According to Acts 13, after God called for the church to set aside Barnabas and Saul for the missionary work He had called them, the church acknowledged their calling with the laying on of hands, and then the church sent them. Rick Warren famously said, “You measure a church’s strength, not by its seating capacity but by its sending capacity.” We recognize that if our churches are going to follow the biblical model, then we need to be sending missionaries and sending pastors. 

Using the calculations the Georgia Baptist Mission Board uses to say that there are over seven million lost people in Georgia, we can say that there are over 127,000 lost people in Columbus. Adding another staggering number, the International Mission Board estimates that there are over three billion people in the world who have no access to the gospel. These are all people whom Jesus loves and who He died for, people He would have to be saved. Following Paul’s missionary chain, we too would have to ask, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent (Romans 10:14-15)?” The truth is that they have been sent, according to the Great Commission. We, as an association, want to encourage and equip our churches to be on that sending end through training, resourcing, and promotion.