Author: Russell Lightner

‘Too close not to care’

Reach Puerto Rico is emblematic of the SBTC’s goal of mobilizing churches through strategic partnerships

Senior Pastor Donald Schmidt can offer plenty of reasons he is leading Lewisville’s Lakeland Baptist Church to get involved in the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Reach Puerto Rico initiative.

Seven out of 10 of the island’s 3.5 million residents identify as Catholics, underscoring the need for most Puerto Ricans to hear the true gospel of Jesus Christ. There is only one Southern Baptist church for every 47,000 residents—so the need to plant new congregations in this U.S. territory is urgent. Puerto Rico, Schmidt adds, offers an easy first missions step for church members who are not quite ready to travel across the globe.

But there’s another reason Puerto Rico is so compelling to Lakeland Baptist Church.

“Puerto Rico is too close not to care,” Schmidt said. “The people of Puerto Rico need the gospel, and it’s very affordable and accessible for us to play a small part in what God is doing there.”

“Puerto Rico is too close not to care. The people of Puerto Rico need the gospel, and it’s very affordable and accessible for us to play a small part in what God is doing there.”

—Donald Schmidt Tweet

In November 2022, the SBTC executive board (of which Schmidt is a member) voted unanimously to enter into a multiyear partnership with the Convention of Southern Baptist Churches of Puerto Rico. The mission there, as it is with all of the SBTC’s strategic partnerships, is to offer resources, tools, and training to strengthen existing churches while also planting new ones. It’s a mission that’s happening through the SBTC’s partnership with the Nevada Baptist Convention and also through a newly developed partnership with the International Mission Board in cities across Europe.

Lakeland will head to Puerto Rico this summer with plans to work with Iglesia Bautista Sin Paredes de Guayama and its pastor, Luis Soto. Lakeland members plan to replicate activities they already do in their own backyard in Lewisville—sharing the gospel via door-to-door outreach and making the name of Jesus known through sports activities and service projects.

It’s just one more way Lakeland is being faithful to Jesus by fulfilling the Great Commission.

“Above all, our church desires to be who Jesus commands us to be and to do what Jesus commands us to do,” Schmidt said. “My prayer to God is that He will use our efforts in Puerto Rico to spread the gospel, bring many people to salvation, connect the unchurched with Pastor Luis’s congregation, and encourage our church to live more faithfully on mission.”

From ‘Aha!’ to ‘Amen!’

East Texas church finds its footing through Regenesis revitalization process

When John-Daniel Cutler was called to pastor Emmanuel Baptist Church in 2021, the church began to experience growth after a season of decline. With that growth came new challenges, but all things considered, the church was trending up.

Yet something still didn’t feel quite right to Cutler and other church leaders.

“I felt like God was clearly moving,” Cutler said, “but we were without clear direction and purpose as a body.”

While attending a dinner during the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Annual Meeting in 2022, Cutler first heard about a revitalization process the convention had introduced earlier in the year called Regenesis. It seemed to offer help Cutler felt Emmanuel needed to “fully embrace what God had for us.”

Several years ago, a Lifeway Research study revealed that more than 80% of Southern Baptist churches are plateaued or in decline. Regenesis aims to reverse that trend, helping churches identify their unique purpose and determine their God-given vision to multiply disciples of Jesus.

“I felt like God was clearly moving, but we were without clear direction and purpose as a body.”

—John-Daniel Cutler Tweet

So far in 2025, 61 churches have completed Regenesis cohorts, which meet over a series of months, while another 92 churches representing 191 church leaders have attended Regenesis One-Day events. The process is also being piloted in Nevada and Puerto Rico, where the SBTC is engaged in strategic partnerships.

Emmanuel began its Regenesis journey in 2023 with a diverse leadership team of three men and three women from the church representing relatively new members and others who had been there more than 40 years.

“Perhaps the greatest ‘aha’ moment was simply the realization that we had no intentional process for replicating disciples who would make disciples,” Cutler said. “We were doing many wonderful things but had never truly considered if they were helping or harming our disciple-making process.”

Cutler said the Emmanuel team also identified “an unhealthy membership process” that led it to design a new members class to better help them understand what it means to be a church member. Sixty percent of the church’s current membership has completed the class, as well as visitors who decide to join the church.

The renewed focus on purpose has started to spread to other ministries of the church, Cutler said, making them more effective at accomplishing the Great Commission.

