DENTON, Texas (BP) – Southern Baptist Disaster Relief leaders throughout North America met for their annual “Round Table” meeting and to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the founding of SBDR.
Representatives from nearly all the state Baptist conventions participated in the Jan. 23-27 event at Camp Copass in Denton, Texas. Portions of the week focused on celebrating five decades of ministry efforts, looking at the present state of the ministry and preparing for the future.
“Fifty years represents a significant event for us,” said Mickey Caison, the executive director of SBDR at the North American Mission Board.
“Over those 50 years, we’ve responded to thousands of disasters, both domestically and internationally,” he noted. “As part of that, we’ve seen thousands of people come to Christ out of that environment of damage and destruction. As we move through that process, we’re able to see people come to faith. Because there were no Southern Baptist churches in their community, there was an opportunity for our associations and state conventions to start churches.”
On Jan. 23, the group heard from Bob Dixon and John Lanoue, who participated in the first SBDR response following Hurricane Beulah in 1967. Using campcraft skills from the Royal Ambassadors ministry, the men turned one-gallon cans into miniature stoves (called “Buddy Burners”) to prepare hot meals for people impacted by that year’s most intense hurricane.
Roundtable participants also spent significant time debriefing the past year’s major deployments, including two major flood events in Louisiana and last fall’s response following Hurricane Matthew. NAMB and state leaders discussed how responses can improve from those experiences.
The group also discussed ways to involve more Southern Baptists in training events.
“We looked at the need for more online training and ‘just-in-time’ training,’” Caison said. “Not a lot of volunteers are willing to give you a whole weekend to get away and be a part of a training event. If they’re not going to do it that way, how are we going to get the training material, safety material and those kinds of things in their hands?”
SBDR leaders acknowledged that for the ministry to be most effective, Southern Baptists must mobilize new generations of leaders. Roundtable participants spent much of their meeting time discussing ways to get more Generation X and Millennial volunteers involved.
“The volunteer pool we have is beginning to age out,” Caison said. “Medically and physically they are not able to go and do the kind of work that they’ve done in the past.”
New volunteers are particularly needed because Caison says SBDR’s ministry success has brought with it much responsibility. SBDR’s national partners spoke at the roundtable about the need for Southern Baptists to be prepared to deploy faster and with more volunteers. Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) and the Salvation Army all sent representatives to the roundtable.