Gary talks with Jason Thomas (an NOBTS grad) about his new role at IMB.
Gary Myers: Hi, my name is Gary Myers.
Marilyn Stewart: And I'm Marilyn Stewart.
Gary Myers: And we're the hosts of the Answering the Call podcast. This is the podcast about people who are answering God's call. I'm excited to welcome Marilyn Stewart as our new cohost.
If you've been listening to our podcast very long at all, you've heard her voice, heard her interview people. Joe is still around, still working with us behind the scenes, but he's devoting more time to Jamie Dew's Towel and Basin podcast. And you need to check that out if you haven't.
Marilyn Stewart: Hi, I'm glad to be here. And this is an exciting time for this podcast. In this episode, Gary talks with Jason Thomas about his new role as the African-American Church Mobilization Strategist at the International Mission Board, as well as his own call to ministry and missions.
Gary Myers: Jason is a longtime friend and it was a real joy to hear about his important work at IMB. He really just shares his heart for connecting churches of all ethnic backgrounds around the task of reaching the nations for Christ.
Marilyn Stewart: So here's Jason.
Gary Myers: I'm very excited to have Jason Thomas on the podcast today. Jason has done a lot of ministry in New Orleans. I've known him for years. He's a good friend. We're so excited about what he's doing at IMB. And so we have been wanting to get Jason on the podcast for a while because we feel like you should know Jason as well. And so thanks for coming on, Jason. Hope everything's well with you.
Jason Thomas: Yes, everything is well. I'm doing a lot of work from home. That's kind of our thing as of lately, but there's been a lot to be done here. So it's actually a good place, because I know where everything is.
Gary Myers: Yeah. We're excited about everything that's going on at IMB. We see a lot of new initiatives. We see a lot of the fruits of your labor and the whole team there. So we're just really excited.
Well, I wanted to let people get a chance to know who you are, your background, where you're from, and really how God caught your attention and called you to ministry and brought you to seminary. And then we'll move into your role at IMB.
Jason Thomas: Yeah, no problem. So what do you need me to start?
Gary Myers: Start with, just tell me where you're from and then tell me where you went to college, those types of things, and then how you wound up at seminary.
Jason Thomas: Okay. Yeah. So I actually am a Louisiana native, born and raised there all of my life. I'm from a small town of probably about 1800 people called Clinton, Louisiana. And there I kind of grew up in church, but not necessarily a family of ministers per se. My grandfather was a deacon and he was a member of the choir, and my mom as a child was active, but not so much as an adult. So we actually were what we would call those Christians that go very minimally when I was young. And so I went on all holidays-
Gary Myers: Yeah.
Jason Thomas: And of course those times where you're doing celebrations. But actually as a teen, I expressed more interest in faith and in religion. And I actually started going to Sunday school more often and learning more about who God is, more experience about just the story. And I had a conversion story in probably about 12, 13 years old, where I kind of had this moment of clarity of my sin, especially... I kind of then had a similar personality as I do for the zeal of Christ now, but it was for the world.
And so just very brash and very much worldly. But I had this clear understanding of my sin, and as a result that sin would send me to hell. And I had this crisis, where I knew I needed to get in a relationship with God so he could direct my life. And so I confessed Christ as Savior, got baptized at about 12, 13 years old. And from then, I was definitely comfortable saying I was a Christian. I was a member of a church. I could be active, but I've always feared being in a pulpit or doing any type of ministry where people were looking at me, if that makes sense. And so follow that, I went to college at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana, and I majored in communications.
And I always wanted to be a writer back then. I did write for my school paper, but one of the things that I was really involved with in college was the college ministry campus outreach. And there I learned to share my faith. I learned to have my quiet time. And before, it's ironic. I went to church, I read God's word, I marked up the Bible. I still have one of my oldest Bibles that has all of my markings of following sermons, but I didn't necessarily have like a relationship outside of the church where I studied on my own, where I cultivated a relationship with Christ on my own. That started in college. And that's actually where I sensed a call, not to preach, but I sensed a call to just basically teach God's word in small group settings, just one-on-one with friends or peers.
And we did a number of Bible studies in college, where I would lead out. And before I knew the terminology facilitator, because I always wanted to have an active participation within a Bible study. And so that was what our group with campus outreach had done. And I was on the leadership there. I participated in summer beach projects. And that's kind of where I developed the knowledge.
I've always known about missions. My church did support missions growing up, but I'd never considered the fact that you can do more than just give, you could also yourself go.
Gary Myers: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Thomas: And I never envisioned that I would be, as a child, participating in mission as a goer. I'd always kind of seen myself in the capacity of the sender. But college kind of broadened my horizons.
And I participated in a number of national trips. Boston, we took a team from my college to Boston to work with church plants. We took a team from our college to work in Mexico, to paint houses and different things, and churches. And so that's kind of where my passion for local and international missions began. And of course I'd always seen the importance of, at that time, working with my peers and seeing them experience Christ in new ways.