“As we continue walking through the lessons and tools we received through Regenesis,” Cutler said, “we are excited about what God is continuing to do and will do through us to reach our community with the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Grateful to be rich, willing to share the wealth

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.

Interested in impacting Europe with the gospel the SBTC’s Reach Europe initiative?

A cut above

After retiring from the oil industry, Bellville man picked up a chainsaw and went to work for SBTC Disaster Relief

When Mike Phillips retired from a three-decade career in the oil industry, he faced the challenge of what to do next. Southern Baptists of Texas Disaster Relief provided the answer.

“I didn’t want to sit around. I always wanted to give back,” Phillips said.

He heard about SBTC DR even before retirement, when his Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Bellville told the class about his experience with disaster relief.

“We were tithing to the Cooperative Program through the SBTC, so we chose to be trained with SBTC DR,” Phillips said.

After a short retirement vacation, he got the call to serve in May 2013. An EF5 tornado had devastated Moore, Okla., and SBTC DR volunteers were needed.

Phillips hesitated. Was he ready? Did he know enough?

A family member encouraged him: “You’ve been looking at doing something like this for 15 years. Go.”

“I never looked back,” Phillips said.

The experience was transformative. He served among 90 volunteers from across the nation, including SBTC DR crews. “Chaplaincy, feeding, recovery, chainsaw. … We all had a common reason to be there helping people, spreading the Word, planting seeds.”

“I had a desk job in my career. My little world had nothing to do with people who were really hurting. At Moore and with DR, I was thrust out. It was something bigger than self. I loved it.”

—Mike Phillips Tweet

Seven children died when the tornado struck an elementary school in Moore. One of the families Phillips helped had lost a child.

“I had a desk job in my career,” Phillips said. “My little world had nothing to do with people who were really hurting. At Moore and with DR, I was thrust out. It was something bigger than self. I loved it.”

Phillips estimates he has deployed more than 60 times over the last dozen years, most recently to Brownsville in April 2025 to assist flood survivors. While there, he was a site director for a multi-state Southern Baptist DR team in addition to overseeing the SBTC DR recovery trailer maintained by First Baptist Bellville.

“At Brownsville, we had teams engaged in feeding, chaplaincy, assessing, shower and laundry, and mud-out and recovery,” Phillips said. He worked in the field each day in addition to his administrative duties. “Everybody knew what to do. They made it easy,” he said.

Phillips often does chainsaw work on deployment and will be leading a specialized chainsaw training offered by SBTC DR for its crews.

“I am right where the Lord wants me,” Phillips said. “We all want to understand God’s will. I am doing what I think is the Lord’s work.”

Strength in numbers

SBTC networks offer safe havens where people from all walks of life connect around a common purpose

A couple of months ago, a group of about 10 pastors gathered to have lunch in North Texas. They shared a meal, laughed, and encouraged one another—not exactly front-page news for most.

But for this group, and pastors across Texas, the gathering was significant. Why? Because they came away refreshed, and in this calling, that can mean everything.

These men were all members of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Young Pastors Network, a collective of pastors age 40 or younger. YPN members are placed into cohorts and meet several times per year, including regionally, at the SBTC’s Empower Conference each winter, and during the SBTC Annual Meeting in the fall. The cohorts give young pastors an outlet to discuss current issues related to ministry, speak into one another’s lives, and hold each other accountable.

“What has made this network thrive is deep brotherhood and connections,” Spencer Plumlee, who serves as a consultant to the YPN, told the SBTC executive board last year.

Networks are so valuable to the SBTC, it has identified them as one of its three main strategic pathways by which its mission is accomplished. Its number of networks is growing and offers groups for student and collegiate ministers, women’s and children’s ministry leaders, ethnic pastors, pastor wives, executive pastors and administrators, and more.

“Over the past several years, I’ve developed some truly dear friendships. I’m never at a loss for brothers I can call when I need someone—and I have."

—Caleb Fleming Tweet

Caleb Fleming, senior pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Sherman, said the YPN has introduced him to many meaningful ministry relationships. He said he got connected with the group several years ago after meeting with Plumlee, who cast a vision for the network prior to its formation.

Fleming said he was sold on the value of the network immediately and has served on its leadership team since it began.

“For me, it’s been the fellowship,” Fleming said. “Over the past several years, I’ve developed some truly dear friendships. I’m never at a loss for brothers I can call when I need someone—and I have.

