January 31, 2025
By Aaron Weaver
DECATUR, Ga. — “This is the time for us not to be quiet but to stand up in love and action for the sake of those of us in our Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and beyond who are Brown and Black experiencing persecution.”
CBF Moderator Juan García shared this message to members of CBF’s governance bodies gathered for a joint plenary session at the winter meeting in Decatur, Ga.
“Your immigrant brothers and sisters and neighbors need you now more than ever to stand by our side,” he said.
CBF Moderator Juan García speaks during joint plenary sessions of winter governance meeting, Jan. 30-31.
García reflected on the “difficult time in our country” for the Latino and immigrant community including his own family and congregation.
“The Hispanic community in this country, regardless of their immigration status—documented or undocumented—is afraid, suffering and being targeted and persecuted, wondering when they will be the next victims of an ICE raid or when someone will call immigration on them or what will happen to their children if they get arrested or deported,” García said.
García shared stories from church members expressing their fears for their family and worries that a worship service could be interrupted at any moment, noting that ICE had arrested a parishioner at a small Hispanic congregation just several miles away in Tucker, Ga.
“I want you to hear first-hand how these policies are affecting not only your moderator, but also many of your own brothers and sisters in Christ, people from your own faith family—people who you do life with, people who are in your churches or in other churches of our fellowship, people who are part of your governing body.”
“We’re sad for what our people are going through,” García said. “We’re mad about the constant lies being spread about our people and the vicious attacks we are receiving. We’re disappointed that so-called Christians are embracing the hatred and abuse of the empire. We are afraid. We’re worried and sometimes we feel hopeless as this racism, hatred and evil continue to unfold against our Black and Brown immigrant community.”
In the midst of fear and trauma, trust in God has persisted, García told governance members.
“We still trust God. We know God has not left us nor forsaken us. We know Jesus is Lord,” he said.
García challenged attendees to support their Latino and Latina brothers and sisters.
“Now more than ever, we need you. I need you. Those people that are your co-workers, those people that are part of our fellowship need you. We need you to embrace us. We need your prayers. We need you to acknowledge, to value and to respect us.
“We need you to have our backs. We need you to use your influence and your privilege to stand against this white supremacy and speak out on our behalf. We need you to advocate for us. We need you to stop and correct any false statements and nonsense that many people in your own churches and circles of influence may be saying and repeating without knowing about the immigrant community, perpetuating misinformation and hatred. We need you to challenge your people, to challenge your peers.”
“Inaction is not an option,” said García, citing Luke 4 and adding that “now is the time for us to step up and carry that God-given mission.”
“May we never forget that our Lord Jesus was an immigrant and a refugee fleeing persecution,” García said. “And may we never forget that time in our history as the people of God where we were immigrants in the lands of Egypt. That’s our history…So we never forget that we have a responsibility—our God and our faith compels us to stand for the immigrant community in times of persecution as these.”
CBF Advocacy leader Sharon Felton (left) and CBF Global Missions Coordinator Laura Ayala (right) read Scripture during a worship service to open CBF’s winter governance meetings.
The two-day winter governance meeting continued Thursday with an update from Carrie Harris, CBF’s director of Fellowship Experiences on the upcoming General Assembly in St. Louis, Mo., June 24-27 along with a report from CBF Executive Coordinator Paul Baxley.
Following the joint plenary session, members of the CBF Governing Board, Missions Council, Ministries Council and Nominating Committee met separately to hear reports, updates and continue their respective work.
Mission Clarity
Earlier in the day, CBF governance members joined for an opening worship service led by the CBF staff in the First Baptist Church of Decatur chapel to sing hymns, pray, read Scripture and receive a sermon from CBF Executive Coordinator Paul Baxley.
Baxley preached on mission clarity while reflecting on the question, “What might the Holy Spirit be saying to us?”
“The mission of the church is indeed to proclaim good news and the good news of the Church has given is used so good that it cannot be confined just to a person’s soul,” he said. “The good news of the Church has given is so good that it stretches out to take in all of a person’s body, and all of a person’s life and all the things that make each one of us as unique, beautiful children of God, radiating the image of God.”
Baxley emphasized that we need to have mission clarity because “we live in a day where a lot of people are selling news that is not so good and trying to tell us that the mission of the Church is something less significant, or less powerful, or less transformative than the purpose of which God sent Jesus, and the purpose of which Jesus sent the Church into the world.”
“Some people say that when the Church is living out the mission of Jesus, we are playing politics,” Baxley said. “Why in God’s name would we want that devotion? Some people say that when the Church raises its voice, or extends its witness, or shares good news with people living in poverty or trapped in systems of injustice, that we are trying to serve a political agenda. But when we have clarity about Jesus’ mission, when we are Baptist Christians who really know what the Bible says and take it seriously enough not just to quote it but to live it out…we are just carrying out the mission we were given by our Lord himself when he sent the church into the world.”
Baxley highlighted the vast diversity that exists across the CBF, emphasizing differences in theology, worship styles and political perspectives.
CBF Executive Coordinator Paul Baxley provides a report to the members of CBF’s governance bodies on Jan. 30.
“But in spite of all that [diversity], there is an astonishing thing,” he pointed out. “In congregations of every single one of those profiles there are Baptist Christians offering ministries in their congregations that welcome the stranger, that care for the asylum seeker and the immigrant and the refugee, that open doors to sisters and brothers who do not speak the same language that most of them do. They do not have the same skin color that all of them do, who don’t vote the same way all of them do…and you know why we do that? Because it’s what the Bible says and what Jesus taught.”
Baxley emphasized that to hear the Luke 4 mandate is to be “called to a clarity about the substance of the mission of Jesus, and to recognize that when we engage in words and actions that bring good news, that proclaim release, that set people free, we’re living out the Gospel in all of its remarkable fullness. And we’re doing it because we love Jesus.
–30–
CBF is a Christian network that helps people put their faith to practice through ministry efforts, global missions and a broad community of support. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.