Gary Myers: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Thomas: And so I accepted a call to ministry in college, graduated from college, went with a leader to check out seminaries, and then I backed out and went and went to work for Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
Gary Myers: Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jason Thomas: And there, same thing, enjoyed the life of a layman, is what I would say. But God was still pricking at my heart. And he had put leaders in my life that didn't necessarily want me to not pursue something more in ministry. And they saw me kind of being stuck sometimes. And so they encouraged me to look into seminary.
Of course, one of the things that they... One of the promises they made, that since then I realized was their strategy to get me out of the church, so I would be able to go full-force into seminary, is that they helped me to connect with ministries in New Orleans. I'm from Hammond. So they let me meet at the time the BCM director. And the BCM, prior to Katrina, was not in the same direction as it was when I became a part of it. But I met the BCM director. I met other leaders in the city, and I actually joined before making a commitment to go to seminary. I joined Franklin Avenue, which is a church there that one of my mentors advised that I become a part of.
Gary Myers: Yeah, you picked a great place to start there.
Jason Thomas: Yeah.
Gary Myers: That's a great church.
Jason Thomas: Well, that was my early days in New Orleans. They were a great foundation for me. I was involved in their evangelism ministry. I was involved at the time in their singles ministry. And even though I was dating a wonderful young lady, who is now my wife Gaynel, I got involved in the singles ministry just so I'd be able to be involved in that evangelism and outreach that they did at the church.
Gary Myers: Yeah. They do a great job. And I'm sure that was formative to just how you viewed ministry, how you viewed missions.
Tell me, going into a place like New Orleans, which is urban, lots of diversity in the city. How did that help you expand your view of the nations and help you develop a heart to reach other people?
Jason Thomas: Well, it was definitely a pivotal place for me to receive my training, especially because I didn't just go to seminary. I had joined the church. I had a job in the city. I was introduced to all of these elements all at once. And so the actual international flair of a metropolitan area like New Orleans, it brought me into contact with Hondurans, Guatemalans, Mexicans. There were ministry times, as I recall, where I connected with the, at one time, Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans, and then it turned into NOBA. I've done some ministry with them into the apartment complexes that were all Spanish-speaking, with actually one of our guys, who's an IMB missionary now in Portugal. He led that ministry, Jonathan.
But also I was involved in church planting and community ministry in Mid-City with Canal Street Church, which kind of put me directly in an area where it was extremely diverse neighborhoods. You could walk one street, it would be African-Americans, another street, it'd be Hispanics, another street, Anglo. Close to the city park, all of the above, Africans. And so the ministry exposure that I had in New Orleans put me front and center to the nations and gave me a global vision of the gospel.
Gary Myers: Yeah. I got to know you when you started working here at the seminary, I guess probably about midway through your MDiv. And I just saw that God was working in your life in so many ways, and just developing you into the type of minister that we hope every student will come out of here like. And what I saw in you was, you were out there doing the ministry, doing the servanthood in these different locations. And so I commend you for that. And just seeing that was... That's the way you get the most out of a seminary experience, and you had some great experiences.
I wanted you to just share. You're now at IMB.
Jason Thomas: Yes.
Gary Myers: We told that in the intro, but tell us what you're doing, your title, what your role is. And then I just really want... This as an important role. And I want you to give your vision and where you're headed with this.
Jason Thomas: Yeah. So just right off, I will say that my introduction to the International Mission Board was of course through seminary. And I guess my first full-time, paid job was working with the Baptist Collegiate Ministry, and specifically in historically black colleges and universities.
Gary Myers: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Thomas: And so just kind of liaisoning for my students to actually take international mission trips was how I got connected to a lot of the people I call friends, now colleagues. So my position is, I'm the African-American Church Mobilization Strategist. And I don't think you can say that three times fast. My role is to connect our African-American and black churches to the work that IMB is involved in, and also to connect the next generation to become future missionaries. And so we work with each of our affinities to make sure that we can have African-Americans that understand the cultures in some of those affinities, as well as how they can help.
And of course, right now, some of the things that we're doing is... One of my roles was to make sure that I didn't necessarily leave out the story of missions work among African-Americans. Because sometimes we get the impression that to be a missionary, or the person who is a missionary, they have to fit a specific ethnicity. And honestly, I had a conversation with some collegiate ministers a couple of days ago, and they asked their students. And of course, I think this is influenced by some newer movies, but they've posed the question to students, what they think a missionary is. And this is historically black colleges. And one of the students automatically says, "Colonizer."
Gary Myers: Oh, yeah.
Jason Thomas: And if we dig back into the stories of African-Americans that have gone on mission, many times they were unknown because they refused to partner with those who were going to colonize.
Gary Myers: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Thomas: And so they became members of the communities. And so they weren't counted as missionaries. They were a part of the communities that they went to. They gave themselves over to areas like Liberia. They gave themselves over to Nigeria. They gave themselves to the culture itself. And so their stories aren't always told, because they didn't necessarily take the traditional missionary route, by going from a mission-sending organization that was backed by several other things in this past.
