During the regularly scheduled meeting of the trustees of the North American Mission Board, the agency’s president, Robert E. Reccord, outlined six major goals that will guide the agency’s priorities through 2010.

The North American Mission Board (NAMB)—whose 5,000 missionaries serve the agency in the U.S., Canada, and the U.S. territories (American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands)—reported establishing 1,500 new Southern Baptist churches each year. The agency primarily assists Southern Baptist churches in reaching the United States, Canada, and U.S. territories with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In his report to the trustees, Reccord the following six goals:

Equip for evangelism.

"We desire to work with our strategic partners across North America to equip and engage 1 million believers yearly to share the Gospel and assist Southern Baptist churches to average more than 500,000 baptisms per year by the end of the church year in 2010," Reccord said.

Assist in church planting.

"We will work with our strategic partners to engage one out of four Southern Baptist churches to be involved in church planting in North America and to enthusiastically support the Cooperative Program and the Annie Armstrong Offering so that Southern Baptists can plant 11,000 new churches by 2010."

Mobilize Christians

"When Jesus talked about church, his focus was on people, yet many times when we talk about church we focus on a building," Record said. "NAMB commits to do everything within our power to equip and engage 750,000 Southern Baptists to participate in short-term mission projects by the year 2010.

Deploy missionaries.

"North America is the largest English-speaking mission field in the world, because North America is the only continent on which Christianity is not growing," Reccord said. "NAMB will strive to help equip and deploy 10,000 missionaries and chaplains to be on mission throughout North America by 2010."

Penetrate the cultures.

"Every Christ-follower is called to be on mission right where he or she is," Reccord said. "We want to work with strategic partners to facilitate the creation of a strategic network of passionate on-mission Christian leaders and members of influential professions and arenas such as education, law, politics, business and real estate by the end of 2010."

Develop leaders.

"NAMB is in the process of creating a leadership greenhouse which will provide for every employee, from the mailroom to the boardroom, a personalized growth development plan with measurable goals to which they will be held accountable for personal growth in servant leadership. "

"Southern Baptists have long said we can accomplish far more together than we can ever do separately."

In other business, NAMB trustees:

- approved a 2005 budget of $120.7 million, a 2 percent increase over the 2004 budget.

- appointed Randy Singer as president of FamilyNet through 2005 in addition to his responsibilities as chief counsel and special assistant to the president.

- approved a cooperative agreement with the Dakota Baptist Convention.

- approved a 34-page document that will serve as a guideline for what constitutes a New Testament church