ATLANTA (ABP) — Leaders from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Ghana Baptist Convention recently signed a memorandum of understanding, representing an official partnership between the organizations and churches that partner with them.
For many years, Fellowship partner churches and Ghanaian Baptist churches have collaborated in ministry. Leaders hope that this formal partnership will enable more congregations to join the work already in progress.
“The future of global missions will be shaped by strategic partnerships between Baptist bodies as well as between churches,” CBF executive coordinator Daniel Vestal said.
“This partnership has the potential of being transformative both for the Ghana Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. It represents a vision of shared ministry that is exciting.”
The Ghana Baptist Convention represents approximately 1,000 churches with more than 65,000 members, primarily located in the country's rural areas. Twenty percent of these churches have their own building. The remainder worship in classrooms or temporary structures. The convention has approximately 600 trained ministers and two ministerial training institutions.
The CBF and the Ghana Baptist Convention will collaborate in a variety of ministries, including establishing church-to-church connections, creating networks of congregations focused on meeting the needs of the most marginalized and supporting Ghanaian churches in the United States. The organizations will share resources in five specific areas — prayer, church planting, leadership development, ministry infrastructure and community transformation.
The convention's Student Holiday Outreach Program will enable student groups from the United States to minister across Ghana through construction projects, sports activities and evangelism.