‘Life Is Too Short To Resist God’—SBC Commissions Over 80 Missionaries at Annual Meeting

At the start of the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) 2024 annual meeting in Indianapolis, more than 10,000 delegates, called messengers, celebrated the sending of over 80 global missionaries with one mission in mind: Share the gospel.

Paul Chitwood, the president of the SBC’s International Mission Board (IMB), told the messengers that the new missionaries “have responded the Lord’s call upon their lives to go and make disciples of all nations.”

“It’s not often that we can see a group of new missionaries this large nor a group of new missionaries being sent to every single one of the 80 affinities where the IMB works around the world,” Chitwood added.

Chitwood explained that the 80-plus missionaries are “committing to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to deaf peoples, to the people-groups of Europe, to the people of Sub-Saharan Africa, to Asia and the Pacific Rim, to the Americas, to North Africa, the Middle East, to Central Asia and South Asia.”

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On the stage behind Chitwood, two large shadow boxes could be seen, representing missionaries whose identities had to be protected for security reasons.

“Some of the missionaries you will hear from today are going to places where they cannot openly share their testimonies,” said Chitwood. “And then there are those who go where the security concerns are so great that even in this convention hall, you will not see their faces nor hear their voices.”

As the messengers listened to the missionaries’ brief testimonies, they were asked to pray for the missionaries. “Ask the Lord to prepare the way before them as they go to take the light of the gospel around the world,” Chitwood said before the first missionaries shared.

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One missionary couple who will soon move to Europe told the crowded room, “Life is too short to resist God.” The couple then encouraged those listening to “pray for us as we come alongside a people group that is far from God.”