Welcome

It's a great delight for us to welcome you to the 2026 Missionary Conference, the subject of which is The Lord Who Sends. My name is Jonathan Master. I serve as the president of Greenville Seminary and this conference started about three years ago, at least in the planning phases. And it started because of a collaboration between a Radius International, Greenville Seminary, and then the new organization Missionary.com. And so we met together in Jacksonville, Florida. We weren't sure what the Lord was going to do, but it was a remarkable time. And one of the remarkable features of it was the opportunity that we had not only to get to know so many people who were interested in Great Commission work, but also to collaborate with other partners who we dearly love. And one of those is Radius International, Missionary, and the president of Radius, Brooks Buser.

Yeah, friends, we're excited to have you guys here. We still have about a thousand registrants to go, so if you have any space, feel free to squeeze towards the middle. There is just a palpable energy, and we're thankful for this as we hear more and more churches starting to think about missions, and particularly what we're going to call fourth lane missions, how to get to those places. And one of the things that I've found remarkable is that while Presbyterians and Baptists come at certain issues, some of them come at certain issues, differently, and these are not unimportant issues. We have always been united on the Great Commission to get to the ends of the earth, particularly to those languages that still have yet to hear of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. And so, I'm thankful for my brother Jonathan, and I'm thankful for the way that we have yoked together in this type of work.

It has a unique flavor to it because we get to work together on these primary issues, issues of first importance. And so, the way that God has brought this conference together, as Jonathan said, two years ago in Jacksonville, Florida, some of you were there at that first conference, the Missionary Conference in Jacksonville, Florida. Missionary has only been around for two years. This is our second conference, and we've just been tremendously blessed, as there seems to be, among church pastors, particularly, an excitement for how do we do better in missions, not just missions in general, but missions to the ends of the earth.

Yeah, it is important to underscore that point. There are differences, even in this room, differences that actually will affect the way you think about church planting, church leadership, but we are united here this week to talk about these big picture issues, to fan the flame of fulfilling the Great Commission that Jesus Christ has given to His church. That's why we're gathered together, here. We're also grateful to be joined here by many exhibitors who we've been very careful in selecting. Yeah, so

we had over 300 applications for exhibitors, and we chose out of those the best 27. And so, from those 27, we hope that in the back row, as soon as you walk out of the auditorium here, you see that all the displays in the back there, and then there's some more outside, and then there's some others as you're walking towards the bookstore. You'll spend time with those exhibitors. They've been chosen intentionally. We can stand behind their products, we can stand behind their mission, and we have yoked together with them. So, those 27, again, have been chosen very specifically, and we said no to some other good things for the sake of those 27. So, we hope you get some time with them. Yeah,

our hope is that as you gather, you not only spend time with the exhibitors, not only sit under the Word of God, but have a chance to enjoy fellowship with one another. But I do want to highlight the speakers who will be here. In addition to trying to be very careful in our choice of exhibitors, we've also been very grateful with the response of the men we've asked to come address us. Yeah, so

these speakers, we're under no illusion that everybody's here because they're excited about coming to Fort Worth, Texas in the middle of October and some of the various swings in temperature. We have an incredible lineup, dare I say, a historic lineup from plenary speakers to breakout speakers. We hope you take advantage of all of them, but one of the features of our speakers, and I hope you understand this, is that we wanted to do some biographies. So, at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the conference, you're going to hear various speakers give deliverance or give addresses on biographies. The end of the Courtney Anderson "To the Golden Shore" book on Adoniram Judson, Courtney Anderson says his hope for the book, if you've never read "To the Golden Shore," his hope for the book is in the last page.

He says, "I hope to wipe away a little bit of the grime of history." And that's some of our hope in this conference, is to wipe away some of the grime of history on Henry Martyn, on Adoniram Judson, on Thomas Chalmers, so that you know, and we can pass on to the next generation, why these men were distinctive, why their ambition was à la Paul to go where the gospel had never been before.

Historical biographies have always been one of the driving forces behind our meeting together. In fact, our last meeting, and the first one that we had in Jacksonville, coincided with a very important anniversary, William Tyndale's work in translating the Bible into English, into a vernacular English, that English speakers could understand. It had a massive effect on the world and a massive effect on the church. We wanted to highlight that work. We wanted to highlight that work of Bible translation, and we were fueled in doing this by our understanding of history and how these men from the past inspire us even today. And I would say overall, that's been one of the significant features of our conversations. As we've looked at the church today, we've recognized that there have been times in history where the church of Jesus Christ was more committed and clearer in its thinking about the

purpose of missions. Yeah, as one of the takeaways that we're hoping for this conference is that this isn't just a three-day high. You take back to your church what you are learning here, and by God's grace, it's through the church that we're going to see some of the missions and missions turn the corner, and maybe a renewed fervor, if you will, to get to those last places, those last languages that still have yet to hear what, again, we're going to term as fourth-lane missions, missions to unreached language groups. And so, we're going to give you some resources. There's going to be a book in your giveaway bag on Princeton and missions. If you don't know the history of Princeton and why, at her highest, Princeton, about a third of her student body is heading into foreign missions.

