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Over the past couple of years, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention has crafted and implemented a new vision that defines three strategic pathways on which our churches accomplish the Great Commission. The second pathway consists of networking leaders with relationships and partnerships.
It’s a critical piece of the vision. Without healthy leaders, churches risk floating in no particular direction or failing altogether. While answering God’s call to lead can be rewarding like nothing else, the unique difficulties and demands that come with it are often the biggest threats to putting pastors on tilt. They need networks of peers to relate to, share ideas with, and lean on.
This second pillar came to mind in early May while reporting on the SBTC’s Reach Europe vision trip that included pastors and leaders from 21 churches and three associations. Members of that group visited at least one of seven cities across Europe identified by the International Mission Board as having a great need for partnership with SBTC churches.
Most of those pastors and leaders arrived knowing they were visiting one of the most lost continents on the planet. As the trip wound down, however, many admitted they learned something nearly as heartbreaking—that Europe’s churches are led by faithful missionaries, planters, and pastors who are grinding for the gospel in isolation but with a fraction of the resources and support as their American counterparts.
Pipelines of young leaders being trained to reach their generation and guide the church into the future? They don’t exist here. These local pastors often work for years before seeing even one person come to Christ, and theologically sound seminaries are in incredibly short supply.
A stable of experienced mentors to model faithfulness and pass on practical wisdom? There are only a few, including IMB personnel who are spread thin covering multiple countries as part of their assignments.
Networks of like-minded pastors to offer their shoulders and support when the rigors of ministry press in hard? Not here. These pastors exercise their calling in environments hostile to the gospel and anyone proclaiming it.
That’s the picture painted by Trey Shaw, the IMB’s East Europe cluster trainer and a native Texan who has served in Hungary for 20 years. Speaking with part of the SBTC vision team one morning at an IMB ministry center in Budapest, he made an impassioned plea to those to whom God has entrusted much in Texas.
“You need to open your eyes to the phenomenal spiritual wealth that you live in,” Shaw said. “What you take for granted in terms of spiritual heritage, opportunities—you can bring that here. The spiritual wealth that you have and that you can share with the churches here? That is where we see the needle start moving in Europe—when these local churches in Europe start to see their brothers and sisters from across the ocean come in and say, ‘You know what? We can help you.’
“You have more to give than they can actually take in or fathom. What they don’t have is relationships.”
Reach Europe offers SBTC churches an incredible opportunity to literally change the world. In many of the cities visited on the vision tour, your church’s help in leading even one person coming to faith would provide an energy and an encouragement not often felt here. Imagine what God might do with just one …
At the same time, you may find that God connects you to a pastor or church leader who needs something also in short supply in this beautiful, yet dark, place.
A friend.
