DISCIPLES MAKING DISCIPLES By Meredith Rose, Contributing writer
FEBRUARY 2020 / TEX AS BAPTISTS LIFE
The Texas Baptists Missions Team is dedicated to helping churches reach their communities, their cities, the nation and, ultimately, the world for Christ.
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Understanding that this is no easy task, they encourage churches to pursue intentional discipleship, where Christ’s followers are multiplied and the church is collectively empowered to spread the Gospel further. Fishing for Disciples Last summer, Texas Baptists Missions Specialist David Miranda organized a gathering of several Texas Baptists church leaders from the Dallas area. His goal was to understand how the Missions Team could better equip young ministers to spread the Gospel.
From this meeting emerged Devoted, an event that Miranda described using Christ’s timeless fishers-of-men metaphor. “If you want to go fishing, you go to a lake. But here in Texas, we don’t have lakes, so we build reservoirs,” he said. Devoted is exactly that, a reservoir where Texas Baptists goes fishing for young people who are interested in
ministry and passionate about growing through mentorship. The first Devoted session was held last spring and attracted a variety of people with different mentorship needs. In order to reach each group effectively, the Missions Team has created three mentorship groups with unique purposes. As the Missions Mentoring Program continues to develop, these three mentorship groups are seeing exponential growth and success.
Executive Mentorship The Common 01 was the first mentorship group to take form. It is a group geared toward pastors in their mid-20s to 30s seeking to improve their ministry skills and grow their churches.
