On Nov. 10, New Vision Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, hosted a Sending Celebration that featured 49 newly appointed missionaries. The International Mission Board event kicked off the Tennessee Baptist Convention’s annual meeting, which is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the state convention.
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Randy Davis, president and executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, shared how thankful Tennessee Baptists are to partner with Southern Baptist churches to cooperatively send and support international missionaries.
“We celebrate the fact that Southern Baptists are working together all over this country to be one of the strongest sending networks of churches,” Davis said. “It impacts lostness at home and around the globe.”
Testimony of journey to the field
Christian Castellano served as an IMB Journeyman in Peru after working as a ministerial assistant at Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tennessee, his sending church and the church where he was baptized at age 7.
Bellevue Baptist is also where Castellano, as a middle schooler, met Kyle Roy, who was on staff at Bellevue and is currently an IMB missionary in Brazil.
“He taught me the importance of prayer and evangelism and having a global perspective of God’s mission to save the world,” Castellano said about Roy.
In high school and college, Castellano went on mission trips to Nicaragua and Honduras. He eventually led church groups overseas. Toward the end of his Journeyman term in Peru, he believed the Lord gave him the desire to return to Peru as a career IMB missionary.
While he was preaching at a church in Lima, Castellano gave a call to action, inviting people to step into God’s mission to reach the world. He said the Lord made it clear that the sermon he was preaching was for himself. In that moment, God was telling Castellano he was to come back to Peru.
“As a Journeyman, I had the opportunity to engage with unreached people groups in remote parts of the Americas,” he said. “God is up to something, and I am so excited to be a part of it.”
Chitwood thanks Tennessee Baptists
IMB President Paul Chitwood said he was blessed to be back in his home state of Tennessee, especially to celebrate new missionaries sent to the nations — the very thing that brought Tennessee Baptists together 150 years ago and Southern Baptists together 180 years ago.
“Your gifts through the Cooperative Program and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering make their work possible,” Chitwood said. “And the beauty of our cooperative model means that every church represented in this sanctuary tonight had a gospel witness this past year in 155 countries around the world!”
Chitwood also took the opportunity being in the “Volunteer State” to express the need for more Southern Baptists to serve on the mission field.
“We need more ‘volunteers’ on the mission field — planting churches and proclaiming the gospel,” he said. “Every job is an opportunity to share the gospel.” He also emphasized the varied skills, jobs and roles available to missionaries today.
The next Sending Celebration will be Feb. 5, 2025, at First Baptist Church of Charleston, South Carolina.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Chris Doyle and originally published by the International Mission Board.
