Recent Articles on World & Missions
 | Tuesday, January 17, 2012
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 | Tuesday, December 20, 2011
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 | Tuesday, December 13, 2011
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 | Tuesday, December 06, 2011
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 | Tuesday, November 29, 2011
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 WORLD ON DISPLAY The children’s choir from Suwon Central Baptist Church in Seoul, South Korea, performs in the lobby of the Hawai’i Convention Center in Honolulu, site of last week’s Baptist World Congress. Suwon Central’s pastor is Billy Kim, a former BWA president. (Photo by Rand Jenkins) BWA admits Vietnamese Baptists,
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Honolulu—Some of the globe’s most persecuted Christians found an international home when the Baptist World Alliance admitted the Baptist Churches in Vietnam into the global organization. The BWA’s General Council voted full membership July 28 to the Vietnamese organization, as well as to Baptist groups from Zambia and the District of Columbia in the U.S., as delegates gathered in Honolulu for the 20th Baptist World Congress. “This is a historic moment and a fruitful moment,” BWA President David Coffey said as General Council members prepared to vote on the Vietnamese Baptists. He reflected on the persecution and struggles faced by Christians in Vietnam during the latter part of the 20th century. He pointed to a 2006 human-rights visit—conducted by representatives of the BWA and Texas Baptists—as a pivotal event in securing government recognition for Vietnamese Baptists. They trace their heritage to the work of Southern Baptist missionaries in the country, reported Alistair Brown, chairman of the BWA’s membership committee. The Baptist Churches in Vietnam received government recognition in 2008. The organization includes 509 churches with about 30,000 members. Admission into the BWA marks a historic and emotional milestone for Vietnamese Baptists, stressed Giam Nguyen, general secretary of the Baptist Churches in Vietnam. “Most of the population of Vietnam was born during the persecution period,” from 1975 through 1995, Nguyen said. “All they have experienced has been persecution. So this affirmation and acceptance gives us hope. “Politically, this is important, because it demonstrates to our government that we have international support. This shows we are not merely a grassroots movement. We’ve been waiting for so long.” The General Council also affirmed admission of the Baptist Fellowship of Zambia and the District of Columbia Baptist Convention. The Zambian fellowship was founded in 1995 and affiliates with about 1,500 congregations, making it the largest Baptist group in the African nation, Brown said. The D.C. convention dates to 1877 and includes churches in the federal District—the U.S. capital—plus parts of neighboring Maryland and Virginia. It includes 112 churches and 34 mission congregations and numbers 66,000 members. The D.C. convention affiliates with multiple other Baptist groups, including the Alliance of Baptists, American Baptist Churches USA, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Progressive National Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention.
Coffey, whose term as BWA president ended at the conclusion of the Baptist World Congress, presided over his last General Council session. “We see the world from a different perspective,” he said of the experience brought about by attending the Congress with fellow Baptists worldwide. Coffey’s successor, President-elect John Upton, also presided at a General Council session. He compared the BWA to the origin of the Harlequin clowns of Europe, based on a story about a poor boy whose mother sewed together scraps from his friends’ costumes so he could attend a ball. The story is a metaphor for BWA, Upton said. “We’re all different, with different colors, shapes and languages. Maybe God wants to use each of us to make that unusual thing called BWA. Bring your own distinctive colors, talent, style and heritage. “A miracle is going to happen, and it will look like dancing. You know who will be the one dancing? It will be Jesus, clothed in the love of His children.” (ABP)
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