The emerging leaders team of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board recently spent a day on the campus of Bluefield College, discussing with BC leaders how to identify and train future leaders for churches affiliated with the Baptist General Association of Virginia.
It was the first time the emerging leaders team has visited the campus since the creation of the Mission Board's Kingdom Advance initiative. Team members toured BC facilities, participated in the school's celebration of Baptist Heritage Day and met with BC president Dan MacMillan, vice president Elizabeth Gomez and campus minister David Taylor.
“Our hope is that this visit will strengthen the relationship between the Virginia Baptist Mission Board and Bluefield College,” said Taylor, the campus minister, “and will help us better coordinate our efforts to grow the leadership for Virginia Baptist ministries.”
Team members included team leader Susan McBride, collegiate and young adult ministry strategist Greg Alexander, youth ministry strategist Ken Dibble, children's ministry strategist Diane Smith and adult ministry strategist Leslie Straw.
McBride said the purpose of the visit was to learn more about the
benefits and ministries available at Bluefield College “to be able to
share that with Virginia Baptists across the state.”
“Together we hope to discover new ways of identifying future leaders for Virginia Baptists,” McBride said, “in order to train them and to help them find their place in God's kingdom.”
“Virginia Baptists are about 15 years away from a leadership crisis in our churches,” says John Upton, executive director of the Mission Board, in the Mission Board publication, Truthfully Speaking. “We're doing a better job of talking people out of their call to ministry than in helping them find their call. We need a deliberate program of leadership development that begins with children and continues through young people, college and seminary students and adults.”
Alexander, who was guest speaker in chapel for the college's Baptist Heritage Day, told students, “God is moving among you now. There is a revival of sorts beginning on college campuses today, and you are the Christian heritage of tomorrow. You are the Baptist heritage for the future.”
Alexander spoke about Christian leaders from years gone by and the influence they had on our faith. But, he said, students on college campuses today who are identifying their calling to become future leaders in the church will be the influencers and the heritage of tomorrow.
Alexander spoke about the revivals in Christianity over time and how many began with young people on college campuses. Because college students, he said, are at an age where they are making “crisis of life” decisions that will determine beliefs, behaviors, habits and principles for a lifetime, they can be revivalists and transformers.
As a result, he encouraged students to be aware of the crisis of life decisions that come their way. In comparing the “hills of life” decisions to riding a bike up a hill, Alexander told the students, “Do not be surprised by the hills, because they will come.” He urged them to “never give up,” to persevere “to the very end” and to “take advantage of the rests” found on the other side of the climb.
Special to the Herald