IMB (International Mission Board)

Gone are the days when most people read books to learn and gain new information! Don Barger, director for Innovation and MX Labs, and Grant Lovejoy’s, director for Scripture and Orality, book, “Unreadable: Another Book You Probably Won’t Read,” is a journey to discover how people obtain information and how that information shapes how they view themselves and the world. People worldwide, not just in rural areas, now prefer to learn through **oral communication, whether on YouTube or social media, in person, or through online interactions with friends, family and connections made online. In global cities, Barger and Lovejoy conducted more than 200 interviews with people of different ages, faiths, ethnicities, socio-economic groups, and the educated and uneducated. Orality in missions is often associated with rural areas, where literacy is less common, but that isn’t what Barger and Lovejoy found. Even most highly educated urban dwellers do not prefer reading books. “’Unreadable’ invites you into a conversation about how people in cities look for, obtain, process and transmit knowledge and how that process influences their identities, loyalties, animosities, fears, hopes and aspirations.” 🔗 “Unreadable” is available for order on Amazon at: https://a.co/d/4xvOiqB.

The history of Southern Baptist work in Indonesia is long, dating back to 1951 when missionaries first went to the island nation. Medical work wasn’t far behind, and it soon became a key strategy for gospel access. Today, the medical facilities are led by Indonesian medical professionals who are committed to the gospel and the vision to use healthcare to make the gospel known to all nations. Indonesian Baptists work closely with the International Mission Board to maximize the reach of the gospel and lead other Christian healthcare professionals to meet physical and spiritual needs. Historically, this key work with the Indonesian Baptists has led to “churches planting churches that plant churches.” “We just need more people to join the vision of how healthcare strategies are reaching the lost with the gospel.” — Jacob Stanley, IMB missionary. Learn more about combining healthcare with ministry strategies to provide gospel access in unreached communities at MedAdvance 2024. Join healthcare professionals, students, and church leaders in providing help and hope to those who have never heard the gospel. 🔗 Learn more and register by Sunday, August 25, for MedAdvance 2024 at: imb.world/3WY2EJh.

"We really are better together." 🤝 "Spiritual lostness is the greatest problem in North America. It's the greatest problem in Zambia. It's the greatest problem among all the nations." — Michelle Chitwood, wife of Paul Chitwood, president of IMB The team from Arkansas, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri and Virginia worked with ongoing ministries and caught a vision of how their own Southern Baptist churches can develop a closer partnership with the IMB. "This trip has shown me a side of missionary life that I've never seen before," Tara Fowler, Missouri Baptist executive director's wife. Her short-term mission team of women experienced most of the components of the missionary task from entry to exit to partnership in just one week as they witnessed the property transfer of the local Baptist seminary to the Zambian Baptist Fellowship. These six tasks are part of the biblical work of every IMB missionary who introduces the gospel to a people group and then continues to work among them until a healthy church of local believers is ready to carry on the Great Commission task. 🔗 Read more about the trip at: https://lnkd.in/geiMZx2t.

Zambian Baptists have a lot to celebrate! This month, we officially transferred the ownership of the Baptist Theological Seminary of Zambia to the Zambian Baptist Fellowship. The transition has been in the works for a decade but is now official. The seminary began in the 1960s when our missionaries wanted to train Zambians to be leaders in their churches and reach their neighbors with the gospel. With this transition, our partnership with Zambian Baptists grows stronger as they work side-by-side to share the good news with all tribes, nations and languages. Pray for this seminary as it trains the next generation of pastors, church planters and missionaries. 🔗 Read more at: https://lnkd.in/ewAiDz2v.

The Paris 2024 Olympics provides a unique opportunity for short-term trips to meet long-term strategies! Part of that strategy includes facilitating and mobilizing more than 300 short-term volunteers to share the gospel on the streets of Paris. Jason Harris leads a young and growing team in Paris - all of which have joined in the last few years. They are united around a common vision to make Christ known among Europeans and a long-term goal to plant five churches in Paris over the next five years. Jason believes short-term volunteers are vital to sharing the gospel broadly and making connections that will catalyze their local church-planting strategy and lead to longevity. Each week of Olympics outreach, volunteers are focused on sharing the gospel within specific geographical and cultural segments of Paris. As the IMB Paris team begins to follow up with new local contacts, pray that their communication will be effective and that people not only hear the gospel but become disciples. “We can’t control the results, but we can measure our faithfulness.” — Jason Harris, IMB Missionary. 🔗 Read more about our Olympics outreach at: https://lnkd.in/eJdkYmZD.

