Pastors serving on the
frontlines need help from North Carolina Baptists.
“We are plan A and there is
no plan B,” said Mike Sowers, senior consultant in the Baptist State
Convention’s (BSC) Office of Great Commission Partnerships (GCP).
Sowers shared an update Nov.
9 with BSC messengers to the annual meeting.
There are 6.2 billion people
in the world without a personal relationship with Christ. North Carolina
measures 5.6 million lost.
Sowers credited each person
with the problem. The GCP office works with Metro New York Baptist Association
(MNYBA), Boston, Toronto, and starting in 2011, Moldova. N.C. Baptist leaders
trekked to New York earlier this year to begin to cast a vision for the
partnership between BSC and MNYBA.
More than 400 volunteers
have gone to help existing ministries and to develop technological resources.
Proceeds from the sale of Ethnicity, a book published in New York, will go
towards church planting in New York. The book profiles 82 of New York’s most
unreached people groups. In North America, there are 258 million lost people.
Sowers said that in Boston
there are 4.5 million residents and less than 2.5 percent know Jesus as Savior.
North Carolina plans to strengthen its ability to train, send and support
missionaries here and in each of its partnership areas. Focusing on metro
Toronto narrows the partnership with Canada quite considerably. But Sowers said
this will allow workers to focus on a target area.
To help churches, Sowers
said the office is developing global impact networks. “For many small churches
they can’t do this alone,” Sowers said.
Another key is “equipping
our young leaders,” he said. “The eternity of 6.2 billion people is at stake.”