RICHMOND — A Chicago-area seminary president and two Virginia pastors are slated to be keynote speakers this fall at Connect:2009, the annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia.
Alistair Brown
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The two-day meeting, set for Nov. 17-18 at Fredericksburg’s Expo and Conference Center, will feature Alistair Brown, a Scot who last year became president of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Ill.; Jim Somerville, pastor of First Baptist Church in Richmond; and Sekyu “Steve” Chang, senior pastor of Light Global Mission Church in Fairfax.
Jim Somerville
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The speakers highlight a meeting — whose theme is “A Time for Extravagance” — that includes business sessions, musical presentations and 21 breakout sessions covering a variety of topics.
Also on the docket are approval of a budget for the BGAV’s ministries in 2010 and the election of a successor to outgoing BGAV president Jeff Bloomer, who is ineligible for reelection
Several auxiliary meetings, including the Virginia Baptist Pastors Conference, will be held in conjunction with the annual meeting. In addition, a ministry fair will provide space for exhibitors — including BGAV ministry partners, book and music publishers, seminaries and universities, and church suppliers — who provide resources and services to churches.
Steve Chang
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Registration packets for the event — which last year attracted about 1,250 people to Roanoke — have been mailed to each of the BGAV’s approximately 1,400 churches. Online registration also is available at www.bgavconnect.net/registration.htm.
In September 2008, Brown, a native of Edinburgh, became president of Northern, which is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA. He came to the position after a long tenure as general director of Great Britain’s Baptist Missionary Society. Earlier he was pastor of several churches in Scotland.
Somerville became pastor of First Church, Richmond, in May 2008, going there from the pastorate of First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. He also has been pastor of Baptist churches in North Carolina and Kentucky.
Chang is founding pastor of Light Global Mission Church, which was organized in 1998. The native South Korean came to the United States in 1984 to study theoretical physics at the University of Maryland and later became involved in church ministry as a lay pastor. He continues to assist with organizations providing development and relief aid to North Korean.
The annual budget to be adopted in Fredericksburg will fund the Virginia Baptist Mission Board and the BGAV’s mission partners, as well as national and international ministries in 2010. The BGAV budget committee will unveil a proposal to be considered in October. The current budget is $13.8 million.
In addition to a new president, also to be elected at the annual meeting are successors to first vice president Tim Madison and second vice president Richard Childress. Although no candidates for any office have yet been announced, for several years the outgoing BGAV first vice president has been nominated for the presidency. A much longer-standing Virginia Baptist practice has been to alternate the one-year presidency between a minister and a layperson. Madison, pastor of Mechanicsville Baptist Church in Mechanicsville, would qualify for nomination to succeed Bloomer, a retired school administrator in Culpeper.
Last year’s popular hunger relief project will be repeated at this year’s annual BGAV meeting.
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Repeating a feature from last year’s annual meeting, the ministry fair will offer participants an opportunity to package dehydrated, fortified rice-soy meals coordinated by Stop Hunger Now, a nongovernmental relief organization that provides direct food relief in crisis-burdened areas and in school feeding programs around the world. Meeting organizers hope to package as many as 10,000 meals during the two days.
Topics at the breakout sessions — to be offered during two time periods on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 17 — will include using social media for ministry, faith-based initiatives and religious liberty, intergenerational ministry, church planting, racism, personal life coaching for Christians, youth ministry and Bible studies, among others. A complete list of breakout sessions is available at www. bgavconnect.net/breakouts.htm.
The Pastors Conference will be held on Monday, Nov. 16, at Fairview at River Club, a Baptist congregation in Fredericksburg. The afternoon and evening sessions will feature Calvin Miller, pastor of preaching and pastoral ministries at Samford University’s Beeson Divinity School, and Mark Croston, pastor of East End Baptist Church in Suffolk.
Other auxiliary events include meetings or fellowship meals of the Virginia Baptist Youth Ministers Association, the Virginia Baptist Women in Ministry, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Virginia and Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. There also will be a dinner for people who have volunteered with Virginia Baptist mission projects and disaster relief and an informational meeting for anyone interested in participating in a Virginia Baptist ministry project during the 2010 World Cup championship in South Africa.
Additional information, including lodging possibilities, is available at www.bgavconnect.net.
Robert Dilday is managing editor of the Religious Herald.