Living a Life Worthy of Their Calling: The Life and Ministry of Charlie and Shannon Worthy

Editor’s note: this article appears in the Fall 2022 issue of Southwestern News.

Charlie Worthy (’00), a missionary with the International Mission Board, has made his home in Italy for the past 20 years, yet his southern accent still shines through in his voice.

Charlie grew up on a farm in Tennessee and certainly knows the value of hard work. His grandparents instilled a deep faith in him from a young age. His great-grandparents were members of Merton Avenue Baptist Church in Memphis. Charlie’s entire family attended that church, and it was also where he was baptized.

When he was in high school, his pastor Roger Richards encouraged him to go to school, get a good education, and go to seminary. “He was a very wise man,” Charlie remembers today. He explains that Richards was a Navy chaplain who served overseas and served in ministry until he was 98 years old. Richards kept up with Charlie even after he went to seminary and lived overseas.

Today, the influence of family members and his pastor motivates Charlie in his current ministry assignment with the IMB recruiting hundreds of young people to the mission field for short-term assignments knowing the impact the work can have on those lives—and on the Kingdom.

Charlie attended Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, and was blessed to have some good people mentor and disciple him. “It was through those experiences at Union University that led me overseas for the first time in 1992. I was at Union University and a young girl named Star Walker put a Tennessee Baptist Convention (TBC) summer missions application in my hand and said, ‘You’d be a good person to go overseas.’ And I said, ‘I have no idea what that means,’” he recalls. Worthy completed the application and, in the summer of 1992, the TBC sent him to Puerto Varas, Chile. Charlie worked under IMB missionaries, Archie and Carolyn Jones. “Archie and Carolyn really took me under their wing and ministered to me that whole summer in Southern Chile. I really felt that God put a real calling on my life,” says Charlie.

In 1993, he was invited back to Chile where he served in Santiago with Steve and Mary Jo Cook. “I really felt like this is what the Lord wanted me to do for the rest of my life,” Charlie remembers.

After the summer of 1993, Charlie returned to Union and upon graduation in 1994, he went on to serve in the IMB’s journeyman program in South Africa for two and a half years. He was a part of a vocational training institute where they trained over 1,000 people a year. “It was a really amazing experience. I went out there as a kid and I came back as a man. It was through those experiences, gradually walking through one door after the other, that the Lord opened the door to ministry and mission opportunities that He affirmed time and time again,” Charlie says.

While he served in South Africa as a journeyman, Kenneth S. Hemphill came and spoke at a mission meeting. Hemphill was serving as the president of Southwestern Seminary at the time and he and Charlie spent a day together. Hemphill encouraged him to go to Southwestern and was “very influential in getting me here,” he recalls.

Charlie arrived at Southwestern in 1997 and graduated in December 2000. “My time at Southwestern was a really, really good experience,” says Charlie. He knew that missions was what he wanted to do and felt called to be, but he understood the value and importance of earning his Master of Divinity degree at Southwestern.

Charlie’s seminary career was funded by scholarships that were found by Hemphill and several churches that supported him. “I will never forget those small churches that helped cover the cost of my tuition and books as well as the bulk of my housing,” Charlie adds. “It was a blessing as somebody going into missions to be able to have the financial aspect of it covered, not just by Cooperative Program funds, but by folks like Dr. Hemphill, who really took care of me. I pray I have been a good steward of that investment for the past 20 years,” he says.

Charlie remembers fondly a few faculty members who were most influential to him. One of his favorite classes was biblical backgrounds with Tommy Brisco (’73, ’81). “I thank him for investing in me, helping me see the Bible in new ways,” Charlie remembers.

Also, Senior Professor of Christian Ethics Bill Goff (’65,’76) and his wife, Emilee, “were missionaries who personally took a shot and really took an investment in my wife and me. They took care of us, provided meals and just everything else all through the years” as he remembers the “personal investment of many of the professors” at Southwestern.

Charlie says the theological grounding at and academic credentials from Southwestern “helped give me the tools I needed to do what I needed to do.” Worthy said his degree at Southwestern opened doors for him and helped him mature and “helped prepare me for the ministry that we’re involved in.”

Charlie and his wife, Shannon, met while they were both students at Southwestern. “We both had completed our journeyman service and were in the initial days at the seminary with fellow journeymen. There was a camaraderie with the six or seven of us due to our time overseas. Shannon and I were in different classes, but our mutual friends introduced us. From those early days on, we had an immediate connection,” remembers Charlie.

Shannon grew up as a missionary kid in Guatemala and the American culture never quite felt like home to her. “I grew up in a third-world country and so the whole mindset was different. My friends back then were talking about buying a $50 pair of jeans and to me, that was outrageous. I knew how to be in that culture, but it was not my heart’s calling. I struggled a lot with wondering if God was calling me back in the mission field or if it was just because I was comfortable on the mission field,” Shannon says.