“What’s beautiful is that it goes both ways,” he added. “I’ve also been on the receiving end of those calls from brothers who were hurting and struggling. I’ve had the opportunity to offer encouragement, counsel, and prayer to men who’ve become like a brother to me.”

Change agent

Raul Rodriguez used to believe there was no hope—until a children’s Bible lesson convinced him otherwise

It was a simple children’s Bible lesson that hit Raul Rodriguez with a truth that was as promising—and as incomprehensible—as anything he’d ever heard.

Rodriguez sat in silence as he listened to a pastor read 2 Corinthians 5:17 during a Backyard Bible Club lesson attended by his children in 2009: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

For a man as battle-weary as Rodriguez, it didn’t seem possible. He’d battled a fierce drug and alcohol addiction for years that, at one point, left him separated from his wife and children. A fog of depression gripped him in an overbearing, inescapable fist, leaving him feeling suffocated and hopeless for more years than he could remember.

Change didn’t seem possible.

Or did it?

“I hated the fact that I couldn’t change. The people that I loved the most were my wife and my kids, and not even their love could change me,” Rodriguez recalled. “I had tried to change so many times, but when I heard that [verse], I said, ‘God, if you can change me—if you really can change people—please change me.’ And that day I gave my life to Christ.”

"I said, ‘God, if you can change me— if you really can change people—please change me.’ And that day I gave my life to Christ.”

—Raul Rodriguez Tweet

He soon began to experience victory over his addictions and healing in his relationships. With his lungs full of the fresh air of new life and wanting that for others, he almost immediately began telling anyone who would listen about Jesus. He eventually became an ordained minister and evangelist.

Rodriguez, a member of Sunnyvale First Baptist Church, said his faith has been deeply impacted by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s en Español ministry. This past February, Rodriguez led an evangelism workshop at Apoderados, a Spanish language event held in conjunction with the SBTC’s evangelism-focused Empower Conference each year.

Hombres de Impacto—a growing SBTC en Español men’s event that offers worship, fellowship, and equipping—has been particularly impactful on his life, he said. He attended his first one in 2010 and hasn’t missed one since.

“The room was full of like 500 men fully living for and worshiping Christ,” he said. “I had never seen that. I was used to men wanting to be tough and macho, but nothing like this. But this is what we were created for—to take care of our families and to be men who serve God.”

Five minutes with Samantha Calimbahin

A true pastor’s kid, Samantha Calimbahin got looped into ministry early. At age 12, she began serving on the worship team at Caprock Church in Arlington, where she played piano and guitar while singing backup vocals. By age 20, she assumed the role of worship leader and continues to lead Caprock’s music ministry. Calimbahin has a degree in journalism with a music minor. In addition to leading worship at Caprock, she works in marketing for a large healthcare provider. She also releases and performs her own music.

What’s one victory in Caprock’s worship ministry you have experienced recently?

One thing I’d consider a success is the stability of our current team. Having been in this ministry since age 12, I’ve seen many musicians and worship leaders come and go for various reasons. Our current band, though, has been the same four people for several years now. It’s a stability we haven’t really experienced before, and it’s a blessing. In addition to me, our team consists of a pianist, a guitarist, and a drummer who’ve all been faithful, available, and understanding of the purpose behind our performance.

What’s one challenge you are facing?

Being a small church with a small praise team, we don’t have the same resources you may find at larger churches. We don’t have in-ear monitors, backing tracks, or fancy lights. We don’t even have a bass player. But we have a big heart for worshiping the Lord! And that’s what matters most.

What’s one thing you are praying will happen in your ministry over the coming year?

While I’m grateful for the stability of our team, I still hope we’ll be able to grow. I’d love to add some backup vocalists, especially people I can trust to take over if I get sick or go out of town. And, of course, we’d love a good bass player. I’d also like to see our team continue to build on our current talents and “play skillfully,” as Psalm 33 says. Even though I’ve been doing this since I was a kid, I still feel like I have a lot to learn.

What’s one lesson you’ve learned to this point of your life and ministry you know you’ll never forget?

You’re not that big of a deal [laughs]. It’s true. Church musicians are probably among the most susceptible to developing an ego. When you’re up there playing music on a stage, it’s easy to fall into that feeling like you’re some kind of rock star. Or even feeling like you’re so anointed and good at ushering the Holy Spirit. Trust me, it’s not cute. It’s a dangerous way of thinking that can lead to a person’s downfall very quickly. I have to constantly remind myself that I’m only up here by the grace of God—that I have an audience of one.

