By: Cheryl Reccord

 1997 saw the birth of the North American Mission Board emerging from the restructuring of the Southern Baptist Convention, The Covenant for a New Century. Dr. Bob Reccord was selected as the founding President and served for nine years. There is much to be thankful for regarding the myriad blessings that God provided during those nine years…

1. Due to hard work and disciplined stewardship during the first 5 years NAMB saw efficiencies and effective ministries launched which would have been impossible without the restructuring. Forty-one million dollars were applied to ministries and initiatives that would have been impossible without the restructuring of the Southern Baptist Convention (which I had the privilege of chairing for the two year prior to coming to NAMB)…
• The Nehemiah Church Planting Project was launched in all 6 U.S. seminaries and the one in Canada, establishing a Church Planting Center and professor on each campus
• The Strategic Focus City emphasis was launched that to date has planted over 325 new churches in 10 major cities and has seen over 50,000 people accept Christ
• $2,000,000 over and above normal in 1999 was given to our SBC state partners
• Churches were launched in the wake of the Tampa Billy Graham Crusade (51) and the St. Louis Crusade (24)
• 10 Strategic Flagship churches were launched in major metro areas, many of which have now “fathered” or “grandfathered” new churches
2. The Nehemiah Project has appointed…(through 2005) -405 funded two-year planters 717 funded short-term and semester student interns Approximately 3650 students have been trained in the 7 seminaries
3. New church planters have grown to be 59% African American and ethnic, better reflecting our cultural diversity and during it’s first nine years 14,350 new churches were reported (per Dr. Richard Harris, VP of Church Planting).
4. Next Level Leadership and Team Development was launched and has grown to equipping approximately 24,000 church leaders in 2005 working intregally with state convention partners.
5. World Changers has grown from approximately 8,000 to approximately 25,000 ( ministry of teens giving a week of their summer to rebuilding sub-standard housing in metropolitan low-income areas, while sharing Christ with those who live there)
6. Disaster Relief has grown exponentially and received more recognition that ever before in SBC history. Southern Baptists have left and indelible impact at the tragedies of 9/11 the Florida hurricanes of 2004 and the hurricanes of 2005. Gifts to national Disaster Relief have exploded to just over $24 million and national recognition all the way to the White House.
7. NAMB’s overhead has plummeted from 25% at its inception in ’97 to 12% at the end of 2005..
8. The Church Finance Team has grown from consulting 50-60 churches per year at NAMB’s inception to over 700 yearly today in areas dealing with facilities, land, growth, etc.
9. Church planting in the first 8 years of NAMB averaged over 277 more per year that in the last 8 years of the previous existing Home Mission Board..
10. The 91% increase in health care costs has not been passed to our staff or missionaries.
11. Many of our leaders have been sought by others and gone on to great opportunities: Dr. Phil Roberts as President of Midwestern Seminary, Dr. David Clark as President of Palm Beach Atlanta University, Gary Frost as DOM for New York City, and Dr. Nate Adams as the state Exec, Director in Illinois, Dr. Randy Singer, nationally known Christian novelist, speaker and Law School professor.
12. Mission personnel grew by more than 450 in the nine years to approximately 5300 serving across North America in all types of settings.
13. Operation NOAH Rebuild was launched to play a significant role in the rebuild efforts of homes in New Orleans and North Shore area with a goal of a minimum of 1000 homes, and Promise Keepers was enlisted as a collaborating partner to aid in the manpower to get the job done.
14. Our latest Strategic Focus City is in its beginning stages but the indicators are looking wonderful….
• More new churches have been planted in the first quarter of 2006 than in the last 11 years
• Over 30,000 intercessors have already committee to under gird the Cleveland Hope strategic city emphasis
• Missions giving (through the Southern Baptist Cooperative Program) is up 37% during the first quarter of ’06 over a year ago
15. NAMB’s web presence was modernized from 48 different web sites at our beginning and thousands of pages to a unified user-friendly web site easily navigated by those who visit.
16. Solid collaborative working relationships were forged with other well known ministries such as Promise Keepers, Campus Crusade, Salvation Army, and other…always maintaining the unwavering doctrinal base of Southern Baptists.
17. Relationships were forged with leaders on Capital Hill to enable NAMB to lay groundwork for launching new ministries there to Hill staff and for testifying before Congressional committees on vital faith-based issues.
18. New emphases were launched to empower and equip public school teachers, and attorneys (two professions that touch millions of people daily) to be “On Mission” in their work place. Early 2006 saw over 250 top law students in America attend retreats challenging them to an “On Mission” life.
19. FEMA certified Disaster Relief Volunteers increased from approximately 13, 500 in 1997 to over 52, 000 in early 2006 with the partnership of state convention partners and the coordination of NAMB.

