Bold decisions were made at this week’s IMB trustee meetings that will open up the possibilities for “limitless missionary teams.”
For example, the IMB has traditionally majored on one pathway to the field (i.e. fully funded service), but will now emphasize multiple pathways in order to exponentially multiply the missionary force. This includes a major city strategy where we send students, businessmen, teachers, coaches, retirees, and more who could be self-supported. The IMB will still have fully-funded church planters in key places all over the world, but alongside those planters will be teams of people sent through these new pathways.
Also, the trustees approved a unified statement for the qualifications to be an IMB missionary. This statement replaces some previous policies concerning private prayer language, circumstances surrounding baptism, teenage children in the home, and more. The press release linked below does a great job explaining why these changes were made. We would encourage you to read it in its entirety.
Finally, the moves unify the IMB with SBC churches and entities because it elevates the importance of the BF&M 2000. Not only will missionaries be held to belief in our statement of faith, but they will also be held accountable to the statement of faith for how they live and work as IMB missionaries. This raises the theological bar; it does not lower it!
We are so thankful for the leadership of David Platt, and we could not be more excited for the future.
Here is a link to the IMB’s story on the changes
Here is a link to the press release
Here is a link to FAQs
We are grateful to once again have David Platt, the President of the IMB, as a panelist at the B21 luncheon at the SBC on Tuesday June 16th in Columbus. Register here today and don’t miss the opportunity to hear from him directly about these decisions and the new course for the IMB. If there are questions that you would like to ask David Platt directly, please feel free to ask them in the comment section, and we will consider your question for the panel.