Baptist Mid-Missions’ ministry on US secular colleges will now be reaching out worldwide under its updated name, Campus Bible Fellowship International (CBFI). Patricia Strickland and Jodi Harrison became CBFI’s first international missionaries and are raising support to work in France and Spain, respectively.
Typically, the adult age group most responsive to the gospel on a given field is 18- to 25-year-olds. To reach them, foreign missionaries have conducted informal campus ministries but often lacked the time and expertise to do so. With a full-time CBFI missionary joining their team, church-planting missionaries can more fully reach this critical age group.
The move to international ministry was CBFI’s biggest event this year, although its North America missionaries weathered storms earlier in 2009. Chapters of CBFI in Ohio and Idaho endured legal challenges from campus officials over CBFI’s biblical requirements for its members. With help from the Christian legal groups Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the Alliance Defense Fund, both chapters retained their status as recognized campus groups. Despite the Ohio group’s legal challenges, its CBFI missionary, Joe Holloway, was nominated for International Student Advocate of the Year on his campus. Another positive outcome was several more students desiring to join CBFI when they heard about the case!
Also in CBFI news, the first electronic edition of its manual, Disciples in Deed (DID), was released in May. This 76-chapter manual has been CBFI missionaries’ primary discipleship tool since 1993. Newly revised, the electronic format gives considerable cost-savings and ease-of-use for both disciplers and students.
To order a DVD presentation on CBFI, contact Carol Lingle at clingle@bmm.org.