Then there's going to be a book called Serving and Senders. Really short, readable, but this is a book on how to get a mission program that will, in general, build in the factors to help missionaries get to those last places.

Brooks, I want to follow up, and ask you about the fourth lane. You've mentioned that now twice. Maybe some of our guests are unfamiliar with that terminology. You've written about it. Can you give a brief explanation? Because I'm sure it will come up again this week.

Your two primary markers in missions today are going to be the church and language. Church and language are two things that we can defend clearly from the scriptures. So, lane one in missions is going to be the training of national pastors, the recovery, if you will, of the global south. That's lane one in missions. Lane two are these excellent English-speaking churches in strategic cities around the world, as English continues to rise more and more, the language of business, the language of aviation, maritime industry, to see English-speaking churches, most often called international churches, and to see the impact that they can have. Then there's lane three, which is these languages or these churches in national languages, Urdu, Bahasa, Arabic, Mandarin, to see more of them. We should not call them an unreached language group, because there are churches among them.

But then there's this fourth lane of missions, minority languages around the world, where there is no gospel, no church, and often no translation of the scripture. How do we get there? How do we go to those places and learn those languages for the sake of our kingdom there? So, the fourth lane of missions, there's a few articles on this on 9Marks, it's on Missionary, I believe, on Ligonier, if you want to Google that. But again, you're going to hear the language of unreached language groups, and that's what that's referring

to. This week, our hope is not only to focus on the mission that Christ has given his church and the work that remains undone, but to focus on the Lord himself. You'll notice that many of the titles relate specifically to our God, and our hope is that, as we gather together and think about some of these big challenges that the church still has, these big commands that God has given, that we would, at the same time, be able to together revel in the glory of our God.

We're thankful that you're here. I know many of you, we're not going to do the "Hey, you're from Australia, stand up," or things like that. Many of you have come from some distance. We're very thankful for the energy and the time. We know that in the middle of October, you can do many things, but you've chosen to spend this time, and nearly a thousand churches are represented in this room. So, the impact that this could have as it goes forward, we're thankful for these facilities. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has been a kind host thus far. We've got three more days to go to enjoy these facilities. I got to see the breakout room for where the women's gathering is going to be. It's immaculate. Very thankful for these particular facilities and the way that we've been welcomed by the staff.

So, in that vein, I want to invite up Dr. David Dockery. He's going to come make a few comments and welcome us to this facility and to this institution. So, if you wouldn't mind, please welcome President Dockery. Good

morning. It's a delight to welcome you to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. We are so pleased that you are here. Baptist, Presbyterians, non-denominational, we're here to focus on the gospel and to hear the challenge of God's word, the Lord who sends. And we pray God's blessings on your conference and your time together. We're happy to have you on the Southwestern campus. For many of you, this is your first time here. We hope that you'll have opportunity to walk around the campus, to see, observe, to get to know us. Unfortunately, not the opportunity to get to know too many of us. It's fall break on Southwestern campus, which is the reason we have the space for you to be here.

So, you won't see many students, faculty, or staff around, but we're so happy that you are here. Southwestern was founded in 1908. So, this is our 119th year of preparing God called to carry out his mandate, his commission, take the gospel to the neighborhood, take the gospel to the nations. Since our founding in 1908, Southwestern Seminary has prepared more people who have served internationally and cross-culturally than any other seminary that exists. We're thankful for that missionary imperative that's at the heart of who we are. We consider Southwestern Seminary a great commandment, great commission institution, and we hope that you'll find a real sense of well-being here in this place.

We trust God's blessings upon you. If there's anything that we can do to help you while you're here, we do have some staff available there here to serve you, and we want you to have a wonderful experience on Southwestern campus. I want you to pray for us. Ask God's blessings on our time together. We have a remarkable group of speakers who are here with us who have been long-time friends. I know you're going to be blessed and encouraged, strengthened in the word, strengthened in the gospel during your time with us today. So, in the morning with you, let's bow together and ask the Lord's blessings on our time.

Our great and majestic God, thank you for the marvelous privilege you've given to us together here in this place, this day. Thank you for traveling. Thank you for providing for people who have come from near and far, and we pray now for your spirit to enable and energize each and every session, each and every speaker, each and every hearer, each and every participant.

We pray that we would sense fresh your commission to us, take the gospel to the nations, to disciple the nations, teaching them to observe all that has been commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ. So, we pray now for your divine blessings to rest upon these who are here, this gathering. Thank you for all the careful planning and preparation to this day. So, we commit this time to you, thanksgiving in our heart, hopefulness for what you've planned for us.

We pray that the Lord be honored in all that is said and done. So, we commit this time to you, in the name of Christ, we pray. Welcome to Southwestern. God's blessings upon you. Amen. We're here for Psalm 145, and

I'm going to lift up this. I will extol

you, my God, and King. Bless your name forever. Every day I will bless you. Praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, greatly to

be praised. And His greatness is unsearchable.