Though no longer affiliated with a Southern Baptist Convention entity, World Changers is still “Baptist through and through,” said David Flatt, executive director of World Changers.

The mission ministry is celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2025, a major achievement considering the program was discontinued by Lifeway Christian Resources in 2020, the only year World Changers did not operate due to COVID-21. Lifeway cited “10 years of decline in participants” as a factor in ending the program, according to a Lifeway news release in 2020.

Never say die

A group of men and women, led by Flatt, who had been involved with World Changers since its beginning refused to let the ministry die. The group raised the needed funds to purchase all rights to World Changers and have continued the ministry which is now based in Panama City, Florida, where Flatt also serves as ministry pastor at First Baptist Church Panama City.

While churches from other denominations are welcome to serve during the summer projects, everyone who works for World Changers, including volunteer leaders, is a Southern Baptist, Flatt said. “We subscribe to the Baptist Faith and Message as our theological statement,” he said.

World Changers was established by the former Brotherhood Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1990 with a pilot project in Briceville, Tennessee. A group of 137 youth and adults spent a week in Appalachia doing construction work and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That event launched a ministry that provided students and adults with opportunities to meet both physical and spiritual needs by making repairs for low-income homeowners at no charge. Volunteers donated a week of their time and paid money to spend a week in the summer, often sleeping on floors in local churches and schools, while working on projects ranging from building wheelchair ramps to painting and replacing windows and siding.

The program was operated by the Brotherhood Commission until it was disbanded under the restructuring of the Southern Baptist Convention in the mid-1990s. The responsibility for World Changers was transferred in 1997 to the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, Georgia.

NAMB transferred World Changers to Lifeway Christian Resources in 2011 where its student ministry assumed day-to-day operations. Lifeway’s first World Changers projects were held in the summer of 2012.

‘Great avenue for students’

Jon Hodge, current director of logistics for World Changers who lives in Jackson, Tennessee, has a unique perspective having been involved with World Changers both with NAMB and Lifeway. He also was involved in World Changers projects in Illinois with the Brotherhood Commission while he was on staff at First Baptist Church West Frankfort. He has been a staff member of World Changers for 28 years with two Southern Baptist organizations and now a nonprofit entity.

He observed that World Changers was able to survive because of people who were passionate that the organization was still “a great avenue for students to use their talents and abilities to use that to earn the right to witness to people.”

Flatt, who served as a World Changers coordinator in the past, agreed. “I was a youth minister for 25 years and saw that World Changers had more of an impact on my students than any other camp we did.”

Flatt learned early on from Andy Morris, the first director, what made the ministry so important. “When I joined World Changers as a coordinator, Andy asked me why it was called World Changers. I replied that it is obvious. You go in, fix somebody’s house and it changes their world.”

Morris replied that was a side benefit, he recalled. Morris told Flatt that the real reason was, “If we change the world of that student who’s working on a house, only eternity will know the effect they can have over his or her lifetime.”

Transforming the ‘average student’

In addition to the evangelistic thrust in World Changers, there is a strong discipleship element as well, Flatt said. “World Changes is a way to take the average student, who is a Christian and growing in their journey, and jumpstart that growth and help them in their discipleship journey.”

What’s more, the students pay about $300 each to sleep on the floor for a week and work harder than they probably ever have in their life, he continued. “God uses experience to break down barriers and speak to them … at World Changers, maybe sometimes more that He could at home or somewhere else,” Flatt said.

Both Flatt and Hodge served with World Changers in its heyday with NAMB when it was not uncommon to have 25,000 students involved each summer. The numbers declined over the years to about 5,000 students in 2019 and no events the following year. Participation dipped more for a few years.

Still, leaders estimate that more than 400,000 students have participated in World Changers since its beginning. Hodge estimates that the number of lives impacted could be closer to 800,000 if all the volunteers and local people who assisted at the various sites over the years are included.

Since the current leadership took over, participation has increased to about 2,500 expected participants in 16 sites across the nation this summer. 

Mission remains the same

Flatt said a lot of Southern Baptists thought World Changers just went away, but the organization is working hard to let Southern Baptists know that it still exists. 

Hodge observed that the current World Changers model has remained the same. “We do everything from decks, porches, windows, repairs, painting, siding, wheelchair ramps and more,” he said. Another tradition that has continued, he noted, is an annual missions offering from the participants that is given to a special missions need each year.

Each city has a construction coordinator, a project coordinator and a site coordinator, who normally is a local pastor, Hodge said. In addition, each site has a volunteer crew chief and numerous college students who are employed as summer staff, he added.

World Changers still works with local Baptist churches and associations, Hodge said. “When we come to town, we try not to come and just do our own thing. We want to work with those churches and associations and get them involved in what we’re doing so that when we leave, they have a connection with the people we’ve been helping.

“If anyone is led to the Lord or ask questions about salvation, we leave the names of those people with the DOM and pastor so they can get them connected,” Hodge added.

As another summer of World Changers nears, the two men asked Southern Baptists to continue to pray and to explore the possibility of taking a youth group to World Changers either this summer (some spots are still open) or in the future. 

“We encourage church leaders near a World Changers site to visit for a day so we can show you what we do,” Flatt said. “Hopefully, it will lead you to make World Changers a part of your youth ministry program.”

For more information on World Changers, visit world-changers.net or call 850-347-4601.