These are but a few of the many things God has allowed a great team to see accomplished in bringing the infant organization into “childhood”. But it continues to grow and move ahead to fulfill its calling, and for that I am very thankful.

by:Bob Reccord

I never gave it much thought at the time. Twenty-six years ago life was hectic and I was traveling the country heading up a national training program for an international ministry (Evangelism Explosion International). The “road” beckoned about 33 weeks a year and I was trying to balance a family with a four year old and a new born.

He was a young man who had just come to know Christ and was proving to be a voracious reader, inquisitive mind, dynamic thinker and hungry learner. His dream, he said, was to write some day, and he wondered if he could come by my office regularly and just run his thoughts and questions by me, discuss what he was learning about the Christian life, and have me give thought and perspective to some things he was trying to write.

He reminded me recently over a dinner in Orlando, that he would often come by and kneel by my desk while I worked, answered phone calls, edited material and planned for the next trip…in between meetings. With stirring sincerity he told me what it had meant to him that I had given time generously, taken him seriously, encouraged him constantly and rejoiced with him in victories regularly.

Little did I imagine that twenty-six years later he would be one of the most listened to Christian talk show hosts in America. A celebrated speaker. A scratch golfer. And, still a wonderful friend. Who? Hank Hannegraff–the Bible Answer Man. Big doors swing on small hinges… like the gift of time when we have no idea what difference it will ultimately make.

by: Bill Curry

Bill Curry supports the growth of inmates at Sanders Estes Unit in Venus Texas. Following is a report that Bill wrote to several prayer supporters. Bob Reccord contiually supports promise keepers and prisoners at Sanders Estes. Please post a comment if you have a story about prisoners and prayer.

We started with the Iron man video, it is the one of the father and son who did the Iron Man competition in Hawaii, a marathon, 100 mile bike ride and 10 mile swim in the ocean. The only difference is that the father pushed, swam and rode with his handicapped son. I have seen that DVD a bunch of times and am always moved by it, but this time the Mountain Cedar was heavy in the room, Murphy says men don’t get emotional to the point of tears and that it is the Mountain Cedar that affects your eyes. This time it hit me like a ton of bricks, I was the handicapped guy in that raft being pulled or in the wheel chair being pushed or in the special seat on the front of the bike being pedaled by a daddy who saw beyond all my imperfections and handicaps, one who, as Bob Reccord would say in the next video, knows me by name and still makes the sacrifices necessary to let me win the race. I shared that with the guys that, that guy was us. When the lights came on apparently the Mountain Cedar had affected many.

We moved from that to the Venus video that was shot during the event that PK and the CMA hooked up on in August, it was probably the 1st time they had ever seen what the facility looked like from the outside. Bob Reccord and James Ryle nailed some hearts in their brief spots. Bob shared how God knew each of their names and that they mattered to Him and that nothing that they had ever or would ever do could change how much He loves, cares for and has plans for them. James shared how that there was someone there that mattered so much to God that He brought this team together to come there just for that one man. This was one of those minutes that you just let the Spirit work.

I shared some of James’ testimony about how when he was incarcerated it was in a prison that his father had built when he was incarcerated. This is when things got a little quiet until one by one several shared their thoughts. The first shared that he hadn’t been even close to the kind of father that he should have been and his children had paid the price, in a choked up moment he did say that the story gave him hope. We shared that there was no hopeless situation and no lost cause children in God’s family. One man shared how he had not even seen some of his kids, he had been down while they grew up, but it was his bad choices that got him there and that he could relate to Promise # 2 about developing relationships with other men and how his cellie, who was there was his calming affect when his anger raged and he saw the need for those relationships.

If there was a show stopper it was when one man shared how he hadn’t been there for his sons and hadn’t provided the kind of father figure for them and then told us that one of his sons was serving time right there in Venus and was in another pod and only could see him at chapel. He was encouraged though because another asked him this week if that young man was his son and he said that he was and was told that he had a good kid for a son. I can’t imagine having come to prison to find my son but in reflection many of us are in our own prisons we just don’t have bars. The son was supposed to be there last night and would be the next week.

The next thing that I will share is not in any way about us but all about the faithfulness of God to use nobodies to minister to anybody and I share it because it took my breath away and left me almost speechless in a cloud of mountain cedar. A man who has been in a couple of our classes addressed the group and said that he wanted to share a verse with them, it was from 2 Chronicles 16:9

“For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”

He went on to say that when the Lord looked across the earth He see those kind of hearts in us and that we were righteous, godly men and that he, this man, appreciated all that we had done to minister to him. It seemed that thank you was such a woefully lacking reply but it was the only one I could muster and I dared not say much more lest the mountain cedar attack me. In 10 years of this, this and maybe only a couple other times have I experienced such a blessing, it was enough to keep me at it for another 10 years.

We capped the night off with our usual closing prayer but as we were leaving a man approached and said that this was the 1st year that he and his father will have been to PK, him in Venus and his father in Arizona this coming weekend. Well I have rambled too long but this kind of captures what we experienced last evening.