Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, home to the Liberty Bell and Betsy Ross, has been liberated from religion. Travel there, and youll soon grasp what may be one of Americas supreme ironies. The city that was founded by English Quaker William Penn as a center for religious freedom has become free from religion. In merely two centuries, Philadelphia has almost liberated itself from the freedom of Christ. But thats starting to change.

Partnering for Philadelphia
The people of Philadelphia recently benefited from an initiative called Strategic Focus Cities (SFC). SFCs are a partnership between state Southern Baptist conventions, local associations and the North American Mission Board. NAMB brings its most effective ministries and resources, and places them in a supercharged effort designed to blanket a city with the love and freedom only Christ can bring. NAMBs vision for North America is that we will see a day when every person in the United States and Canada will have an opportunity to hear the gospel, respond with faith in Christ and participate in a New Testament fellowship of believers.

What better place to focus that vision than on the major cities of North America where most of the people live. In North Americas metropolitan centers, populations are increasing at a much higher rate than people are coming to know Christ. Yet the influence of our cities is enormous. Ive often heard Doug Metzger, NAMBs SFC team director, say As the cities go, so goes the nation.

I hope that proves to be true in Philadelphia. Prior to becoming an SFC, Philadelphia had 130 Southern Baptist churches for its 6.1 million residentsone SBC church for every 47,000 people. In addition, the Anglo population of 651,000 had only three Anglo churches, two of them new. Its hard to believe such a dearth of faith is what founder William Penn had in mind.

As 2,652 volunteers from all over the continent arrived in force to help with community block parties, Vacation Bible Schools and evangelism training, groundwork for a new Philadelphia was being laid. And the results were amazing. In one new church, Word Tabernacle Baptist Church, Pastor James Gailliard baptized almost 100 people the first month. Altogether 26 new churches have been started, many of them African American, reflecting the makeup of the inner city. So far, nearly 6,000 people have made professions of faith. And this movement of God seems to be a trend.

In addition, William Scott, Philadelphias SFC coordinator, tells us a new spirit of cooperation has grown among churches, and we all know that when you network, you build strength. Younger pastors are being connected with older pastors of whom they can ask the hard questions. Philadelphia may yet become the City of Brotherly Love!

Like other Strategic Focus Citiessuch as Phoenix, Chicago, Las Vegas, Boston and SeattlePhiladelphias evangelical community had lacked the strength of numbers needed to keep pace with North Americas sprawling metropolitan areas. Eighty percent of the U.S. population lives in metropolitan areas; 50 percent of Southern Baptist churches are in these areas.

Why do we need initiatives like SFC?  As I have observed our large cities, it becomes clear that Philadelphia is not alone in the struggle to climb out of its spiritual slump. Regardless of geography, a lack of partnerships can spell disaster for the eager but ill-prepared church planter. In size, North America ranks as the worlds third largest continent. And with so many people to reachan estimated 228 million dont know Christthe task can be daunting. Gary Frost, NAMBs vice president of strategic partnerships, is so right when he says: Reaching strategic cities must take priority for us as we fulfill the Great Commission. We are challenged to commit our prayer, our resources and our very lives, to the divine adventure of becoming agents of transformation in the megacities of our nation. As we advance the Kingdom through evangelism and church multiplication, God can bring light to urban darkness and salt to cultural corruption. 

How can we Christians get our arms around this sprawling and complex mission field?

Im convinced that the answer is by partnering with one another. Reaching out to join hands,we can breach the expanses. When we pool our resourceswhether they are physical, financial or spiritualwe can take the mission a step further than it would have gone acting on our own. Cities like Philadelphia may yet become places where freedom of religion means that God is moving freely in our midst.

Partnering with our states and associations
SFC can accelerate the strategies of the local association of Southern Baptist churches. But associations have strategies apart from SFC, so NAMB offers help in developing or accelerating strategies just as it does with SFC, minus some of the resources. In addition, state conventions of Southern Baptists may take advantage of NAMBs planning and leadership development capabilities.

For example, NAMB assists in leadership searches for local associations and offers leadership training through workshops that focus on specific job skills like conflict management or listeningskills that can result in up to an 82 percent success rate in re-claiming church dropouts. In partnership with IMB, NAMB recently took directors of missions from mega associations to training where they developed strategies for reaching people groups. They learned how to go into a geographic area and recognize the characteristics of different groups. They learned how to provide literacy programs, so they can deal with the huge segment of the population that is functionally illiterate.

And they learned how to use the cultural stories of different people as a way to eliminate barriers. Margaret Slusher, leadership development coordinator for NAMBs associational strategy team, tells me that storying is a way of spreading the gospel throughout North America, in much the same manner as our international missionaries do. Training also helps associational leaders learn how to encourage the planting of churches that will resemble their own culture and tribal groups rather than those from the Deep South.

Also, NAMB produces promotional materials to emphasize the work of the local associations. The associational emphasis week is a designated time in May thats usually observed by the 1,200 associations across our continent to encourage cooperative mission work of local churches.

NAMB also encourages collaborative efforts among associationslike the Touches of Kindness outreachand encourages churches to do collective mission work in their communities on a scale that simply cant be done individually. Encouraging churches within the association to collaborate means they also can mobilize on short notice when necessary. This happened in Covington, Kentucky, when travelers were stranded at the airport on September 11, 2001, and local churches mobilized to help.

NAMB assets are not recycled only back to the associations, however. NAMB also works with state conventions to help develop strategy plans and determine ways states can obtain the resources needed to accomplish their goals.

By partnering with each other and working together, Southern Baptists accomplish what cannot be done by working independently. When we join hands across the continent, we find the mission within our grasp.

Bob Reccord is president of the North American Mission Board, SBC. His latest book is Beneath the Surface: Steering Clear of Dangers that Could Leave You Shipwrecked (Broadman & Holman 2002). He is host of the Strength for Living Baptist Hour which airs on more than 400 radio stations.