Members of the Haitian Alliance choir led worship for more than 4,000 Baptists at the concluding service of the CBF General Assembly. Rod Reilly photo

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s 2007 General Assembly concluded Friday in Washington, D.C., with a joint worship service with American Baptist Churches USA, as that body began its biennial convention.  

Also participating in the service were representatives from the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the District of Columbia Baptist Convention, who are both based in Washington.

The evening’s keynote address was an interview with Roy Medley, general secretary, American Baptist Churches USA, Valley Forge, Pa.; Tyrone Pitts, general secretary, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Washington, D.C.; and Daniel Vestal, executive coordinator, CBF, Atlanta, Ga.

"CBF’s very existence is a testimony to the fight for and belief in freedom," Vestal said. "CBF exists in the belief that every individual is free in Christ; every church is free in Christ. Freedom is not something that human beings give to us but something that God gives to us. CBF is a celebration of freedom."

Pitts said the Progressive National Baptist Convention, which provided a home for Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, has brought awareness to the causes of social justice, religious freedom and human rights since its beginning in 1961.

Throughout their remarks, the three leaders emphasized the need to work together.

"We have all kinds of scripts about how we are to live life," Medley said. "Many of those scripts have failed. There is growing poverty, greater division rather than greater unity. In Christ Jesus we have been given an alternative script to work together. To live out that script makes us look crazy. But I believe God wants us to be crazy, crazy like Jesus."

 "We (Baptists) believe in listening to the Holy Spirit and letting the spirit guide us and protect those freedoms that are so important," Pitts said. "If we allow the Holy Spirit to enter us, and we come out in one accord, we will come out a much stronger group of Baptists."

Vestal listed several areas of cooperation among the three Baptist groups, one of which is the ongoing work to rebuild churches and homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Another area of cooperation was reiterated with the joint ABCUSA and CBF appointment of two missionary couples. Duane and Marcia Binkley, who have worked with the Karen people in Thailand, will work with Karen refugees in the United States. Nancy and Steve James, former ABCUSA missionaries who now serve as CBF Global Missions affiliates, will serve under joint appointment as medical missionaries in Haiti.

Also Friday night, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, celebrating its 70th anniversary, was presented the first American Baptist Religious Freedom Award, given to a person or organization that demonstrates leadership in defending and extending religious liberty for all.

It was the fight for religious liberty that first brought Baptists together, said Aidsand F. Wright-Riggins III, Executive Director of ABCUSA’s National Ministries in Valley Forge, Pa.

"Without religious freedom, all other rights are in danger of being distorted or abused," he said.

Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, accepted the $7,500 award and said it would go toward the BJC’s capital campaign to establish a center for religious liberty on Capitol Hill. Walker also announced that an anonymous donor has made a significant gift to the campaign already and pledged to match all other gifts – including the $7,500 – received by July 15.

The offering taken at the Friday night session will go to the Baptist World Alliance and the District of Columbia Baptist Convention, which welcomed its ABCUSA and CBF partners to its home city. Receipts were still being counted as of the end of the Assembly.

The session included a celebration of the partnership begun in 1995 between the Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board (MMBB) of ABCUSA and the Church Benefits Board of CBF that provides medical, disability, retirement and other benefits to church staff.

"This partnership has demonstrated that our two communities can find common ground as we realize our vision," said Sumner Grant, executive director of the MMBB.

More than 4,000