Celebrating How God Moved Among Us
More than 500 Baptist leaders from 65 countries gathered for the 2026 BWA Annual Gathering to worship, pray, learn, and discern how God is calling us to impact the world for Christ. While the Gathering has concluded, the mission continues. We invite every Baptist – every church, convention, ministry, and individual believer – to take the next step together as one global Baptist family, living out our faith and embracing this year’s theme, “The Table of Christ: One Gospel, Many People.”
We are incredibly grateful for the team of volunteer writers and photographers who served throughout the week.
Check out the links below for daily recaps and photos from the event.
Day Five • Friday, July 10
Closing Session:
By Catherine Cole
The final session of the 2026 Annual Gathering carried the weight of both ending and sending. Welcoming participants, Warren Stewart gave thanks for the table Christ had prepared and for the week the global Baptist family had spent gathered around it. But his prayer also turned outward. Those who had been sitting together would now need to rise from the table and go.
Worship was led by Dana Podriabinkina-Kalytiene and Tess Chandler before Julio Guarneri and Lone Møller-Hansen led the gathered community in communion. Their invitation returned the room to the language of the week: a large table prepared for all, companions on the journey, and a Lord who invites his people to come without hesitation.
After Max Zimmermann read Acts 11:19–26 in German, Rev. Dr. Raphaël Anzenberger brought the closing message, drawing especially from Galatians 2 and Peter’s withdrawal from table fellowship with Gentile believers. With the theme, “The Table of Christ: One Gospel, Many People,” before the room one final time, Anzenberger asked a question that unsettled the beauty of the image: if the table of Christ is so good, why would anyone leave it?
He suggested that the harder challenge may not be coming to the table but staying there. If Peter could step away, so could we. Culture can narrow the table until it reflects only what is familiar. Fear can make us want one gospel, but separate tables. Limited understanding of church can leave us assuming God only sets the table in forms we already recognize.
Speaking from his own context in Quebec, at the crossroads of English, French, and Indigenous realities, Anzenberger pressed the room to consider how often complexity becomes an excuse for separation. In the heart of God, he reminded participants, there is more room than in ours. Christ’s table is not limited to one culture, one theological persuasion, or one expression of church.
As the message ended, participants were invited to pause and reflect on what they had seen, heard, and received throughout the week. What barriers had they created? Who had been kept at a distance? What would it mean to leave changed?
The final commissioning sent delegates back to their communities with those questions in their hearts. After a week around Christ’s table, they were called to rise, go, and make room for others in the name of Christ.
Commission Highlight
At the Table of Christ: Rethinking Relief
By Catherine Cole
Bringing together humanitarian leaders from around the world, At the Table of Christ: Rethinking Relief explored what happens when emergency response becomes more than a short-term act of compassion. Again and again, the speakers returned to one central idea, relief should be a doorway, not a destination.
It is easy to measure success by the number of food hampers distributed, shelters built, or medical kits delivered. The panel invited us to ask a different question. What if the true measure of success is whether a community is stronger five or ten years later? What if people no longer need outside organizations because they have the knowledge, leadership, and resources to respond themselves?
Donny Mijaya, from the Asia Pacific Baptist Federation, reminded us that local people are always the first responders. Long before international organizations arrive, neighbours are already helping neighbours. Rather than treating local churches as distribution centres, he challenged aid agencies to see them as long-term partners who understand their communities better than anyone else. Drawing on the feeding of the five thousand, the reflection was that Jesus chose to work through people, multiplying what they already had instead of bypassing them.
Bella, President of Hungarian Baptist Aid, built on that theme by challenging what he described as the “wall” between humanitarian aid and long-term development. Emergency response and community development should not be treated as separate ministries. Instead, the earliest needs assessments should already be asking what lasting recovery might look like. The stories from countries including Haiti, Turkey, Myanmar, and Venezuela illustrated how relief efforts can grow into schools, youth centres, hospital rehabilitation, clean water projects, and community development initiatives.
One example stayed with me. In Myanmar, outside organizations assumed tractors would help farmers recover. The local community asked instead for water buffaloes because they were far more practical in the terrain. It was a simple but powerful reminder that listening is often more valuable than arriving with answers.
Others shared examples of vocational training, climate-resilient agriculture, community emergency response teams, and local Baptist conventions developing their own humanitarian ministries. The common thread was clear. Sustainable ministry grows when communities are equipped to lead rather than encouraged to depend on outside support.
The discussion also addressed accountability and coordination. Strong documentation, evaluation, and partnerships remain essential, but these should strengthen local ministries rather than burden them with unnecessary systems. Collaboration among Baptist organizations helps avoid duplication while allowing local leaders to remain at the centre of the work.
Theologically, the panel was grounded in the life of Christ. References to the feeding of the five thousand and the Last Supper reminded us that Christian compassion has always been about more than meeting immediate needs. It is about restoring dignity, building relationships, and inviting people into lasting hope.
This session was a reminder that the most effective relief work is not measured by how much we do for people, but by how faithfully we walk alongside them until they no longer need us. That may be one of the clearest expressions of Christ’s love in humanitarian ministry.