How can SBTC churches be praying for you and your ministry?

Please pray for the continued faithfulness of our current team, that we grow both musically and spiritually. If it’s God’s will, please pray we can add more members who are not just talented but also committed and understand what worship is all about. Please also pray for financial provision to improve our equipment, media, and other resources needed to enhance our ministry.

In Texas and around the world

In November 2023, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention launched a new mission focus—to mobilize churches to multiply disciple-making movements in Texas and around the world. You have heard a lot about how this will play out in Texas, but I want to share with you where it goes beyond our state.

A few weeks ago, I boarded a plane with nearly 40 pastors and missions leaders from across Texas to explore opportunities for SBTC churches with the International Mission Board as part of our Reach Europe initiative. It was an incredible trip filled with many laughs, eye-opening moments, and a heavy burden for the European people. Those pastors and church leaders spread out in strategic cities across Europe’s western, eastern, and Mediterranean clusters, meeting with missionaries and dreaming about how their churches can help advance the gospel.

While these leaders were in one strategic city for several days, I visited sites in all three clusters. It was a whirlwind trip, but with each stop, I fell in love with the people we met. Europe is incredibly lost and in desperate need of the gospel. There are 820 million people in Europe, and missionaries there tell us only 1.1% are evangelical Christians. That makes it not only one of the least engaged places in the world, but one of the most strategic. Europe is one of the most influential continents on the planet, a place where nearly every people group and every language in the world is represented. The churches of the SBTC have a great opportunity to team up with IMB missionaries on the field to decrease lostness.

If you are in an SBTC church, I want to strongly encourage you to consider partnering through our Reach Europe initiative. We will be working in several cities to help make a significant difference. These people need the gospel, and our IMB missionaries need help. Would you consider being a church on mission and helping us reach Europe together? Would you consider helping these missionaries as they seek to fulfill the calling of God on their lives? No church is too big or small to engage with Reach Europe. We have opportunities for all.

This initiative will be a long and in-depth strategy. We want to mobilize churches to help reach those incredible-but-lost people. If you are interested in your church engaging and helping take the gospel to Europe, you can contact our missions mobilization associate, Colin Rayburn, by email at crayburn@sbtexas.com. He can get you connected to one of these opportunities.

Together, we can make a difference. Together, we can see the gospel advance across Europe. Together, we can be on mission, helping fulfill the Great Commission. Let’s do this! I love you and am honored to serve you.

Interested in impacted Europe with the gospel through the SBTC’s Reach Europe initiative?

Majoring in missions

Student’s passion to share Jesus is changing eternities among foreign-born classmates on college campus

Darius Kim was hopeless and headed for an eternity separated from God growing up in a Buddhist household before Jesus saved him as a teenager and gave him a mission—as Paul writes in Acts 20:24, “to testify of God’s grace.”

“I am passionate about sharing my faith because Jesus saved my life,” Kim said. “He called me according to His will to declare the good news of God’s grace to those who are living in darkness. … There is nothing I would rather do with my life than serve and obey Him.”

Kim, 22, is carrying out his mission on a college campus in one of the nation’s largest cities inside the boundaries of one of its most diverse states. Texas is home to 420 people groups that speak more than 300 languages.

That diversity is reflected at the state’s institutions of higher education. According to figures cited by the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s People Groups ministry, nearly 10% of the more than 1 million international students in the U.S. are in the Lone Star State.

It’s a reality that creates an exciting opportunity for Christian students like Kim who come into direct contact with foreign-born classmates with backgrounds including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, and Sikhism.

“The most rewarding part of the task is seeing the multiplication of the kingdom. When people come to Christ, I get to see them reach their own networks through sharing the gospel and discipling them.”

—Darius Kim Tweet

Last year, Kim attended an SBTC People Groups training at Houston’s First Baptist Church. People Groups trainings, which are funded through cooperative giving efforts such as the Reach Texas State Missions Offering, equip believers with tools and training to connect, share the gospel with, and disciple foreign-born people.

Kim, a member of New Life Fellowship in Houston, uses those tools to help those he reaches grow in their faith. In one instance, he led a student from Iran to Christ and discipled him. The man, in turn, led a fellow Iranian to faith, and both are now reaching other Iranians.

