Missions at FBC can be quite confusing.  Terms like FBM, Faith Baptist Mission, Faith’s 100, and ‘Traditional Missionary’ are frequently thrown around.  Today I want to take a minute to wade through the Missions Program at FBC.  So, I thought I would take a stab at providing this helpful guide.

FBC Missionaries

Since the inception of our church in the late 1970s, we have supported missionaries in the ‘traditional sense.’  This means that for these missionaries, we send money to their mission agency on a regular basis.  We sometimes refer to these missionaries as our  ‘traditionally supported missionaries.’  There are also several agencies that we support.  Here is a list of Missionaries & Agencies that fall into this category:

Gene Bryant, Kent & Kelly Craig, Tim & Pam Darling, Pete & Mary Lou Jenks, Chris & Diane Marine, Walter & Beverly McDonald, Chaplain John & Hope Murdoch, Patricio Oliva (Adelphos), Doug & Karen Phillips, Jon & Jenny Reiner, Jim & Lori Spoto, Gil & Denise Thomas, Bobby & Karen Williams, Gordon & Cindy Wyant, Ron & Sherry Yeater, ABWE, BMM, Baptist Church Planters, GARBC, Shepherds Baptist Ministries, Sunshine Baptist Fellowship

Faith’s 100 Missionaries

I like to think of Faith’s 100 as a vision more than a program or ministry.  Shortly after Pastor Osborne came to FBC, he started sharing a new vision for missions with us.  His vision was both simple and yet profound.   I would describe his vision this way.

Let’s raise up our own missionaries; train and equip them, and then support them 100% financially throughout their ministry.

Under Pastor Osborne’s leadership, FBC adopted this vision.  It is important to note that we never stopped supporting our traditional missionaries.  We have kept our commitment to them and even increased our financial commitments to them over the years.

We currently have three Faith’s 100 missionaries.  Jared Malcolm serves in Brazil.  Gary Simpson serves with Children’s Bible Ministries here in the US.  David and Anora Totman serve at a christian school in Budapest, Hungary.  In our church foyer, you will see a large section on the wall that is devoted to our Faith’s 100 missionaries.  You will see pictures of Jared, the Simpsons, and the Totmans.  You will also see a picture of Joe & Debbie Tassell and their family.  Joe Tassell serves as a Pastor of a church in Ohio.  Joe was ordained through Faith’s 100.  We helped train and prepare him for ministry.  While we do not support him financially, we do consider him a part of our Faith’s 100 program.

Faith Baptist Mission (FBM)

Several years ago, we setup a separate corporation to function as a mission agency.  At the time, our purpose was simply to serve our own Faith’s 100 missionaries.  We saw several benefits in handling these ‘mission agency responsibilities’ for our Faith’s 100 missionaries.  While we were not actively looking to recruit missionaries from outside our church, God had other plans.  In the fall of 2011, another Baptist Mission agency dissolved.  One of our FBC ‘traditionally supported’ missionaries was with this agency.  As we were thinking of how we could help our missionary, we offered to allow him to be a part of our ‘mission agency.’  To make a long story short, almost overnight, our mission agency (FBM) went from two missionaries to 13.

FBM Missionaries are those that we serve through our mission agency.  One of these missionaries (Chris Marine) does receive financial support from FBC.  He is one of our ‘traditionally supported’ missionaries.  The rest of our FBM missionaries receive no direct financial support from FBC.  But, we do promote their ministries in our church.  We do feature them in our Wednesday night Prayer Concern Bulletin.  We have featured them at our mission conferences.  Here is a list of our FBM Missionaries:

Ken & Sarah Beckley, Cindy Faile, Dan & Marsha Haynes, David & Comfort Jacobs, Chris & Diane Marine, Joe & Amy Marshall, Rich & Anna Marshall, Kathy Miller, Rich Melvin, Faye Obgartel, Colin & Teena Ovenell, Tim & Janice Phillips, Tim & Richelle Wright

Conclusion

I hope this short guide is helpful to you.  I realize that it probably does not answer all of your questions.  My hope is that it just gives you a birds-eye view of how missions functions at our church.  If you have any questions, please feel free to respond.  We will do our best to answer any questions you may have.

Happy Friday!

Stephen