CBF General Assembly: You Belong Here by Sandy Rooney
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) held its annual General Assembly in St. Louis, Missouri on June 23-26, 2025. I, along with Rev. Marnie Fisher-Ingram and Rev. Daniel Ingram had the opportunity to attend. The theme was “You Belong Here.” The emphasis for the week was the importance of belonging and to see what radical hospitality can look like. In worship and sessions we heard that we are called to “no longer be strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.” This week I was able to connect and reconnect with fellow ministers and field personnel across the country and the world. Here are some of the highlights of the week:
Wednesday Opening Worship – Rev. Melissa Hatfield, Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church of Jefferson City, MO – She connected the history and movement of the Mississippi River to the General Assembly’s theme, “You Belong Here.” She challenged us “to cultivate a holy alternative, liberated imagination–to be steamboats of belonging, faithfully living out our call regardless of unjust laws. We deny the rights and worth of some; to be a fellowship soaked in grace with a different vision; to be church full of courage even when the waters are murky. Imagine a steamboat pulling up to all the forgotten places in the world, not with lectures, but with love, not with walls, but with welcome…congregations gathering with wet footprints in their sanctuaries, proof that we’ve been to the water.”
Dr. Emmanuel McCall Racial Justice Trailblazer Luncheon – Broadway Baptist Church and Southwest Fellowship received the Dr. Emmanuel McCall Award for their pursuits in racial justice. Rev. Traci D. Blackmon, CEO & Founder of HopeBuilds, LLC, theologian-in-residence at Eden Theological Seminary and chaplain for the Central Region of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., gave a keynote address titled, “Now is the Time.” She called on “Cooperative Baptists to wake from complacency, confront systems of injustice, and reclaim the liberating call of the Gospel.”
Attended Two Learning Labs related to Children’s Ministry – Rev. Harrison Litzell is a program coordinator at the Baugh Center for Baptist Leadership. He shared ways to make worship more welcoming for children and adults who are neurodivergent. Dr. Sarah Boberg is an assistant professor of Christian Education and Director of Empowering Families for Spiritual Formation at Campbell University. She shared ways to make the church and worship more hospitable for children and their families.
Business Session – The outgoing moderator, Rev. Juan Garcia, gave his final address in Spanish with the English translation written on the screen. He is the pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista de Newport News, VA. His message was powerful and moving as he called us to fight for justice and encouraged us to dissent. He reminded us that Jesus was the greatest dissenter as he challenged the religious and political powers of his time.
Closing Worship – Rev. Dr. Paul Baxley, CBF Executive Coordinator, was the proclaimer, and his message was simply to remind us that Christ is the center. He said that “Christ is the center, and that the only center that will hold because Christ is the first stone and Christ is the last stone and in him everything holds together.”
Photo Credit: CBF Children’s Ministry Network