One Year In: Looking Back at Our Strategic Vision
A little over a year ago, our leadership team sat down together and asked a big question: where is God calling SDB Missions over the next five years?
That conversation became our 2026–2030 Strategic Vision and Mission. The direction was clear: mobilize Seventh Day Baptists around the world for effective missions work, with a strategic focus on reaching unreached people groups. Our five-year goal is for at least half of the Conferences we partner with to be positioned to begin reaching UPGs. This will enable our vision that in 10 years, individuals are coming to Christ and churches are being planted in multiple UPGs as a result of the work of SDBs.
Two weeks ago, we sat down together again. Directors Andy Samuels, Garfield Miller, and I, along with Board President Andrés Jara, Vice President Greg Olson, and his wife Carol Olson, gathered ahead of the Missio Nexus Mission Leaders Conference. We pulled out the strategic plan, looked honestly at where we are, and asked how it was going.
We walked away encouraged. God has moved us further in year one than we expected.
Strategic Partnerships: The Heart of What We Do
We've known from the start that we can't reach unreached people groups alone. Many of our partner Conferences are already close to UPGs, geographically and culturally. Our job is to help them see and step into the opportunities God has already placed around them. And we're already seeing that happen:
Brazil became our first Missions Mobilization Network partner, with two more Conferences already well into onboarding.
Our goal of five new North American church partnerships a year is being met and then some, through Global Partnerships, SDBU missions students, our Missions Symposium, and church visits.
The SDB African Leaders Alliance is giving leaders across Africa a way to communicate, encourage one another, and work together. And when we visit partner Conferences, we're intentionally bringing culturally close leaders along, like Andrea and Ana from Ecuador, who served alongside the church in Colombia (you may remember that story from last week's Closer Look).
As we sat together and counted, we realized we're more than twice as far along in strategic partnerships as we expected to be at this point! And so much more is on the horizon. The second round of Africa Bible College is scheduled to start in January 2027, and nominations for students will open to African Conferences soon. Previous ABC graduates now serve on the leadership and planning committee. We never hoped SDB Missions would run Africa Bible College forever. We want our African brothers and sisters to own it.
Building for Sustainability
Healthy mission work has to be sustainable, which is why our plan calls for helping partners connect with organizations that can support sustainable projects, so ownership increasingly rests with our partners themselves.
We're on track to build a database of NGOs and other organizations that can help. In Rwanda, we have supported 5 pastors to get the religious education recognized by the government so their churches can remain open. And 5 more are in the works. And each time we run into a situation where our partners are needing extra support, we look to see what logal organization we can plug them into.
But honestly, one of the most encouraging things has been watching this happen on its own. Brazil has been working alongside Chile and Mozambique even before Brazil officially joined the Missions Mobilization Network. The Central Africa Conference in Malawi has been reaching out to its neighbors for shared outreach efforts and cross-cultural training. That's exactly the kind of partnership we hope the Network multiplies. We also have several sustainable projects already underway, including a fish farm in South Asia that's showing very encouraging early returns.
Developing Leaders
Our five-year goal is for 20 SDB Conferences to have access to ongoing formal leadership training and discipleship, including missions education. That's already happening through personal mentoring and Conference-level coaching in many of our partner Conferences. Each conference considering joining the Missions Mobilization Network has its leaders go through a missions education session focused specifically on Unreached People Groups, which helps identify where those groups are in their own country.
We're also exploring how to make leadership development accessible to more people. We're currently defining a curriculum that could eventually combine video content with one-on-one mentoring, so leaders have support applying what they learn in their own context. It's early, but it's taking shape, and we're excited. We don't just want to produce content. We want to keep the relational mentoring that's always been core to how we work.
Stewardship Starts at Home
If we want to serve the global church well, our own organization needs healthy systems behind it. We've completed this stage's organizational goals, including biannual performance reviews and quarterly reporting. We've also partnered with a bookkeeping firm that works exclusively with nonprofits to strengthen our accounting, and we're continuing to build out internal procedures for staff and Conference relationships. We're even exploring how AI tools might help us manage a CRM and maintain relationships more effectively. None of this is as exciting as watching a new church grow. But it matters. Strong systems let us steward well what God is giving us.
Learning Alongside Other Leaders
After we reviewed our plan, we joined other mission leaders at the Missio Nexus Mission Leaders Conference. We sat in on sessions covering everything from AI in missions management to engaging Gen Z in missions to polycentric partnerships, and we spent time with leaders from other organizations, learning from their experience and picking up new tools along the way. It was an encouraging few days, and we came home with practical ideas we think will help us be more faithful and effective in what God's called us to.
God is Working
God is working among Seventh Day Baptists around the world. As we walk in obedience and give Him our best, He multiplies our efforts. We're not perfect, and there's still a lot of work ahead. But partnerships are multiplying. Leaders are developing. Sustainable projects are growing. Our systems are getting stronger. And more and more, SDBs in different countries are working alongside each other instead of waiting on SDB Missions to do it for them. Churches and individuals are starting to pray for and engage the UPGs right in their backyard. One year in, we're grateful for how far God has already brought us. And we can't wait to see where He takes us next.
-Pastor Miriam Berg
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