“The most rewarding part of the task is seeing the multiplication of the kingdom,” Kim said. “When people come to Christ, I get to see them reach their own networks through sharing the gospel and discipling them. As they continue to do so, I get to hear stories of people I’ve never met coming to Christ and discipling others. It is amazing to see how the simplicity of biblical ministry multiplies for kingdom growth.”

‘Man, we can do something’

When SBTC pastors and church leaders visited Europe in May, they found a continent rich in Christian history and shockingly far from Christ

When many Christians imagine unreached people groups, they envision dense jungles and dusty trails. They see villages full of sun-baked huts with thatched roofs housing exotic natives in some of the most remote, difficult-to-reach places on the planet.

In Europe, those unreached people aren’t hidden and they aren’t hard to reach. There’s 820 million of them, and almost none of them know Jesus.

Only 1.1% of Europe’s residents are evangelical. There is no single population segment that is 2% reached with the gospel. By the International Mission Board’s standards, that makes all of Europe an unreached people group. It’s the most lost continent on the planet.

In early May, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention led 39 pastors and church leaders on a vision trip as it ramps up its Reach Europe initiative. The effort aims to reverse the trend of staggering lostness by creating opportunities for SBTC churches to develop missional partnerships with European churches and ministries. The vision team was divided into groups that were then dispatched to one of seven cities where the SBTC is considering partnerships: Athens, Greece; Bucharest, Romania; Budapest, Hungary; Copenhagen, Denmark; Leeds, England; Nantes, France; and Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The following chronicles part of what the SBTC teams saw, what they learned, and what’s next.

‘Inoculated to the gospel’

Copenhagen has a rich Christian heritage. Statues and stone carvings dot the city landscape, depicting notable figures and moments in the country’s faith history. The Marble Church, an iconic landmark with its green-patinaed copper dome, greets visitors and passers-by with a bold proclamation delivered in gold letters across its facade: “The Word of the Lord will be eternal.” Denmark’s flag, the Dannebrog—a red banner adorned with an off-center white cross—is a tribute to three values the country’s founders held dear: bravery, strength, and Christianity.

Spiritually speaking, all that pomp is not indicative of the modern circumstance: an estimated 95% of Denmark’s 6 million residents—and likely more—do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Cultural Christianity reigns here, sustained by a society soaked in secularism, relativism, and the country’s faith-based history. Because of that history, many Danes conflate their national identity with religion. Put another way, many believe that to be Danish is to be inherently Christian—even without having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Statistics reveal about 75% of Danes belong to the state-affiliated Church of Denmark, which performs infant baptisms. Sixty-eight percent of those people, however, say they are atheists. Fewer than one in 40 attend church.

Prominent Danish voices once heralded the one true gospel of Jesus in this country. These days, they sing a different refrain: “This is a society that is doing well without God,” according to Christian Roth, who, along with his wife, Stephanie, serves as the IMB’s lone missionary unit not only in Denmark, but also in Sweden—representing a total of about 17 million people.

“This is a very lost place,” said Roth, who pastors New Song Church in Copenhagen. “It’s a part of Europe surrounded by Christianity but inoculated to the gospel.”

“This is a very lost place. It’s a part of Europe surrounded by Christianity but inoculated to the gospel.”

—Christian Roth Tweet

The degree of lostness in Denmark is on display in one of Copenhagen’s busiest centers. As SBTC pastors toured a section of the capital city on a drizzly Saturday, they walked through an area buzzing with locals, tourists, and vendors. An already noisy plaza stopped to take notice when a pack of demonstrators began parading down the street, blaring reggae music and holding up placards demanding the government legalize marijuana. Farther down the street, pride flags whipped in the breeze above several local businesses to show support for the LGBTQ community.

Cult activity is openly practiced and promoted. On this day, Scientologists had scattered out from their palatial four-story headquarters—which declares itself a “kirken,” or church—located nearby. Some were offering free literature in front of Copenhagen’s city hall. A few blocks away, a mustard yellow pop-up tent served as a hub where another group of Scientologists were offering to teach people how to manipulate their bodies to manifest positive energy. A banner above the tent offered a self-empowering message: “You CAN do something about it.”

New Song Church is preaching a much different message: Only Jesus can do something about it. The next day during regular Sunday morning services, the SBTC contingent heard Roth—playing guitar—join two other members in leading worship. “You have no rival. You have no equal,” they sang, “now and forever, God, you reign.” Roth later preached on 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 and talked about God’s plan for His church.

