This year’s North American Baptist Fellowship Annual Meeting will be hosted in Falls Church, VA at the BWA Headquarters. We are excited to be able to gather in person after two years, but will also be offering the option of virtual attendance.

Join us for fellowship, inspiring conversation, networking opportunities and many ways to offer and receive support from one another. At the end of our time we will also host our annual business meeting.

Details

• WHEN: October 24 & 25, 2022
• WHERE: in person at Falls Church, VA (BWA Headquarters)
• ONLINE: Zoom
• THEME: Hope
• COST: The event is free, but you must register to participate.
• REGISTER: https://forms.gle/o6NsZcxhdiUKqD1P8

Theme

The theme for this year’s meeting is HOPE. We will be exploring what it means to find Hope in three specific areas: Church Revitalization, Creation Care, and Mental Health.

Speakers

We are thrilled to share with you our list of speakers for this year’s Annual Meeting.

• Church Revitalization:
  • Rev. Dr. Jonathan L Smith is the Director of Church Health Strategy for the Texas Baptists. In this role he works to encourage, equip and coach pastors and congregations within the Texas Baptists in all aspects of church health, growth, and leadership development. He also hosts Re:Vision, a podcast about church health and growth.
  • Rev. Dr. Daynette Snead Perez is currently the Domestic Disaster Response Manager with CBF, and CEO and President of DIASPRA, an intercultural ministry focused on equipping churches in building new relationships with their own communities. She engages the work of disaster response and intercultural ministry as opportunities for transformational change within the body of Christ.
• Creation Care:
  • Katharine Hayhoe is a climate scientist, Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy, and Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor at Texas Tech University. She is the author of Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. She can often be found talking with fellow Christians about why climate change matters and what we can do to fix it.
• Mental Health:
  • Rev. Daniel Whitehead is the CEO of Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries, an international charity organization whose mission is to resource communities of faith to raise awareness, reduce stigma, support mental health, and promote mental wellbeing. Daniel has over ten years of experience in full time vocational church ministry.
  • Rev. Jevon Billups is the Mental Health Coordinator for the District of Columbia Baptist Convention. He is a widely respected instructor in Mental Health First Aid throughout the mid-Atlantic US, and has worked with the Roman Catholic Church, local schools, and fire companies. As a local pastor he has a deep love of God, and a commitment to mental and holistic health.

Register

There is no cost to join in this year’s meeting, but in order to attend you need to register:

Registration is required for both virtual and in person attendance.

Details about the event, including hotel packages, schedules, etc. will be shared via email to those who register.

Contact

If you have questions about the gathering, or about the NABF, contact us at admin@nabfellowship.org.

Download a poster for the event here.

We are pleased to announce that Katharine Hayhoe will be joining us as one of our keynote speakers for this year’s NABF Annual Meeting.

Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist who studies climate change, one of the most pressing issues facing humanity today. Katharine may be best-known to many people because of how she’s bridging the often broad and deep gap between scientists and Christians— work she does in part because she’s a Christian herself. She’s been named by Christianity Today as one of their 50 Women to Watch, she serves as the World Evangelical Alliance’s Climate Ambassador and as the science advisor to the A Rocha USA, the Evangelical Environmental Network, Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, and she currently hosts the PBS digital series, Global Weirding: Climate, Politics and Religion.

Dr. Hayhoe is the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy and a Horn Distinguished Professor and Endowed Professor of Public Policy and Public Law in the Dept. of Political Science at Texas Tech University. Her book, “Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World,” was released in Sept 2021 and she also hosts the PBS digital series Global Weirding, currently in its fifth season. Katharine has been named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, the United Nations Champion of the Environment, and the World Evangelical Alliance’s Climate Ambassador.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Saving Us is one of the more important books about climate change to have been written.

—The Guardian

“Saving Us provides the transition from the mind to the heart. And it takes a communicator like Katharine Hayhoe to draw connections between the scientific facts and our hope for healing a fragmented world.”

—Patriarch Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople of the Eastern Orthodox Church

Saving Us is a uniquely hopeful approach to the conversation on climate change. Katharine Hayhoe’s expertise is on full display both in the way she talks about science, and in the wealth of ideas she offers for how we can overcome over divisions, but her core argument is simple: we need to talk more with each other.

—Archbishop Thomas Shirrmacher, Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance

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To learn more about Katharine Hayhoe and her work, visit her website: http://www.katharinehayhoe.com/; to learn more about her book or to purchase a copy visit the publisher’s page or visit your local bookseller.

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The them of the NABF 2022 Annual Meeting is Hope. For more details and updates visit our events page, or our Facebook page.