After wrestling with direction, Shannon decided to do the journeyman program and explore what she was feeling in her heart and discerning God’s call for her life. She traveled to Spain to teach at a school and help plant a church. “That’s when God pretty much said, ‘No, this is really what I have called you to do.’” Shannon was the first missionary kid to be a journeyman whose father and mother had both also served as journeymen. Her dad, Joe Bruce, graduated from Southwestern with a Master of Divinity in 1971 and Doctor of Ministry in 1981. Bruce completed 38 years of missionary service through the IMB in 2013.

Following journeyman training, Shannon was encouraged to go to Southwestern. Upon meeting Charlie, “I told him right away that I was headed back to the mission field,” says Shannon.

Charlie and Shannon’s heart for missions was reflected in the time they spent serving together at Mission Arlington, a ministry in the DFW Metroplex, that seeks to share the Gospel of Christ with the community as they meet practical and physical needs. They enjoyed volunteering there during their time at Southwestern. Charlie remembers it being a good experience as he went into lower-income areas and invested in people several times a week. The couple was in charge of doing Bible studies for kids at an apartment complex. “That’s where we started working together and eventually fell in love,” says Shannon.

The Worthys were married in 1998 at Woods Chapel Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, and now have four children who have been raised on the mission field.

During spring break 2000, Charlie had the opportunity to lead a team of Southwestern students to work with the Bedouin peoples of the Sinai. “I will never forget that week, serving in the Sinai Desert, sitting on top of Mount Sinai, walking in the tents, and eating a meal under the stars.” Although he has lived in Europe for 20 years, “I still pray for them to this day.”

The Worthys were appointed as IMB missionaries to Italy in 2002 when their first two children were two years old and 18 months old. In 2004, they moved to Rome for about six months to learn the language, and then they moved to Naples, where they served for nine years. “It was exciting. We saw God move in many ways,” Shannon remembers. Charlie’s role changed so they moved to Arezzo so they could be in a more central location in Italy, and it is where they have remained since 2012.

Shannon’s greatest joy and passion in ministering in Italy for the past 20 years has been building relationships with the local people and encouraging them. “Just walking down the street and saying ‘good morning’ and then trying to start a conversation brings me joy. I really like being able to hear about other people, encourage them, and pray for them,” she says. As part of her role as an IMB education consultant, she is able to be an encourager as she comes “alongside to support and encourage the families as well as help with resources and materials.”

Charlie feels privileged to serve as the student mobilizer for the IMB. He recruits hundreds of college students to serve a six-week internship in the summer, as well as semester missionaries. “We’re bringing over high school teams and short-term university teams” to Europe, Canada, and Australia. Post-COVID-19, summer 2022 has been a “restart” for his work in Europe with 450 students serving, he notes. “It’s been such a joy to help recruit and open up opportunities for our SBC churches and students to come and serve with us,” Charlie exclaims.

Charlie recruits college students to serve overseas through the SBC’s networks, including through his colleagues across Europe who are working and developing job opportunities. “By developing these specific job opportunities, it is great news for students coming to work,” he explains. The job opportunities cover a variety of fields such as agriculture, medical, engineering, education, and counseling. Once the job opportunities are created, Charlie then turns to churches, Baptist collegiate ministries, state conventions, and local associations, and the student department of the IMB compiles all the requests and recruits people. Charlie attends several events throughout the year to help recruit, too.

Charlie’s experiences going overseas during summers in college as a summer missionary and as a journeyman helped influence what he is doing today helping get college students to serve overseas. “I really did gain the importance of short-term missions and what it plays not just in people’s lives, but the impact it has to the missionary field,” he observes. “It was definitely influential. It was very refreshing when we lived in Naples to have volunteers from America come and serve. We saw a significant number of students. I remember my first high school team, and we had 126 high school students come and serve. That was trial by fire. But we had some amazing experiences with students then and still do today.”

Charlie notes for him “going to seminary wasn’t just an academic exercise.” He explains, “It was important to be involved in hands-on ministry” while he was a seminary student, a trait that has remained as he serves today as he is “involved in the heavy administration load both here and on the field. I am still out there working with our local believers. We’re still out there doing job one, which is evangelism.”

Charlie and Shannon are grateful for Southern Baptists as their life experiences, education, and ministries are tied to the SBC. “I truly want them to know how grateful we are for their sacrificial giving which allows me and my family to be out here,” he says.

Charlie realizes that the cost of volunteer missions can be expensive, but he encourages more people to come out and serve with them, even if it’s for a few days or a week. “Sometimes volunteer missions may seem futile, but walk alongside us in the streets, eat a meal in our homes and pray and worship with us side by side. I wish Southern Baptists knew how much we wanted them to come and walk with us,” Charlie implores. “As a missionary in Europe with the IMB for 20 years, we really want to see more folks come and serve with us long-term. We are really looking for more folks from Southwestern to come and serve with us on the field. We need more people and we want more people,” Charlie urges.

The faithful influence of Charlie’s parents and grandparents while growing up on the farm in Tennessee provided a firm foundation for his life and his favorite Bible verse, John 16:33, brings hope to his soul with a message he strives to share with the world. The legacy of faith from his family continues to reach new generations to this day.

Elizabeth Bennett is a news writer for Southwestern News.

Some photos for this article were provided by the International Mission Board and Lifeway Christian Resources.