“The church is God’s only plan for bringing the world to salvation,” he said. “Jesus came to seek and save individuals who are lost, but the way He did it was by founding the church.”

The harvest in Denmark is indeed plentiful, but the workers are few—very few. Despite straining to plow very hard ground during their seven years in country, the Roths remain hopeful. They are praying for more long-term missionaries to join them on the mission field—a process they know would likely take years even if new trainees join the sending pipeline tomorrow. In the meantime, they’re praying for short-term partners from SBTC churches to catch the vision of what God can do through relational outreaches, marriage conferences and retreats, and evangelistic events such as vacation Bible school.

Roth noted many in Denmark’s younger generations are starting to question societal norms that have encouraged people to look anywhere but to God for answers to life’s toughest questions. While that’s a promising development, it comes with a sense of urgency in a city where Scientologists, Muslims, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are gaining a foothold.

“If it’s not the church and the gospel answering those questions,” he said, “someone else here will.”

‘If any state can do it, I think we can’

The same is true in Hungary, where Lamar Schubert, the IMB’s cluster leader for Eastern Europe, said there’s been an increased receptivity to the gospel over the past few years. Some of that can be attributed to the pandemic, he said, and some to the war in Ukraine that has destabilized the region.

As doubts and fears have risen in the public’s consciousness, missionaries who have transplanted their entire lives here are building relationships and telling people about the strength and hope found in Jesus.

Hungary is a post-communist country of 11 million people. The population, in one sense, is split between urban dwellers—5.5 million of which live in the capital city of Budapest—and the Roma, the country’s ethnic majority that has fanned out and settled in rural areas. The Roma people are descendants of the nomadic tribes of Romania tied together by the Hungarian language. Though they are harder to track for census purposes, it’s estimated there are 1.5 million Roma in Hungary. Most live in extreme poverty, with many repurposing garbage and discarded construction materials to build makeshift homes.

The challenges here are many. For older Hungarians, a gospel pointing to an absolute authority—Jesus—is anything but good news to those whose trust was broken by the lie of communism. The younger generations, like many across the world, are drawn to philosophy or disconnected from religion altogether. There’s also a heavy cultural Christianity fueled by the Catholic church, which baptizes babies, leaving many to believe they’ve done all they need to do to be right with God.

“This guy, these people, are desperate for help. Desperate. [For a pastor here] to know there’s a seasoned pastor in Texas who cares about him and who is coming here ... that’s just discipleship, man.”

—Trey Shaw Tweet

When local believers attempt to tell their fellow countrymen Jesus is the only way to being righteous in God’s sight, Schubert said, “They’re told it’s intolerant, that it’s insensitive, that it’s communist practice. That anybody who’s convinced that their way is the only way is narrow-minded, closed-minded, a simpleton, or worse, dangerous. That’s what believers here are up against.”

Though the strategic cities are incredibly diverse and unique, the opportunities that exist within them take on a familiar shape. As the vision trip swept east across Europe, one word was continually spoken by the missionaries and pastors in each location: relationships. That word was spoken in the context of evangelism, but also in the need many local pastors and believers have in countries where Christians are the vast minority and isolated.

Trey Shaw, the IMB’s East Europe cluster trainer, recently took a mission team from Oklahoma to meet with rural pastors in three European countries. The team visited a local pastor who told the story of reaching a family after working for years to spread the gospel in his area. He was excited to have reached multiple people in an environment where few come to Christ, but his joy turned to grief when the family later turned to a false gospel and led half the congregation away with them.

“That must have been awful,” Shaw said to the pastor.

“Yeah,” the pastor said. “Then we went back down to five people [in our church].”

“He’d been doing that—street evangelism, you name it—for 10 years,” Shaw said, choking back tears. “This is where you are. This guy, these people, are desperate for help. Desperate. [For a pastor here] to know there’s a seasoned pastor in Texas who cares about him and who is coming here … that’s just discipleship, man. That’s where we will see the needle move in Europe.

“I’m a Texan, and I see the sleeping giant,” Shaw added, “and I see this dark, dark continent, and I think, ‘Man, we can do something.’ If any state can do it, I think we can. God’s blessed us beyond anything we deserve, that’s for sure.”

