[1]IMB to host virtual Sending Celebration Nov. 18
By IMB Staff
The International Mission Board will celebrate the appointment of 79 new missionaries from 21 states with a virtual Sending Celebration Nov. 18 at 7:30 p.m. EST. The missionaries were previously approved for appointment by IMB trustees.
The celebration will include an address by IMB President Paul Chitwood, missionary testimonies and a time of prayer. As country borders open, they will depart to serve among eight of IMB’s nine affinities.
Viewers can join the celebration livestream on Facebook, Vimeo and on IMB’s Advance the Kingdom app [2]. Missionary testimonies and downloadable prayer cards will be available at www.imb.org/send [3].
Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention and IMB strengthen partnership with signed agreement
Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention Executive Director Chris Martin and International Mission Board President Paul Chitwood signed a three-year agreement at IMB’s home office in Richmond, Va., on Aug. 31. The official announcement is in conjunction with this week’s HPBC annual meeting.
[4]As stated in the strategic agreement: “The Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention [5] and the International Mission Board [6] seek to partner together to mobilize Hawaii Pacific Baptists to pray, give, and go with IMB teams to the nations, and to strengthen Hawaii Pacific Baptists as they embrace their responsibility to fulfill the Great Commission, both locally and globally.”
[7]Both Chitwood and Martin affirmed the partnership that has existed since the beginning of the Hawaii mission of the Foreign Mission Board (now IMB) in 1940. Three years later, the Hawaii Baptist Convention was formed.
“The IMB is not the IMB without Hawaii Pacific Baptists and Hawaii Pacific Baptists are not Hawaii Pacific Baptists without the IMB,” Chitwood said.
Chitwood added that the partnership with Hawaii “gives us a pathway to continue to live out the mission and vision of the IMB. The IMB is here to serve Southern Baptists in carrying out the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and we are here to serve Hawaii Pacific Baptists. We are also here working with churches of the Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention to fulfill that Revelation 7:9 [8] vision.”
Martin, who is also an IMB trustee, explained that with Hawaii’s diverse culture and large populations of East and Southeast Asians, the state is uniquely positioned for strong connections with IMB personnel on the field.
“Everywhere we turn in our convention, the relationship with IMB exists,” Martin said.
Of the convention’s 161 churches, more than 50 are in other Pacific regions outside the Hawaiian Islands including American and Western Samoa, Guam, Saipan, Japan, Korea, Thailand and the Philippines. In addition to serving these churches, the convention is seeking to strengthen and plant more churches among ethnic Hawaiians and among minorities on the islands and in Pacific regions.
“The partnership will strengthen the engaging, training, discipling and building up of our local churches to not only understand IMB but also to raise up within our own churches short- and long-term missionaries,” Martin said.