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 Four • Thursday, July 9
Morning Session:
By Catherine Cole
“At the table, we all arrive hungry.” With those words, Karlene Edwards-Warrick welcomed participants into Thursday morning’s plenary, naming the need carried by everyone who comes to Christ’s table. Worship was led again by Mississauga City Baptist Church, followed by a time of remembrance for BWA members who had passed away in the last year.
The morning also held stories of regional witness. TaNikka Sheppard and Emmett Dunn shared an update from the North American Baptist Fellowship, highlighting ministry among emerging leaders, disaster-affected communities, justice-focused forums, and churches seeking to stand together with courage. Parrish Jácome then brought greetings from the Unión Bautista Latino Americana, celebrating UBLA’s 50th anniversary and the growing partnership between Latin America and Spain through church planting, outreach, urban mission, and leadership development.
Together, these updates created a sense of movement: a family remembering those who have gone before, naming the work already underway, and asking who still needs to be brought to the table.
After Alexey Kildishov read Acts 2:42–47 in Kazakh, David Olusola Idowu of Nigeria preached from the passage. Speaking to the gathering’s theme, Idowu began by challenging a quiet assumption. We often speak as though everyone is already at the table, he said, but that is not yet true. There is still room for many more.
For Idowu, the table points to the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a table of remembrance and proclamation, but also a call to obedience and transformation. People may come as they are, he reminded the gathering, but they are not meant to leave as they were.
Looking to the early Church in Acts 2, Idowu named four marks of a people shaped by the table. They were steadfast, devoted to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. They were selfless, cherishing their life together and holding all things in common. They were sacrificial, willing to give what they had for the good of the community. And they were supportive, ensuring that those in need were cared for.
One of the sermon’s memorable images came as Idowu reflected on blessing. God blesses his people so they may bless others, he said, but every blessing carries both seed and crop. Too often, people consume both, rather than planting the seed so more fruit can grow.
His message returned the room to the call of Acts 2: a people gathered at the table, changed by Christ, and sent out with renewed commitment to bring many more to the table of Christ.
Evening Session:
By Catherine Cole
Thursday evening’s session began with prayer, welcomed by Lynn Green, BWA Vice Chair, before worship led by Tom Tillman, Director of Music and Worship for Texas Baptists. From there, the room turned toward the Middle East, listening to leaders whose ministries are unfolding amid conflict, displacement, trauma, and uncertainty.
Siham Daoud spoke of the impact of war in Lebanon, where thousands have been killed, more than a million people have been displaced, and families continue to live without knowing what tomorrow may bring. Still, Baptist churches are serving their neighbours, offering practical care across religious and social lines. Charlie Costa shared about new openings in Syria, where recent conversations have begun to create space for Baptists to respond to the needs around them. Munir Kakish named the toll of war on small congregations in Israel and Palestine, where pastors are caring for traumatized people, churches are under economic strain, and communities continue to long for a just peace. Botrus Mansour widened the lens to the Church across the Middle East, reminding participants that suffering is not the whole story – hope remains.
By the time Romans 15:1–7 was read in Portuguese by Ruy de Oliveira, the words carried the weight of what had already been shared. Mansour’s message drew from Paul’s call to unity to speak about the table Christ makes possible. He described it as “the place where Christ gathers people who have no reason to sit together except that they have all been welcomed by grace.”
From there, Mansour invited participants to consider three movements: bear, welcome, and advance. At Christ’s table, strength is not given for status, but for service. The strong bear with the weak, each person’s gifts matter, and no one carries the mission alone.
To welcome one another, he reminded the room, is not to pretend every difference is simple. It is to receive one another as Christ has received us, allowing the table to become both a place of communion with God and fellowship with one another.
Mansour then turned to collaboration, naming it not only as strategy, but as theology. No church, alliance, or leader holds the whole picture. When God’s people work in isolation, they risk duplicating efforts and overlooking the gifts already present around the table. But when they advance one another, everyone gives, everyone receives, and God’s mission moves forward.
In a session shaped by stories from a region too often divided by conflict, Mansour offered another vision: a table where grace makes unity possible, and where that unity becomes a witness to Christ.