The NAB can be identified by our partnerships. Our partnerships are country to country, region and association to region and association, church to church, and person to person. As a conference, we exist by our partnership with each other.
The NAB is binational, having churches in both Canada and the United States. There is a richness in the diversity that each nation brings to this partnership. The NAB International Office receives its end goals from the churches; in turn, the International Office seeks to equip and resource NAB churches for the growth of God’s Kingdom in these end goals.
The churches of the NAB gather together in associations and regions. A church does not belong to the NAB without belonging first to an association or a region. In these associations and regions, the churches support one another and minister together. These regions and associations come together to plant churches, support camps, support pastors and church leaders, and engage in Kingdom projects and endeavors.
Churches partner with others churches in supporting missionaries and in encouraging the missional focus that God has called each church to. God calls us to work together in groups and also as individuals. God calls us to allow our differences and diversity to help shape our understanding of ministry. As churches, we can do more together than we can do alone.
Church to church and person to person is also how we work in our global outreach and mission. Our intention is not to start a North American Baptist Conference in other countries but to encourage Christians to partner with other Christians in the churches that are planted in these countries. These churches then come together to work in conferences and associations. As the NAB, we prayerfully partner and serve with Christians from different cultures who are passionate about reaching the people of their nation for Jesus.
The NAB Conference also works in partnership with other organizations. That work is in theological education in North America and across the world. The NAB family is encouraged to invest money in CIF to support church multiplication and church planting. There are also partnerships that seek to benevolently meet the many needs found in our world through organizations such as White Cross and Chain of Love. All of these partnerships are not only who we are as the NAB, they also reflect the larger partnership that God invites us into as his people.