ATLANTA – The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has announced it is entering into a two-year partnership with Micah Challenge USA, a global Christian campaign to end poverty.
As part of the agreement, the Fellowship has committed to providing $10,000 a year in funding.
"This partnership with Micah Challenge USA makes clear that CBF, its field personnel, and its congregations are determined to do all that we can to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the United Nations in 2000," said Rob Nash, the Fellowship’s coordinator of Global Missions. "Our intention is to work with Micah Challenge as advocates for the MDGs on behalf of those around the world who live on $1 a day or less. We also will be working to ensure that political leaders around the world, and particularly in the United States, fulfill the commitments they made when the goals were first framed. I’m grateful for this opportunity to join with other U.S. evangelicals in such a worthy effort."
Micah Challenge USA works with more than 20 organizations to increase awareness of the Millennium Development Goals. The campaign aims to deepen Christian engagement with impoverished and marginalized communities and to influence world leaders to fulfill their promise to achieve the MDGs. Micah Challenge is in 40 countries around the world.
"The CBF’s commitment to partner with Micah Challenge USA reminds us that the impoverished are close to God’s heart," said Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, Micah Challenge’s interim national coordinator. "Micah Challenge was created to respond to a critical moment in history – when the intention of all of the world leaders to halve poverty by 2015 echoes something of the mind of the Biblical prophets and the teachings of Jesus concerning the poor. This partnership is an example of the kind of collaboration that can lead to transformed hearts and minds."
Through the partnership, resources developed by the Micah Challenge, including prayer materials and presentations related to the MDGs, can be made available to Fellowship partner churches and organizations. The partnership will also allow for collaboration between Micah Challenge staff and Fellowship staff and field personnel.
To learn more about the MDGs, visit www.thefellowship.info/MDG. For more on CBF’s partnership with the Micah Challenge, contact Tom Prevost at tprevost@thefellowship.info or (800) 352-8741.
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.