Article of the Month Archives
The World Needs the Church
Published August 8, 2025
By Wayne Stapleton
VP of Cross-Cultural Engagement and Emerging Leader Engagement
We are in a significant moment.
The body of Christ is a diverse body, composed of people with one Lord but different political perspectives, different cultural backgrounds, different economic positions, and more. Even so, we are unified because of the finished work of Jesus on the cross, work we just meditated on and celebrated during Holy Week and Resurrection Sunday.
There is one Lord, one Gospel, one baptism, and one Savior, and his name is Jesus. The church affirms this, and yet we can often let our loyalties to Christ and his church be influenced by various social, cultural, political, and national loyalties – to our detriment.
The world needs a church unified in its love for Jesus.
The world needs a church that is interceding for our leaders and for their constituents.
The world needs a church that is tireless in its witness to the love Christ has commanded us to reflect, love that saved us and is saving us and will save us.
The NAB is a bi-national conference, unified first around our confession of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and commitment to the Word of God. But we are also unified around our heritage as the NAB and our Statement of Faith. Not only does the world need the church, we as the church also need each other. We need each other’s prayers. We need each other’s stories of hope. We need each other’s brotherly (and sisterly) love. We need each other’s grace.
In critical and tense times, let our testimony come from “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2 NIV). Jesus suffered on our behalf. Saved by the precious blood of the Son of God, our salvation and our model, we are called to sacrificial service. Our witness is always critical, important for the world to see. Our witness is our testimony, a revelation of who we are and whose we are, and where our treasures truly reside. In the midst of the back and forth of political and social commitments, our witness to our oneness by the shed blood of the Lamb is absolutely crucial for the world to see Christ through us. This witness is revealed in our prayers, our service, our language, and our love.
So, let us commit, in the name of Jesus. Let us commit to praying for one another and for our leaders and neighbors.
Let us commit to serving Jesus in unity as members of the North American Baptist Conference of churches.
Let us commit to speaking the truth in love, always seasoned with grace.
Let us commit to the love that Christ himself calls us to, love that reflects his character.
This April 2025 article was originally posted on the NAB Conference website: www.nabconference.org
In This Day and Time
Published June 24, 2025
By Dr. Harry Kelm
Executive Director of the North American Baptist Conference
There is a quote posted in the Ellis Island Immigration Museum which goes, “I came to America because I heard the streets were paved with gold. When I got here, I found out three things: First, the streets aren’t paved with gold. Second, they weren’t paved at all. Third, I was expected to pave them.” This quote could have described my German immigrant parents. Undaunted, they were committed to work hard and to embrace the life God was giving them. They had experienced war, revolution, famine, death, poverty, pain, and brokenness in the old country. They came to North America because they desired a better life for themselves and their sons. This same desire is still the hope of most immigrants.
Canada and the United States have been blessed to be a place where many immigrants have found a home. I once had a neighbor tell me, “We are all from somewhere.” The powerful message of the Gospel is not limited by the boundaries of countries, ethnicities, and cultures. The cross of Jesus Christ proclaims freedom and transformation to all people. The way of Jesus is where we value God’s image found in every person – no matter where they are from – and seek God’s best for them.
The North American Baptist Conference is a bi-national conference of churches founded by German immigrants to make disciples of Jesus, raise up leaders, train pastors, plant churches, and send missionaries. My parents found a home in an NAB church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I grew up. I am German in heritage and bi-national by God’s leading. I have served the first half of my ministry in the United States and the second half in Canada. I have a deep love
for both countries. At times, this is a challenge. There was a song in the late 1970s by Mary MacGregor that has a phrase in it that goes “lovin’ both of you is breakin’ all the rules.” I have felt this very acutely in the last few weeks.
These are turbulent times, when partners and allies look at each other with hostility and suspicion, and when threats are uttered and friends are treated as adversaries. Since our beginning in 1850, the NAB has existed in both the United States and Canada. What brought us together then was a sense of community found in a shared heritage, but most importantly our relationship to each other exists because of the redeeming and transforming relationship we have with God in Jesus. Our NAB forefathers lived out the words of Jesus in John 13:34–35, where it says, “‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another’” (NIV). This love was lived out in a shared mission that involved serving God by serving others and making disciples of Jesus who make disciples of Jesus.
God calls the people of the NAB to be a people of God. In 1 Peter 2:9, the people of God are described as chosen ones, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of God’s special possession. As a people of God, we live on this earth as members of God’s Kingdom. How do we do this today? We do this as a people who have come to know and to share God’s peace in Jesus. Our hope must rest fully on who God is and who we are in him.
As the NAB, we seek to discover and embrace God’s mission. This is a time where we must live out God’s mission in our homes, neighborhoods, towns, cities, states, provinces, and countries. Paul tells us in Galatians 5:13–14, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
In the face of division and antagonism, let us be a people of God’s unity, grace, and goodness. In the face of brokenness and harshness, let us be a people of God’s wholeness, peace, and hope. This article was originally posted on the NAB Conference website: www.nabconference.org