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Missions Policy
Our Missions Covenant
We, the members of Bethany Baptist Church, recognize that God, Creator of
all, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, clearly revealed in Scripture His plan
to disciple all peoples. We call His plan missions. Missions is His own doing,
originating with God Himself. It is a mandate to which we are bound by the Lord.
It is our desire and purpose to be faithful. God's plan to disciple the nations
is clearly spoken of in the Bible. His supreme desire is to see His purpose
fulfilled, to gather quickly the redeemed from every kindred, tribe, tongue,
people and nation. These verses are irrefutable evidence of the primacy of
missions for our local congregation as it was for Israel and for the early
church.
We believe each Christian is personally accountable for carrying out God's
purpose. None can ignore the great commission. Each is to grow continually in
world awareness, discovering the means and methods of using talent, time and
treasure to disciple the nations.
We also commit ourselves to the truth that Bethany Baptist Church is
corporately responsible to carry out God's purpose among the nations. Our
missionary program is an appropriate vehicle for each member's personal
involvement.
We, therefore, by God's grace commit ourselves to work diligently and
sacrificially for the fulfillment of God's revealed plan for making disciples of
all nations.
Our Affiliation
Bethany Baptist Church is affiliated with a fellowship of churches,
Converge
Worldwide also known as the Baptist General Conference. Bound by a common
commitment to missions, we have voluntarily associated with the Baptist General
Conference to accomplish by united effort that which would be impossible by our
own individual effort. We, therefore, make the Conference's national and
worldwide ministries the primary object of our missionary involvement, educating
members to understand and appreciate the Conference's missionary programs and
mobilizing our resources for its support.
Our Sphere of Involvement
Because we believe the field is the world, our responsibility for evangelism
begins where we live and extends to the whole world:
- Jerusalem - All people from our church's immediate area.
- Judea - All those peoples in the greater area of our district and
national conferences.
- Samaria - ethnic and other cultural groups in our community and nation.
- Uttermost part of the earth - the multitude of peoples, tribes and
nations beyond our own country.
Finances
In order to insure a high return on the investment of missionary dollars,
Bethany Baptist Church adopts these guidelines:
- First priority is the Bethany Baptist members. Second priority is the
Baptist General Conference ministries. Final priority is other works and
evangelical ministries.
- The budget will be proposed each year by the mission board and presented
to the church for approval at the annual meeting. The budget will be
established from the past year's record of giving and an agreed upon faith
goal that is above and beyond.
- Missionaries receiving support will serve under mission agencies that
are members of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (EFMA) or
Interdenominational Foreign Missions Association (IFMA) and be part of the
Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA).
- Make the raising of the mission's budget the most important feature of
our missionary giving, but allow for special project offerings.
- Raise new money when adding new missionaries.
Personnel
In order to mobilize our church and denomination' s resources effectively, we
will seek to practice these procedures:
- Motivate and prepare our church members for personal participation in
local, national and foreign missionary service.
- Recruit adequately trained and gifted persons from our congregation for
missionary service, encouraging them to apply to Baptist General
Conference's global church planting, global church enrichment or district
board, but recognizing their particular gifts may lead them to work with
other agencies in specialized ministries or in countries in which our
fellowship is not engaged.
- Aim to send one missionary to a harvest field from Bethany Baptist
Church for every 30 families on the membership rolls.
- Personalize church-missionary relationships by keeping in touch with the
missionaries and their ministries.
- Encourage the church to send the pastor(s) of Bethany Baptist Church to
take a sabbatical leave each seventh year of his ministry for the purpose of
visiting a mission field. His objective should be to study in depth the work
in that field. The field to be visited is to be determined through
consultation with the Conference's global church planting or global church
enrichment boards.
Support of the short-term (non-career) missionaries will be subject to the
following requirements:
- Candidate should be a member of Bethany Baptist Church. The mission
board, through personal interviews, can make exceptions for non- members.
- Candidate must be currently involved faithfully in the ministry of
Bethany Baptist Church unless the individual has been away at college.
- Candidate must have a short-term agreement from a recognized,
evangelical mission board.
- A letter from the mission board requesting support must be received
detailing short-term missions assignment and total support needed.
- Personal interview with mission board.
- Individual and/or team should appear before church body prior to and
after short-term experience.
Our Mission Agency Ties
To understand our relationship with and responsibilities to our
special-interest missionaries and their sending boards, we will seek to apply
these guidelines:
- Request each agency to send us a statement of its purposes and programs,
support policies, retirement plans and doctrinal position.
- Leave the difficult and time-consuming details of candidate examination,
appointment, designation and financial support to the mission board in which
we have firm confidence.
- Request the boards to keep us advised of field developments and changes
in the status of those missionaries we support.
- Request that the boards instruct their missionaries to send us regular
prayer information, including audio-visual communiqués.
Our Mission Board
To provide active and efficient direction to the mission program at Bethany
Baptist Church. Our mission board will carry out the following:
- Keep the church well informed on the extent and progress of its present
mission commitments.
- Provide mission education, in close cooperation with the Christian
Education Board, for the entire church fellowship, including Sunday School.
- Encourage all Christians in our influence, especially young people, to
seek the Holy Spirit's guidance for active missionary service.
- Counsel prospects about types of missionary service for which they are
suited and recommend them to the BGC global church planting or enrichment
mission boards or other evangelical agencies.
- Maintain updated files on each missionary so his or her needs,
activities and furlough schedules are available.
- Prepare the faith promise mission budget proposal and present it to the
church for adoption at the annual meeting.
- Plan and execute a church missions program, an annual or semi-annual
special mission emphasis and an attractive updated missions display or
bulletin board.
- Recommend approval of any additional workers being considered as our
special interest missionaries.
- Recommend to the church for approval non-budgeted special missionary
projects or ministry appeals.
- Provide church families with prayer cards, letters or periodicals that
will aid them in their prayer time for our missionaries.
- Cooperate with the church librarian in maintaining a mission section in
the church library.
Our Commitment to Prayer
To sustain an effective congregation-wide ministry to support missions, we
will commit ourselves to the discipline of these guidelines:
- Encourage our members to pray daily for world evangelization, focusing
on our church's mission program.
- Make available to our families and individuals prayer cards, letters,
periodicals etc., for their prayer time.
- Challenge our church families to pray for missionaries regularly at
their family devotions.
- Pray weekly for world evangelization in our morning worship, Sunday
School classes, prayer groups and Bible study fellowship.
- Have in readiness a prayer support chain of individuals and groups that
can be activated in minutes to intercede for emergency needs and situations.
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