After a whirlwind week, what’s next for newly elected International Mission Board (IMB) President David Platt?
First, he will give a loving goodbye to the church he has led for eight years. That will be followed by a time of meeting and listening to Southern Baptist missionaries at a major strategy gathering in Asia. After that, he anticipates “100 percent focus” on the task ahead.
One of his favorite moments came minutes after his election, when news of the event started spreading around the venue near Richmond, Va., where the trustee meeting was held. An excited group of new missionaries – all 20-somethings – surrounded Platt in a lobby area to congratulate him and express their support. Several said God had led them toward international missions while they read Platt’s bestselling book, “Radical,” or heard him speak about taking the gospel to the darkest places on earth.
“I think they were encouraged to see there’s somebody else who’s a bit younger who sees the value [of what they’re doing with their lives],” said Platt, the youngest leader in the history of the 169-year-old mission organization.
Platt’s first priority is a loving goodbye to The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala., the congregation of more than 4,500 that he has led for eight years. Then comes a time of meeting and listening to Southern Baptist missionaries at a major strategy gathering in Asia. After that, he anticipates “100 percent focus” on the task ahead.
Some younger evangelicals have questioned the ongoing relevance of traditional Christian institutions, including missionary-sending agencies beyond the local church. Platt, in contrast, sees great value in institutions – if they help nurture Spirit-led movements.
“There is so much value in institutions sustaining movements,” he said.
“There are many great mission organizations doing many great things, but there’s nothing like the IMB when it comes to connecting and fueling local churches in [a mission] movement,” Platt said.
Platt recalled meeting with a group of evangelical mission leaders to talk about mobilizing local churches for reaching the nations. They expressed amazement at how Southern Baptists – whether they belong to tiny rural congregations or huge mega-churches – still come together to do missions.
“This force of 40,000 churches working together on mission is evident in many ways, but particularly in the way we can cooperate together in giving,” he said. “When I think about what happens in the Cooperative Program, what happens in the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, I see different churches from all over North America give, and the result is that missionaries are able to go. If this giving wasn’t happening, we’d have missionaries doing what politicians do: spending all their time raising money just to stay where they are. That works worse in the Great Commission than it does in Washington, and that’s saying something.