Happy birthday to us!

Fellowship Southwest will celebrate its fourth birthday this Sunday. How can Aug. 1, 2017—our launch date—paradoxically seem like only yesterday and decades ago? Well, joyful activity seems to make time fly. And we have traversed the pandemic, which made weeks feel like months and months seem like years. 

But here we are—4 years old. If you’ve ever parented or grand-parented a 4-year-old, maybe you can relate to the trials, trepidations and undiluted happiness of guiding Fellowship Southwest along.

Like most preschoolers, Fellowship Southwest lives in wonder, awe and amazement. So many opportunities for new ventures! So many possibilities to make new friends! OK, and sometimes we’re a little crabby when we’re tired and we don’t know exactly what to do next. But 4 is a great age, and we’re thrilled to be up and running and looking ahead with eager eyes.

You may recall the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship launched Fellowship Southwest as a network that enables Christians of goodwill to do more together than they can do alone. We came alongside CBF Oklahoma, CBF Texas and CBF West, and CBF asked us to expand its ecumenical, cultural and racial relationships across the region. We operated under the CBF governance authority, and the FSW coordinator has served on the CBF Global staff.

But when we were 3, our regional steering committee realized we needed to make changes to fulfill our mandate, especially to be ecumenical and multiracial. For example, we realized it was a lot to ask our ecumenical partners to write “Baptist”—the middle word of CBF’s name—on their checks and send them outside the region in order to support Fellowship Southwest.

So, major milestones marked FSW’s momentum throughout its fourth year:

• We incorporated in the state of Texas.

• We received confirmation of our nonprofit status, first from Texas and then from the IRS, making all contributions tax-deductible.

• We moved management of our funds from the CBF office in Georgia to Texas.

• Our steering committee—which unofficially guided us while under the CBF governing board’s authority—became our board of directors, with full authority for our operations.

• We launched a search to find a replacement for our founding leader, Marv Knox.

• We elected Stephen Reeves as FSW’s next executive director, and he began work March 15. (A clarification about staffing: Since FSW is young and has had only one full-time staff member, we wanted our founder and our new leader to overlap. A generous grant from the Baugh Foundation is enabling Stephen and Marv to work alongside each other until Marv retires at the end of the year.)

• Thanks to vaccinations, we began traveling across the region again.

Meanwhile, the young-and-growing FSW has expanded its ministries across Arizona, New Mexico, Northern Mexico, Oklahoma, Southern California and Texas. 

We’re continuing to operate our immigrant relief network, which feeds, shelters and protects refugees amassed along the U.S.-Mexico border, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.

We created the Fellowship Center for Ministry Development, collaborating with numerous partners to promote ministry as a worthy vocational calling, help train and equip women and men for ministry, and provide a network of support for clergy.

We have partnered with Familia, CBF’s Latino fellowship, to catalog the full range of theological education in the Latino context, for both Spanish- and English-speakers.

We surveyed churches and continue to develop opportunities for creating “faith collaboratives”—networks built around specific ministries, mission opportunities and causes.

We continue to build and participate in coalitions that advocate on behalf of vulnerable people whose voices must be amplified.

We ‘re maintaining our strong CBF connections, supporting the fine work of our regional partners—CBF Oklahoma, CBF Texas and CBF West—as well as CBF Global.

We’re exploring new opportunities for developing and supporting ecumenical and interfaith groups that share our commitment to joining together for the common good and expressing compassion for people across our region.

We’re daily exploring the implications of living into our values—faithful, ecumenical, agile and kind.

So, thanks for sharing our fourth birthday. We’re grateful to be growing and maturing in the company of friends like you.