By Dr. Harry Kelm
Executive Director of the North American Baptist Conference
We have been a bi-national conference since our very beginning in 1851. The North American Baptist Conference was initially comprised of churches of German immigrants from both Canada and the United States. Their reasons for immigrating into the US and Canada were much the same. Most came to escape religious persecution, political unrest, and economic hardship; many of them brought a deep, transforming, and abiding faith in Jesus Christ with them.
These German-speaking immigrants had often been persecuted by the civil and national authorities for not following the faith traditions that were a part of their countries of origin. They came to North America with a respect for those in authority but believed their ultimate commitment and loyalty belonged to God and to living in a way that honored and served God.
I, too, am bi-national. I have lived in both Canada and the United States. I had a friend ask me good naturedly how it was possible to live with loyalty, allegiance, and commitment to two countries. I responded that it is possible because my ultimate loyalty, allegiance, and commitment are to the Kingdom of God and to the Lord Jesus.
To live with a Kingdom allegiance above all is to have a respect for and promote the well-being of where we live and concurrently seek the righteousness of God’s Kingdom in the places where he has directed us. This also gives us the opportunity to show our world what it means to live under the reign of this Kingdom – to live with Jesus as our Lord and Savior as we live alongside others and in community with other Christians. John 13:34–35 tells us to love each other as we have been loved by Jesus. Our love will then be the evidence that we are followers of Jesus.
We live at a time where this is a challenge. . . .
With this year’s Advent, we are trying something new. For the first time ever, we will be printing the Advent devotionals in a booklet, making it easier for you to take part in the devotionals together as a congregation, Bible study, or small group.
For those who have signed up to receive the devotional emails, we will still be sending them as usual, as well as posting them on the NAB website, but the physical booklet will allow you to go to that special place of connection with the Lord with no screens to distract you.
If you are interested in receiving a physical copy of the devotionals, the best way to get one is to make sure you are on the list to receive the NAB’s free, bi-annual magazine, Onward; a free copy of this year’s Advent devotionals will be bundled with every copy.
Want to sign up? Fill out the form at the link below before October 1, making sure you include your address.
You can also download slides and bulletin inserts to promote this year’s Advent at your church. Use the link below to find the resources that fit your need, or reach out to us as communications@nabconf.org.
Reframe is a four-week, online training for pastors and leaders to help you assess your congregation’s evangelism readiness. This training will provide an evaluative framework to help you to recognize gaps you may need to fill and distortions you will want to correct, and it will provide a clearer path forward toward helping your church become more evangelistically faithful.
Reframe is not a training that will focus on how to better do evangelism but instead will focus on how to be evangelistic.
- How well equipped is your congregation for the ministry of evangelism?
- How do you evaluate your church’s health in that regard?
- How would you identify equipping gaps in your congregation’s evangelistic faithfulness?
Each training consists of an online, 90-minute session that will take place across four consecutive Wednesdays, September 16 through October 7.
Those who are interested can sign up at the link below. Training is free for NAB ministry leaders.
The NAB International Missions team invites you to a 30-minute prayer call for NAB missionaries and ministries around the globe. We meet the second Tuesday of every month at 5:00 p.m. (Pacific) on Zoom.
Join us as we learn about NAB missions and missionaries and pray together to the Lord of the harvest to send out more workers into his harvest field (Luke 10:2).
The next prayer call takes place September 8. Won’t you join us?
Please register at the link below.