Karl Johnson couldn’t help but express his appreciation for God’s timing as he stood on stage Nov. 11 during the Baptist General Association of Virginia annual meeting in Abingdon.
When he accepted the opportunity to speak at the meeting, he had no idea Hurricane Melissa would wreak havoc on his homeland of Jamaica in late October. The Jamaican pastor and chair of Baptist World Alliance also had no idea that shortly after the devastation, the BGAV would present him with a check for $50,000 to help with relief efforts there. He also would learn BGAV’s disaster response team planned to meet in the coming days to put together a strategy to help the devastated island nation.
“God goes before God’s people and paves the way that God wants to pave,” said Johnson, pastor of Phillippo Baptist Church in Spanish Town, Jamaica. “Who could have orchestrated that other than God.”
While Johnson noted it will take Jamaica a “mighty long time” to recover, he added that with God’s help hurting people will “rise from the ashes.”
Not merely for a ‘chosen few’
Continuing with the theme of Mission Forward, Johnson spoke on Philippians 3:12–16 and went on to share his heart on how missions “goes to the very purpose of the mind and will … of Almighty God.” The church does not merely “do” missions, he added, but “the church is missions.”
Johnson cautioned against ever believing that missions “is only for a chosen few” or “for those who like to travel.”
“Missions is for everyone,” he said, “for God’s church is a missional church.”
4 dynamics of missional vocation
Johnson shared four dynamics of the missional vocation.
First, the missional vocation is “life-long.” There is no expiration date, no retirement because of any excitement to “access our 401K,” he said.
“There is no time for mission tourism,” he said. “It is a world where Satan is always busy, trying to detract, trying to point people to other ways of living that deny the purpose God has in store for every human being.”
Because of that, he added, “God requires us to be engaged in this missional vocation.”
Second, missions is always forward-looking. We must always be looking ahead and not in the “rearview mirror” or caught up in “nostalgic preoccupation,” he said.
“Nothing compares to what God can do,” he added, urging Christ followers to embrace the “potential God has for us.”
‘Joint venture’
Third, missions is a joint venture. In a world where people focus more on individualism, he noted, missions is a “church-wide endeavor.”
“All of us are in this missional vocation together,” he said. “And even when we can’t agree on something … we have to learn that at the heart of this is rescuing the perishing and care for the dying.”
Fourth, the missional vocation is worldwide. “The gospel is for all,” he noted.
“There is no country so powerful or so resourceful that does not need the gospel,” he said. “And there is no individual and no country that you may think is so impoverished that cannot persist in spreading the gospel.”
He added, “The same God that is in Abingdon is the same God that is in Ukraine, and is the same God that is in Haiti. God is God all over this world.”
Tiny house ministry
The Tuesday evening session began with worship music led by Chosen Road and a dramatic presentation recalling the feeding of the 5,000 presented by Charles Reese and Rebecca McCoy-Reese.
BGAV President Shelton Miles recognized volunteers who had helped complete Tiny 2, the second tiny home to be finished out by Impact Disaster Response. Disaster relief leaders conceived the idea of building tiny houses following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene, said Glenn Maddox, BGAV national missions director. More houses are set to be constructed that can help families facing homelessness, he added. The Tuesday night offering was designated to support the tiny house initiative.
Miles noted that this year’s meeting marked an important anniversary in the life of Virginia Baptists.
“Fifty years ago at the BGAV was the beginning of us taking a turn to leave behind the old ways of racism and beginning to look more like the Kingdom of God,” Miles said.
Nathan Taylor, executive director of The Center for Baptist Heritage & Studies, added that on Nov. 11, 1975, the “historic state conventions of Virginia came together, black and white Baptists, for an unprecedented evening of worship.”
BGAV’s 2025 annual meeting concludes today (Nov. 12).
