Living out GC2 by loving God

This past Sunday, I had the honor of preaching at the Tarrant Baptist Association en Español rally. This semi-annual meeting brought together over 250 people from more than a dozen churches for fellowship and worship. The venue was filled with joy, inspiration and encouragement. 

On Monday, I had the opportunity to record a podcast with Matt Singleton, director of missions for the South Central Baptist Area. In the next couple of weeks, I plan to meet virtually with associational directors from across the state on two different occasions.

At the same time, the season for associational annual meetings has begun. Our team is coordinating the presence of about 30 staff members at 87 associational annual meetings over the next several weeks. We are praying that each of these annual meetings is a time of worship, fellowship, inspiration and commitment to collaborate for the sake of God’s mission.

Local associations are great partners with the state convention in serving churches and providing opportunities to work together to reach communities, start new churches, develop leaders, connect pastors and ministers and cooperate in missions engagement. 

Texas Baptists’ work in the three focus areas: strengthening churches, strengthening ministers and strengthening missions will be more effective when we are able to collaborate with local associations. We value the partnership, and we are thankful for the opportunities.

While associations celebrate their annual meetings, our staff has been working hard to prepare for the Texas Baptists Annual Meeting in Waco on November 15-17. As we continue with the theme of living out GC2, we will focus on the “Love God” aspect.

To date, 132 churches have pre-registered 376 Messengers, and 61 churches have pre-registered 95 Guests. If you have not pre-registered, you can do so here. One of the new developments for the Annual Meeting portion will be electronic voting.

The votes that would normally be done by paper ballot will be conducted using SMS/text messaging services for real-time votes and to streamline the business process. You will need to opt in to electronic voting. Each messenger will need to provide a unique mobile number.

We anticipate great worship celebrations, ministry reports, inspiring messages, informational workshops and important convention business, not to mention great times of fellowship and the sharing of meals.

Yet, before the Annual Meeting actually begins, two very important events will take place in Waco. Our evangelism team, in collaboration with Waco leadership and in partnership with Forgotten Ministries, will host “Win Waco,” a “tell-gate” grill walk at Dewey Park on Saturday, November 14, from 10:00 AM to 1:30 PM. If you and your church are interested in participating, please fill out this short form.

Additionally, our Office of Institutional Engagement will be leading a retreat for ministerial students in Texas Baptists universities and seminaries on Saturday and Sunday immediately before the Annual Meeting. We want ministerial students to have the opportunity to connect with each other, serve the people of Church under the Bridge in Waco and participate in the Annual Meeting.

I invite you to pray that everything that happens before, during and after the Texas Baptists Annual Meeting will bring glory to God and will advance his mission of redeeming the world to himself. Let’s live out GC2! Let’s love God with everything we have!