Brazil is home to around 600,000 Ukrainian Brazilians. Most Ukrainians in Brazil immigrated before or during World War I. Even though Ukrainians in Brazil have lived there for several generations, they’ve maintained their language and culture. When IMB missionary Mick Stockwell spoke with the president of the Ukrainian Baptist Theological Seminary about globalization and missions, both men desired to send Ukrainian missionaries to the nations. Their conversation marked the beginning of the journey to send a Ukrainian couple as missionaries, which ended up being the joint effort of eight entities from three countries. The Arshuliks moved to Prudentópolis, Brazil, in 2019, a hub for Ukrainian Brazilians. Vitalii, Iryna and their children arrived with a burning challenge in their hearts: establish a Baptist church in the city. They discovered that this would be the third attempt to plant a Baptist church, with previous attempts started by Brazilian pastors. The hope in sending them was that, with a Ukrainian family, people would identify and connect better and create deeper bonds. Despite challenges, The Arshuliks are already making a difference, building strong connections and seeing new believers come to faith. 🔗 Learn more about the Arshuliks’ story at: https://lnkd.in/eQxDAQeT.

People are experiencing the gospel like never before at the #ParisOlympics! This summer, your IMB missionaries are using virtual reality to complement one of our European teams' digital engagement strategies. Virtual reality is an immersive medium offering unique ways to engage ideas and stories in a highly social context. This is the first ever virtual world IMB has created, providing an opportunity to test what it means "to connect virtual reality to a traditional missionary task strategy." Why? "Every medium offers something unique to find new opportunities." — Byron Holston, IMB missionary. The experience culminates on a beautiful, serene island, moving from a question of identity to the question of who Christ is. As many people grapple with their identity today, this question connects their longing to Jesus' "I AM" statements, a theme throughout our Olympics outreach strategy. At the end of the journey, participants can watch a gospel presentation in their language. 🔗 Read more about how IMB using virtual reality at Olympics at: https://lnkd.in/eZvnBeby.

Let the games begin! 🏅 With over 10,000 athletes and an estimated 15 million visitors from nearly every nation, our International Mission Board team is seizing this God-given moment to share the gospel with the world. Jason Harris, IMB’s Paris team leader, shared the incredible impact so far: “We’ve had interactions with around 5,400 people through various projects including spiritual surveys, passing out balloons to children, five-minute English sessions, distributing New Testaments, and Olympic pin trading. We’ve seen God break spiritually rocky European soil and open hearts to the gospel.” Overall, the team counted 396 gospel shares, 500 Scripture portions – a copy of the New Testament or the gospel of John – distributed, 10 digital engagement contacts made, 200 Olympic pins distributed and used to share the gospel and five professions of faith. We’re looking forward to many more people being impacted by the evangelistic efforts as our Paris team continues to hold evangelistic events and strategic outreach points around the city in the coming weeks! 🔗 Read more at: https://lnkd.in/eT2MdAAw.

Chyler Hughes had never seen a Black missionary. At church, she learned to minister in her local community, but no one ever talked about international missions. It was on this trip to São Paulo, Brazil, where Hughes met her first IMB missionaries, Eric and Ramona Reese, and saw firsthand how they share the good news of Jesus Christ in the favelas, low-income settlements. Through all the new experiences, Chyler went from thinking somebody else can do missions to “why not me?” Chyler witnessed people with different ethnic backgrounds and of different color spreading the gospel and sharing their testimonies. “It was really inspiring to see Eric and Miss Ramona in a place like Brazil. Seeing that representation shows you missions is for everybody.” 🔗 Learn more about the trip at: https://lnkd.in/gk4UwWrD.

According to Doreen, director of education for missionary kids, Meeting needs and supporting families are some of the most rewarding parts of missionary kid education. Doreen and her global team of education consultants work tirelessly to ensure IMB families thrive in their ministries by providing essential educational support. Whether they’re finding the best homeschool curriculum to fit a child’s specific needs or vetting national or Christian schools, consultants walk alongside families whose children need additional help with educational testing, special needs and other educational needs. 🔗 Read more about how education consultants are serving families devoted to missionary task at: https://lnkd.in/eNxJ--hu.