[1]RICHMOND, Va. (BP) – Four years ago, 300 candidates waited in IMB’s missionary pipeline, considering a call to the nations.
That number has now surpassed 1,100, the highest it’s been in decades. This means that more than 1,100 individuals have started a process to help solve the world’s greatest problem – lostness – by becoming a missionary with the IMB.
When IMB President Paul Chitwood came into his role four years ago, he knew something needed to change. Due to the discrepancy between the number of those who begin the application process and the number who complete it, it takes 900 candidates in the pipeline to produce 250 missionaries.
With natural attrition such as retirements, completion of service and resignations, 300 additional missionaries are needed each year to simply keep the number of missionaries the IMB has on the field stable.
“For more than 177 years, Southern Baptists have addressed the world’s greatest problem, spiritual lostness, by sending their missionaries through the IMB to share the Gospel and plant churches,” Chitwood said. “As lostness grows, so must the presence of missionaries sent out to share the Gospel – for it is God’s solution, God’s only solution, to the problem of lostness.”
IMB leadership understands that the key to bringing the Gospel to the unreached is missionary presence that cultivates Gospel access, Gospel belief and church planting and multiplication. One of the 2025 strategic objectives for the IMB is to send an additional 500 missionaries. This pipeline growth is crucial to the goal and to the task of reaching the nations.
Chitwood added, “A growing missionary candidate pipeline at the IMB means more people will hear the Gospel!”
The impact of a growing pipeline means that the IMB can do more. Last year, more than half a million people overseas heard the Gospel. Of those, 176,000 indicated they believed the Gospel and were trusting Christ
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