance Global Impact Church, sponsors mission trips. Among the more recent was that of students to Cape Town, South Africa, in July, as part of a partnership with Living Hope, a ministry primarily aimed at "those living in informal settlements commonly referred to as townships."
The commitment to mission is grounded in an understanding of what the mandate of Christ is. "At Mountain Brook Baptist Church we partner with strategic mission organizations [that] are seeking to make Jesus Christ known in word and deed locally, internationally and to the very ends of the Earth."
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In Memoriam
Lien Hwa Chow, former president of the Asia Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary (ABGTS), died on August 6, in Taiwan. He was 96 years old.
Chow was one of the leading Baptist theologians and theological educators on the Asian continent, serving in academia for much of his adult life.
He was professor at Taiwan Baptist Theological Seminary from 1954-1985 and president of ABGTS, a consortium of nine seminaries in eight countries, from 1995-2004.
He pastored Grace Baptist Church in Taipei, Taiwan's capital, between 1954 and 1985.
Chow was a longstanding member of the Baptist World Alliance General Council and served on the BWA Commission on Religious Liberty and Human Rights and the Commission on Doctrine and Interchurch Cooperation.
Born in Shanghai, China, he was the author of more than 50 books, mostly in Chinese. He was a translator of the
Today's Chinese Version of the Bible, was chair and translator of both the
Revision of Union Version and the
Inter-Confessional (Catholic and Protestant) Bible, and chief editor and author of the
Chinese Bible Commentary series.
Chow was chair of the Board of Directors of Tunghai University, the first private and the second oldest university in Taiwan, on three occasions in the 1950s, 60s and 90s; chair of the Board of Directors for World Vision Taiwan between 1990 and 2004; and was a member of the Board of Directors of World Vision International from 1992-2003, being the chair of its auditing committee between 2000 and 2003.
He was a longtime chaplain to Chiang Kai-shek, former leader of Taiwan, and his family.
Chow held degrees from the University of Shanghai in China, and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the United States; was a visiting scholar at Princeton Theological Seminary in the US, and at Regents Park College of Oxford University in the United Kingdom; and was conferred with honorary doctorates by Samford University and Mercer University, both in the US.
He was predeceased by his wife, Marie Yuan, in 2009. He leaves sons, Joel, John and Joshua.
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Desmond Hoffmeister, former general secretary of the Baptist Convention of South Africa (BCSA), died on August 20, at 56 years old.
At the time of his passing, he was pastor of Granada Hills Baptist Church in California in the United States, and served five years as executive minister for American Baptist Churches of the Rocky Mountains.
In 1989, Hoffmeister led a protest walkout during the Annual Assembly of the Baptist Union of Southern Africa, which was being held in a military barracks. He joined the BCSA that same year, becoming its general secretary in 1994 and serving until 1999.
He pastored the Ennerdale Baptist Church in a black township in Johannesburg during which time he became involved in the anti-apartheid struggle and in peacemaking initiatives. In 1998, he started Bethany Baptist Church, the first black-led inner-city Baptist church in Johannesburg, which includes members from South Africa and other African countries.
As BCSA general secretary, Hoffmeister led the group's churches to develop initiatives in economic and community development as well as theological education. He played a pivotal role in the reconciliation process between black and white South African Baptists, calling for a historical reckoning of the white group's complicity in apartheid before true reconciliation could occur. He participated in the South African Church Leaders Forum and was a founding member of the National Religious Leaders Forum.
Upon moving to the US in 1999, Hoffmeister became the Drexler Scholar-in-Residence at the American Baptist Seminary of the West and was appointed a NEW LIFE missionary by National Ministries of the American Baptist Churches USA. He was called as pastor of Granada Hills Baptist Church in 2009.
Hoffmesiter was involved with the Baptist World Alliance in a number of capacities, including as a member of the General Council, the Executive Committee, the Baptist World Aid Committee, the Resolutions Committee, the Congress Program Committee and the Membership Committee; as well as vice chair of the Commission on Church Leadership and member of the Commission on Baptists Against Racism.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, he held degrees and diplomas from the Baptist Theological College of Southern Africa and the American Baptist Seminary of the West.
Funeral service was held September 2 at First Presbyterian Church of Granada Hills.
He leaves wife, Beverley; and children, Sherwyn, Candice and Carmen.
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Ursula Geldbach, a medical doctor with a commitment to social medicine, died on August 18, in Marburg, Germany, at 78 years old.
Geldbach and her husband, Erich, a theologian and church historian, have had longstanding involvement with the Baptist World Alliance.
She was a member of the BWA Commission on Christian Ethics and the Baptist World Aid Committee, while he served on various other committees and commissions of the BWA.
A former head of Bergsträßer District Health Office, she was noted for her collegial leadership and for going beyond her administrative duties, getting close to the people her office served, including those in more remote locations.
Geldbach studied medicine in Marburg and Erlangen, and became involved in social medical services in 1972. Beginning in 1985, she worked as health department head for the provincial government in Darmstadt until her retirement in 1998.
She leaves husband, Erich, and sons, Jan and Jorn.
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Congratulations
To
Edgar Palacios, former BWA commission member and 2012 recipient of the Denton and Janice Lotz Human Rights Award, on being appointed as El Salvador ambassador to Canada
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Movements and changes
North America
Samuel Tolbert, pastor, Greater St. Mary Missionary Baptist Church in Louisiana in the United States and president of the National Baptist Convention of America, elected president of the North America Baptist Fellowship (NABF), succeeding Jim Hill; and Elijah
Brown, executive vice president of the 21st Century Wilberforce Initiative, elected BWA regional secretary for North America and general secretary of the NABF, succeeding
George Bullard.
Africa
Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, president, Ghana Baptist Convention and a vice president of the Baptist World Alliance, elected president of the All Africa Baptist Fellowship, succeeding Michael Okwakol of Uganda.
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Thanks
For gift given to BWA and BWAid from the Estate of Lena Ethel Guest, former professor at North Greenville University in
South Carolina in the United States and past missionary to Nigeria
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BWA NEWS
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UPCOMING EVENTS
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Downloads
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*New BWA Publications*
Engaging the Jubilee
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Jesus Christ, the Door: The Official Report of the Twenty-first Baptist World Congress
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BWAID
The following are disbursements by Baptist World Aid during the month of August. Unless otherwise stated, amounts are in United States currency.
Africa
Ethiopia
Empowering Single Women through Skill Training -10,000.00
Zimbabwe
Poultry Project for Widows and Orphans - 6,000.00
Asia
Nepal
Earthquake Relief -31,618.47
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About the Baptist World Alliance
The Baptist World Alliance, founded in 1905, is a fellowship of 235 conventions and unions in 122 countries and territories comprising 40 million members in 177,000 churches. Its priorities are nurturing the passion for mission and evangelism; promoting worship, fellowship and unity; responding to people in need; defending human rights and justice; and advancing relevant theological reflection.
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