Due to the Christmas and New Year holidays, this is the last NAB Update for 2025. Additionally, the NAB International Office will be closed December 23, 2025 – January 1, 2026. We will reopen on January 2, 2026, for our usual Friday hours, 7:00–11:00 a.m. (Pacific).
We pray your next few weeks are filled with hope, joy, and peace as you celebrate the Incarnation and the turn of the calendar to a new year.
This past spring, Calvary Baptist Church in Easton, Pennsylvania, held a celebration service for Table of Life Church, a new church plant led by Calvary’s former student and teaching pastor, Zach McAlack. Even though Table of Life is still in its infancy, everyone at that service heard stories of new life in Christ and transformation.
Yet, these stories would not have been possible without the support of the North American Baptist Conference. When you give to the NAB’s Ministry Resource Fund, you are, in part, helping to provide the necessary resources that allow new churches like Table of Life to exist. Your gifts support trainings, Fit Assessments, and resources that all serve new church plants and churches birthing new congregations.
The inception of Table of Life began with conversations amongst the leadership at Calvary. As far back as 2017, Pastor Paul Wilson started talking with the elders about planting. It still took more than five years before things really began to move. “After all,” Paul said, “It was a bit of a paradigm shift.”
In the summer of 2023, Zach approached Pastor Wilson and the elders to share what he said “felt like this really strong call” to plant a church. One of the first things they did was send Zach and his wife, Leah, to the NAB Fit Assessment in February 2024. Fit Assessment is three days of mutual discernment between staff and potential church planters, church revitalizers, and international missionaries to help prepare them for ministry.
Prior to attending Fit Assessment, Zach was eager to get on with planting a church. “In every other situation in my life, it’s just kind of been like, ‘This seems like the obvious thing; let’s just go,’” he said. But at every step, he kept getting yellow lights telling him to slow down. “It’s allowed me to have a really different perspective. I can definitively say God has called me into this.” . . .
The registration for Bonfire 2026 is officially open! As of today, you can register for Bonfire, taking place May 5–8, 2026, in Medina, Ohio.
What we call Bonfire has taken on several different iterations over the years. At its core Bonfire was always designed to gather NAB leaders together around a shared purpose – a commitment to our missional/formational journey as the NAB.
Just like a bonfire itself brings people together who may not otherwise interact, these gatherings have morphed and expanded as different NAB groups – Multipliers, Governing Board, Missions Advisory Team, just to name a few – have caught wind of and bought into the shared purpose of mission and formation.
This year, based on much feedback, we are streamlining this event in a way we hope reflects this purpose. “Bonfire” will now be the name we use to refer to the overarching event, the main umbrella under which these various gatherings of NAB leaders meet. There will be two main evening sessions for the entire group, including dinner, fellowship, worship, and a unified speaker. During the days, each attendee will join their specific group gathering, or Ministry Track – Multipliers Summit, MAT, Missional Initiatives alum, etc. – to engage with each other.
It is our hope that Bonfire 2026 will serve you, equip you, and encourage you in ways both specific to your individual group but also in broad ways as a vital member of our conference of churches.
As we near the end of the year, here are a few factors to keep in mind as you consider donating to the NAB in this tax year to make sure we are able to give you a tax receipt for calendar year 2025:
- If you are sending a check, please make sure it is dated no later than December 31, 2025, and the envelope is postmarked no later than December 31, 2025.
- Online credit card transactions must be charged and processed no later than December 31, 2025.
- The deadline to receive Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) forms and to donate stock prior to the end of the year have both passed.
Please note the NAB International Office is closed beginning at 4:00 p.m. (Pacific) on Tuesday, December 23, 2025, and reopens at 7:00 a.m. (Pacific) on Friday, January 2, 2026.