1 in 20

SBTC Executive Director Nathan Lorick stood on Mars Hill and, as he has done before, marveled at the historic significance of the rocks under his feet. On this same hill, Paul proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“Acts 17,” Lorick said, standing on the smooth marble rock outcrop overlooking the city of Athens, Greece. “This is where it happened.”

Some 2,000 years ago, a grieved Paul looked down on the city after seeing rampant idol worship. Among those many idols, he even saw a monument to an unnamed God.

“Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you,” Paul said in Acts 17:24-25. “The God who made the world and everything in it—He is Lord of heaven and earth—does not live in shrines made by hands. Neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives everyone life and breath and all things.”

As vision tour participants visited church planters and surveyed Athens two millennia later, they saw one of the world’s most famous and historic cities modernized by time but possibly more spiritually lost than ever. Harley Walker, who serves the IMB in Athens, noted there are 5.5 million in the city. About 3 million of those live in the shadow of Mars Hill in houses or in hundreds upon hundreds of apartment buildings.

“You’d have to visit 20 of those apartment buildings before you’d find one saved person,” Walker said. “The soil is very, very, very hard here.”

“You’d have to visit 20 of those apartment buildings before you’d find one saved person. The soil is very, very, very hard here.”

—Harley Walker Tweet

One of the reasons that soil is so hard, Walker said, is because of the influence of the Greek Orthodox church, which also performs infant baptism—meaning most Greeks believe they are right with God by birth. To disassociate from the church and profess a personal faith in Jesus would be to risk being disowned from one’s family and becoming a social outcast. That reality exists in Romania, as well, where another SBTC team was told that a man who broke ranks with the Eastern Orthodox church to follow Jesus was nearly killed by a family member.

So in Athens, evangelism is most effective when done through the context of personal relationships, Walker said. That happens through building genuine friendships where the truth of Jesus can not only be proclaimed, but modeled.

The IMB operates a community center here where Walker invites people of all ages to come and talk, play games, and get to know one other with the ultimate intent of sharing the gospel. One way he envisions a partnership with SBTC churches is through hosting groups to lead workshops offering training in skills for which its members have expertise, such as first aid, parenting classes, budgeting classes—whatever.

“We’re only limited by our imagination,” he said. “We need all the help we can get.”

‘The is just the first wave’

The SBTC teams regrouped just outside London on the final day of the trip to pray, compare notes, and consider what future partnerships with European churches might look like. Each team gave a brief presentation, sharing what they experienced and what opportunities exist for SBTC churches considering a Reach Europe partnership.

Charles Lee, lead pastor of Acts Fellowship Church in Austin, was part of the Romania group. He said he was burdened by the level of lostness in Bucharest and, at the same time, inspired by the pastors working to reach them. Many of those pastors are bivocational and doing manual labor to provide for their families.

“There’s so much work that needs to be done to reach the lost people,” Lee said. “There’s so many people there that don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and it’s just heartbreaking to see.”

Though Acts Fellowship is involved with missions in Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and Las Vegas, Lee said the church has been praying about connecting with an international partner, as well. His next step will be to report back to his congregation about what he saw in Europe and continue to lead the church to pray about the opportunity.

“You can tell there’s a need just to let these missionaries know that they’re not alone.”

—Clint Williams Tweet

“There’s so many people there that don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and it’s just heartbreaking to see.”

—Charles Lee Tweet

“[We will be] trying to discern God’s will,” he said. “We are just trying to see where God would have us to go.”

Clint Williams, lead pastor of Holly Springs Baptist Church in Garrison, went to Budapest. He said he has already had conversations with his church about going back possibly as soon as this fall. Like Lee, Williams said he sees opportunity not only in helping local churches spread the gospel, but in encouraging local pastors.

“You can tell there’s a need just to let these missionaries know that they’re not alone,” Williams said. “The least we can do is come back and let them know that these pastors in Texas have their back.”

Lorick, SBTC’s executive director, noted that the IMB personnel who serve here said this was the first time they’d seen a state convention come in such force on a single trip of this kind: 39 people, including 17 pastors and eight missions leaders, representing 21 churches and three associations. He urged the churches to continue giving through the Cooperative Program, which funds the work that is happening overseas, and to spread the word about Reach Europe in their churches and through their networks.

“Here’s what I’m convinced of,” he said. “Your eyes were opened to a need, and you are open to the reality that you are a part of the solution to meet that need. God’s given us an opportunity to make an absolute eternal impact in Europe. … This is just the first wave.”

Author: Russell Lightner

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