Dear Colleagues and Friends,
We greet you in the name of Christ, whose birth we await in this Advent season. We are excited to share news of our Annual Meeting, held this year in Washington DC, on October 30-31st.
You may recall that this year our theme was “Building Lasting Bridges,” a topic which is very relevant to each of us in our contexts. Our speaker, Katie Choy-Wong led us through many challenging exercises and conversations rooted in the person and work of Christ and the church. She worked to help us better understand that each of us brings a different set of perspectives which inform how we see the world and each other. We were invited into asking for and extending grace, especially to those whose cultural and ethnic backgrounds differ from our own. You can watch both the morning and afternoon sessions of Katie’s presentation here: NABF YouTube channel.
It was a meeting attended by representatives of over 16 million people who are members of our partner denominations. It was exciting to see such breadth and strong representation from across North America. Our gathering included the following denominations and groups and their representatives:
- American Baptist Churches USA
- Baptist General Association of Virginia
- Baptist General Convention of Texas
- Baptist World Alliance
- Baptist Women of North America
- Campbellsville University
- Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada
- Canadian Baptist Ministries
- Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec
- Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
- DC Baptist Convention
- French Baptist Union of Canada
- Lott Carey
- National Baptist Convention of America
- National Baptist Convention, USA
- Progressive National Baptist Convention
- Zomi Baptists of North America
We were also thrilled to be able to introduce several new leaders from the US and Canada:
- Renee MacVicar, who is the new leader of the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada
- Wayne Faison, who joined the leadership of the Virginia Baptists in the last year
- Leanne Friesen, of the Canadian Baptists of Ontario and Quebec
- Raphaël Anzelberger, joined us from the French Baptist Union of Canada
We also welcomed and celebrated leaders of two additional denominations
- Julio Guarneri, who took the lead role of the Texas Baptists this month, and finally
- John K. Jenkins Sr., who has led Converge for just over a year
These introductions, as well as a number of other portions of our time together have been posted as videos on the NABF YouTube channel, in order to make them available to those who were not able to join us:
- 2023 NABF Business Meeting
- Opening Prayer, by Rev Emmett Dunn
- Katie Choy-Wong: Building Lasting Bridges Part 1
- Katie Choy-Wong: Building Lasting Bridges Part 2
- New Denomination Leader Interviews
- Creation Care Update
- Scholars Collaboration Update
- Ecumenical Update
- Introducing the NABF Collective
- Closing Prayer, Jennifer Lau
We are looking forward to continuing to add stories and resources from our time together.
Our next meeting will take place in Fall 2024. We look forward to sharing more details about that gathering soon.
