Texas Baptists Ministers’ Dinner during SBC hears updates on GC2 Strong initiative, collaboration with New York City church plant

Texas Baptists welcomed 200 attendees to its Minister’s Dinner held in conjunction with the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas, TX, on the evening of June 9. Those present heard from Julio Guarneri, executive director of Texas Baptists, and Larry Mayberry, church planter and pastor of Queens Church in Queens, New York.

Associate Executive Director Craig Christina welcomed attendees to the dinner, followed by an opening prayer led by Ray Malone, associate director of the GC2 Network at Texas Baptists, and worship led by 317 Collective from First Baptist Burleson.

Joseph Adams, pastor of First Baptist Church Hughes Springs and second vice president of Texas Baptists, provided a video testimony describing how God has moved in his church through support and resources provided by the Texas Baptists Cooperative Program.

This year, the Cooperative Program is celebrating 100 years of combining resources to enable more missions, evangelism and ministry throughout Texas and around the world. 

After dinner, Guarneri highlighted different Texas Baptists ministries and provided updates. Among his updates, he shared that 246 spring breakers accepted Christ at Beach Reach, Pastor Strong launched four monthly cohorts around the state and the Christian Life Commission celebrated 75 years and was recognized in the Texas legislative session during its recent Advocacy Day. 

He also told attendees about the new Texas Baptists Indemnity Program (TBIP) and GC2 Strong Initiative. 

TBIP will provide insurance for churches who have been affected by insurance premium increases. 

“We're developing a plan that is affordable for churches to have the insurance that they need and to free [up] money to do ministry and to do God's mission,” said Guarneri. “We're not trying to sell insurance because we're insurance people. We're trying to provide insurance because we’re church people. We’re for the church and we believe in God's mission.”

Sharing values he says guide the work of the ministry staff, Guarneri said that Texas Baptists is biblically faithful, gospel-centered, historically-rooted, future-thinking, beautifully diverse, servant-hearted and kingdom-collaborating. 

He told attendees that Texas Baptists’ missional theme “for the next couple of years or so” is “strengthening a multiplying movement of churches to live out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission in Texas and beyond.” He shared that in this season of ministry, Texas Baptists is launching an initiative called GC2 Strong. 

Guarneri said GC2 Strong will focus on three key areas: churches, ministers and missions. 

“We want to strengthen churches… We want to connect, develop, encourage ministers so they can [be about GC2], and we believe that when churches are strong and when ministers are strong, they will want to be strong in the area of missions. At the end of the day, that's why the convention exists, is to do missions together.” 

Guarneri said that we are going through the design process for the initiative, which will include “a discovery plan for churches to figure out where they are in God's call in their lives, living out the Great Commandment and Great Commission.” 

“It's a personalized, customized discovery process. We want to customize our resources to come alongside churches, help them get to where God has called them to be,” said Guarneri. “Then we'll launch a small group of this in 2026. We believe that sometimes small is big; a little leaven leavens the whole dough. We'll start small and we'll watch God at work, and if it's his, he’ll make it grow.”

Kingdom collaboration from Texas to New York City 

Guarneri introduced Mayberry by announcing him as the new executive director of the Metropolitan New York Baptist Association, and asked him to share with attendees how Queens Church started and provide an update on its ministry, which is supported by Texas Baptists. 

Mayberry shared that across their collection of neighborhoods in western Queens, there are 80 mosques and Muslim schools, but only 13 English-speaking, gospel-centered churches, “so there's not a church within easy walking distance of every one in our neighborhood.” 

He told attendees about an interaction with a woman in their neighborhood that inspired the planting of Queens Church in 2012. 

“We were doing some ministry outreach work… where me and my wife live, and a woman asked us, ‘What are you guys doing?’ And we said, ‘We're just picking up trash to show the love of Jesus to our neighborhood.’ And she said, ‘That's crazy! I'm the tenant association president here, and I didn't even know that you guys were around. What are your plans?’ And I said, ‘One day we might plant a church in this neighborhood,’” said Mayberry. “She said, ‘If you plant a church, I'll be there.’ And [she] was at our church every day, every Sunday until she died a couple of years ago.” 

Mayberry said his team has labored and seen the harvest be plentiful as a result. He shared that Queens Church has around 200 people in attendance each week and “71 of those people have been saved and baptized at Queens Church” in the past five years. He said 15 of those 71 were over the age of 65 when they accepted Jesus. 

“There are people who lived their whole lives in this area, in the United States of America, with access to everything you and I have access to, except they do not have a church within easy walking distance of them, and so they didn't know Christians,” said Mayberry. “But there are people in Queens who are hungry for the church [and] the fruit is ripe for the picking.” 

He told attendees that partnering with conventions like Texas Baptists is “extremely helpful” as “the need is great” for more churches in New York City. 

“The opportunities are here because in 1965 our association was founded… So we're still in our infancy or [a] toddler as an association, and the opportunities are that conventions like yours are partnering with us, which is extremely helpful to us in our kingdom work,” said Mayberry. 

He said the Metropolitan New York Baptist Association is made up of 250 churches who are trying to reach a region of 20 million people. 

“That's one church, one Baptist church, for about every 80,000 people. So [we have] ten times less churches [than Texas Baptists],” explained Mayberry. “[So] to have access to some of your MAP programs… and to be able to access some outside resources from training and giving and praying and coming and going, to serve with us on mission is extremely helpful.”

He said around “10 or 15 different small towns’ [First Baptists churches] across Texas” partners with Queens Church, so “we are extremely grateful for that Kingdom collaboration on your part.”

Mayberry shared some challenges he has faced and opportunities he has seen to share the gospel in Queens that Texas Baptists could pray for and support. 

He said that one of the biggest challenges of church planting in New York City is indigenous leadership. 

“We've been there for 14 years. That is very rare. Generally, transplant church planters did not last in our city more than 3 to 5 years,” said Mayberry. “We need New York City kids to be raised in New York City churches and then stay and plant more New York City churches. That is one of our biggest challenges, which is raising up a pipeline of planters and pastors and ministers and leaders in churches.” 

Mayberry closed by sharing a glimpse into what his family's daily life doing ministry in Queens looks like. 

“The one thing when people ask us, ‘What's the overall journey been like 14 years, planting two churches in a foreign city away from your family?' and we say, ‘The one thing we have never experienced is loneliness on the mission field.’ It's never that part of our story, and the reason for that is because of Texas Baptists churches with us along the entire way,” said Mayberry. 

Mayberry encouraged attendees that though “there’s a little bit of a quip” to hearing “we’re better together” and similar phrases throughout Texas Baptists, they are true. 

“We are better at planting churches because we have the strength of your churches behind us,” said Mayberry. “I hope you'll stay strong here in Texas, because the work that you're doing with GC2 outside of Texas is so beneficial to us on the day-to-day ministry in the field.”

Texas Baptists President Ronny Marriott led attendees in prayer over Mayberry, as he and his team continue to share the gospel in New York City.

Sergio Ramos, director of the GC2 Network at Texas Baptists, closed the time by encouraging attendees to save the date for the Texas Baptists Annual Meeting, happening Nov. 16-18 at the Abilene Convention Center.