Greenway affirms renewed spirit of cooperation among ‘Great Commission partners’

“If the Great Commission is ever going to have any chance of being fulfilled in our lifetime, it will not happen apart from Gospel-driven cooperation,” said Adam W. Greenway, president of The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, during an International Mission Board (IMB) luncheon on the seminary campus, Feb. 27. The luncheon welcomed representatives from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas, Texas Baptist Men, the Tarrant Baptist Association, and other Southern Baptist Convention partners, as well as numerous missions-giving and missions-sending churches from across the state.

“One of the things that I have consistently said about Southwestern Seminary is we are the ‘big-tent’ seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Greenway said, noting the “four commitments of a high view of Scripture, confessional fidelity, the Great Commission, and cooperation.”

Speaking on these latter two commitments specifically, Greenway called those assembled for the luncheon “Great Commission partners.”

“We need each other now more than ever,” he said. “And it is a beautiful thing, it is a wonderful thing, it is a Kingdom thing when God’s people come together for what unites us, and that is getting the Gospel to these unreached people groups, that the nations might rejoice.”

IMB President Paul Chitwood, who also preached in Southwestern Seminary’s chapel that morning, then shared his vision for the future of the IMB. Specifically, he shared five goals he has announced for the IMB over the next five years: (1) mobilize 75 percent of Southern Baptist churches prayerfully and financially supporting the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering; (2) send an additional 500 fully funded missionaries by 2025; (3) mobilize 500 global partner missionaries on IMB  teams; (4) engage 75 global cities in comprehensive strategies; and (5) increase Lottie Moon receipts 6 percent annually to sustain the 500 additional missionaries, or $10 million per year for the next five years.

“For 175 years, Southern Baptists have worked together in the fulfillment of the Revelation 7:9 vision,” Chitwood said, referring to the passage on which he preached in chapel about John’s vision of “a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language” worshiping God in heaven.

“Now, the task has fallen to our generation, and I am grateful for the way Southern Baptists are rising to the occasion, but there is so much more to be done.”

Following Chitwood’s address, Greenway joined him on the platform and assured him that “Southwestern Seminary and Scarborough College stand ready to do anything and everything we can to serve our IMB partners and our missionaries and to help see that vision fulfilled, because we long for that Revelation 7:9 vision to be on earth as it is in heaven. And so may we recommit ourselves to working together in this great task.”

The luncheon concluded with a brief Q&A with Chitwood. One question concerned the IMB’s response to the coronavirus.

“We have a crisis response team that is constantly monitoring situations like this around the world, and obviously this is getting a lot of our attention at this point,” Chitwood answered, explaining that some IMB missionaries are in affected places “where the risks are high.”

Chitwood said that some missionaries have been moved to other locations due to health precautions, while others have been moved to areas where interaction and ministry are more feasible.

Chitwood also noted, however, that some missionaries who have chosen to stay in these areas have reported that people are more open to the Gospel.

“The reality of death sets in on us in a way that is so undeniable,” Chitwood said. “So we’re praying for a great movement of the Holy Spirit; for more and more people to be saved.”