CBF Missions Excellence Award

MISSIONS & MINISTRIES
Written By Lance Mayes
Garrett Vickrey, Diana Bridges, Jana Atkinson Morga, and Lance Mayes receiving the CBF Missions Excellence Award from Isaac Mwase, Chair of the CBF Missions Council, at the CBF General Assembly in St. Louis on June 26, 2025.

Woodland Church received the CBF Missions Excellence Award last week (June 26, 2025) at the CBF General Assembly in St. Louis alongside three other churches. See the video that CBF made below.

CBF's Missions Council recognizes partner congregations with Mission Excellence Awards. These awards celebrate congregations that exemplify CBF's Mission Distinctives. The awards aim to inspire other congregations and offer models for replication.

CBF Mission Distinctives include Mission Commitments and Mission Contexts.

Mission Commitments:

  • Cultivating Beloved Community: We cultivate communities of reconciliation and hospitality that serve as signs, instruments, and foretastes of the kingdom of God.

  • Bearing Witness to Jesus Christ: We bear witness to the gospel through words that invite faith in Jesus and actions that embody the way of Jesus.

  • Seeking Transformational Development: We seek to transform systems that suppress the capacity of individuals and communities in order to recognize, claim, and celebrate the God-given gifts of all people and places.

Mission Contexts:

  • Global Poverty: Cooperative Baptists seek sustainable responses to systems of poverty that devalue life and diminish the image of God.

  • Global Migration: Unprecedented levels of human migration afford Cooperative Baptists the opportunity to extend hope and hospitality to those who are driven by circumstance or drawn by opportunity away from their homes.

  • Global Church: Cooperative Baptists befriend Christians from around the world to share and receive gifts and to engage in God’s mission together through worship, fellowship, education, and service.

They also look for mission innovation, involvement in the life of CBF, like giving to the Offering for Global Missions (OGM), being an Encourager Church (we are with the Lees and Elket Rodriguez), and involvement with CBF Texas. They also look for mission efforts that others can replicate.

Way to go, Woodland Church! This award is a great motivator for us to continue doing great work.

Lance Mayes
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