Sandy Wisdom-Martin said she believes passionately in what Southern Baptists do together. She said she can sum up the reasons why in the story of one phone call.
“Last fall I was on my way to Arkansas, and my mother called me and said, ‘After you finish your assignment on Saturday, can you come to Illinois on Sunday?’ Well, I had to be in Mississippi on Monday,” said Wisdom-Martin, executive director of national Woman’s Missionary Union, during her report to the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting June 14.
But even though Illinois was far out of the way, she decided she could make it happen because her mom wanted her to be there for the baptism of two people at a nearby lake. One of them was a 60-year-old man who walked the aisle as a child, but said it wasn’t a true profession of faith.
“A few years ago a family tragedy caused him to consider his life, and the public baptism was his testimony to follow Christ at age 60,” Wisdom-Martin said. “The man attends a rural church plant of a rural church plant that has received funds from the North American Mission Board.”
The church planter had interned at a church where Kevin Ezell, current NAMB president, had served as pastor. Ezell impacted his life in a big way, and that led him to where he is now.
Local church impact
Wisdom-Martin said, “As I was watching these two candidates of a church plant get baptized in a lake last fall, I’m thinking, ‘How did we get here?’ The work of a local church. The work of my home association — Nine Mile. The work of my home convention — Illinois Baptist State Association. The work of NAMB and the influence of their president — Kevin Ezell, who mentored a rural church planter.”
Wisdom-Martin told messengers she’s always believed “in what we do together,” but now it’s more personal.
“Because the 60-year-old man that was baptized at Lake Sallateeska last fall by the church planter is my brother, Doug — a story six decades in the making,” she said with emotion. “How many conversations and touchpoints did it take to reach my brother? What we do together as Southern Baptists matters.”
Connie Dixon, national WMU president, said conversations matter too.
“During this convention, we are having difficult conversations, and as challenging as these conversations are, at least we are having them,” she said. “We must continue to discuss and implement actions that will keep people safe in our churches and Baptist systems.”
Focusing on mental health
One important conversation that happened in WMU life a few years ago involved a small task force that led WMU to focus on the issue of mental health beginning in fall 2022.
“We believe God was getting us ready to respond in this critical season of ministry,” Dixon said. “We are exploring a Bible-based ministry of trauma-healing conversations where participants hear Bible stories and then tell their stories in a safe environment with others who have also experienced their own hurts.”
She also said these kinds of conversations are what WMU is all about.
“Our prayer is that every touchpoint of WMU — every ministry — will lead to conversations that transform lives,” Dixon said. “We teach the missional disciplines of prayer, giving sacrificially, learning about God’s work in the world, doing missions — but we want everything to lead to opportunities to tell others about Jesus.”
View photos from this business session of the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting here.
To view other photos from the 2022 Southern Baptist Convention in Anaheim, click here.
For more stories from the 2022 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting, visit thebaptistpaper.org/sbc2022.
