SAN ANTONIO – Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Global Missions is launching a new category of mission service that will enable missions workers with other sources of funding the opportunity to affiliate with CBF Global Missions.
On the final day of the We Love Missions conference at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, Tom Ogburn, the Fellowship’s associate coordinator for volunteer and partnership missions, formally announced the new missions-sending mechanism called AsYouGo. The program will allow individuals being sent to do missions work to affiliate with CBF Global Missions even if they are funded by churches, have full-time employment that takes them abroad or some combination of both.
"We recognize the world is changing," Ogburn said. "While we embrace and continue to send career personnel, while we continue to send Student.Go semester missionaries, while we continue to commission short-term Global Service Corps members, we acknowledge the need to allow for new ways to involve the church in the process."
The Fellowship currently has four categories of mission service – career field personnel, the short-term Global Service Corps program, Student.Go semester missions and Envoys, which are affiliated with but not funded by the Fellowship. AsYouGo replaces the Envoy category, according to Ogburn.
"AsYouGo represents a different era for us," Ogburn said. "Missions is changing. The church is back in the center of the process."
Those who participate in AsYouGo will be called "affiliates," and the sending churches will be called "encourager churches."
Through AsYouGo, a church can completely finance a missions worker and have that worker identify with and join in the work of other CBF Global Missions field personnel. The criteria for acceptance as an AsYouGo affiliate will be based on the CBF Global Missions strategy of working among the world’s most neglected.
"The church will become a true participant in the sending process," Ogburn said. "We’re excited about this because it lets us step boldly into the 21st century. Today, with joy and celebration, I announce to you that we invite you to walk with us because ‘as you go,’ the gospel will be proclaimed."
Those interested in service through AsYouGo can contact Amy Whipple Derrick, CBF associate coordinator for Global Service Corps and Student Missions, at aderrick@thefellowship.info.
CBF is a fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission