This past Monday at the FBC Jacksonsville Pastor Conference, I had the opportunity to pose a couple of questions to members of the Great Commission Resurgence Panel. Present for the Q&A time were Johnny Hunt, Ronnie Floyd, Al Mohler, and Danny Akin. My first question which has been picked up by Baptist Press (http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=32200) was that I and many others have heard through the grapevine of the possible merger of the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board. This topic is one that many SBCer’s have on their minds, but have not asked directly up until now.
My reasons for asking this question was twofold. First, I have served as a church planting missionary with NAMB and the church I planted and pastor, Bridge Church at Perry benefited greatly with through that partnership. Bridge Church was a core church plant of NAMB’s Strategic Focus City initiative in Cleveland. Second, I asked the question, because I am intensely interested and vested in church planting and wanted to know what church planting in North America would look like with one mission board. Which model of church planting would one board follow, if any. I guess we will have to wait until late May to find out the strategy for church planting that may be rolled out when the GCR issues their report of suggestions.
Until then we will be content with the fact that there will remain two distinct mission boards. Read the above link for the article that reports on the question I asked