And so that was kind of first on my agenda because of my upbringing and my background. I knew that there were African-American missionaries. I went to a church that was extremely missional and they had individuals who were involved in evangelism and community ministry. And so that was my... First and foremost, I want to unearth some of those people who were a part of, at one point in time, the Foreign Mission Board, now the International Mission Board.
Gary Myers: Yeah, I want to... Sorry to interrupt, but-
Jason Thomas: Oh, no worries.
Gary Myers: Tell me about some of those people, because IMB has been producing this month, Black History Month, has been bringing some of these stories to light. And just tell me a few of these individuals that you're highlighting and IMB is highlighting.
Jason Thomas: So I know we're highlighting currently, just from the series we're calling Heroes of the Faith. Right off the bat, we've connected with the National African American Fellowship, that brought before the Southern Baptist Convention a motion that we would recognize George Liele, church planting, evangelism, and mission Sunday as a Sunday we all celebrate together. So IMB was pleased to bring that the message, of who George Liele was and is, and his legacy to the Southern Baptist Convention. So right off the bat, we want to celebrate the life of George Liele. And we've done that through videos and through resources that you can find on our website, imb.org/heroesoffaith. And there you'll hear from the past President and Pastor of Colonial Baptist Church, Robert Anderson, where he kind of tells the story of who George Liele is and his legacy for the Great Commission and the call of all Christians from all faiths to fulfill that Great Commission.
And of course, you'll hear from Nate Bishop, who's one of our IMB trustees, but also a pastor of Forest Baptist Church. And they're bringing to light the story of George Liele, but there have been others. In our 175 campaign, John Day. He was one of the earliest African-American missionaries with the Foreign Mission Board. His life can be found on our website as well.
And then one of the things we're doing is also, not just looking at the past, but also our present. And so you'll see in the next coming weeks, one of our former missionaries emeritus, David Cornelius. David Cornelius is, and you'd never hear this from him. He's extremely humble. He is responsible, within this generation, of recruiting a number of African-American missionaries that we have on the field today. He served for nine years in Abuja, Nigeria, and then you'll see later on in his life he committed about 18 or so years with the International Mission Board in the position that I'm in currently, as African-American Church Mobilizer.
Gary Myers: That's great. And I was so excited to see what you guys had done, the way you're telling their stories is compelling. It's important. It's important for us to see just how big the work of God has been in missions. We've only seen a slice of it. And so I just appreciate you guys for working on this and bringing these people to light and helping us to have a fuller picture of the mission endeavor that's been going on. Because don't we want to have that impression, that "a missionary looks like this." If we're going to reach the nations, it's going to be people from all nations that go serve. And so I'm just so excited about this.
Jason Thomas: Right.
Gary Myers: In prepping for this, you were telling me about the George Liele scholarship.
Jason Thomas: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gary Myers: Tell me about that and how you guys hope this will spark a next generation of these African-American missionaries.
Jason Thomas: So yeah. The George Liele scholarship was actually brought about as an idea from the National African American Fellowship. Of course, at the IMB, since I got there, which is only about a year, there has been this thought of, "If we could bring together churches, to build a fund, to help to mobilize African-American churches through mission trips, short-term, vision trips, that would help to catapult this idea of what missions looks like in their context."
And so this George Liele scholarship is to fill that type of dream. One of the things that we are asking, from all churches, is that we come together to build this fund, to build this scholarship. And it's for prayer resources. There are times where you might be able to print out prayer cards for the African-American IMB missionaries that we currently have, or even to pray for specific nations that have a tremendous number of people of color there. Also for education, like getting some of these resources about George Liele, about John Day.
And then you will also see, and I'm giving a lot of this away, but some of our people that are going to be featured. Like one of our missionaries, she was the first appointed deaf missionary, Yvette Aarons, and we'll hear her story or see her story there. And of course we want to not just go to the past. We want to show you our present. And we'll focus on some present, current missionaries as well. So the scholarship will help churches that might not have the funds to take the short-term missions trip. It will allow them to have a little bit of a seed to take that trip, at least to take their pastors, to have their pastors get a vision. And we're hoping that partnerships develop. It doesn't necessarily have to... We are the Southern Baptist Convention, we're made up of all ethnicities, but we can partner together.
My role is the African-American Church Mobilization Strategists, but there are a number of churches that aren't African-American that see this as important, and they want to give to it, and they want to partner with us for it. And that's been amazing. It's been beautiful to see around. And a lot of our missionaries are wanting to see the mission force look like Revelation 7:9, that is now our vision for the organization. And so we want to see that every nation, tongue, tribe is on mission for God. Even having a globalization emphasis that's happening with our group. And when I say globalization, I'm not talking about the whole funny, scary globalization-
Gary Myers: Right.
Jason Thomas: But we have partners that are on the field that have become Christians that have formed their own Baptist associations. And then we're going to help and have those guys on our teams so that we can have a bigger impact on the kingdom.
Gary Myers: That's all great to hear. I'm excited about this scholarship and putting pastors and key leaders in churches out in a vision trip, a short-term trip, because that changes, that just opens your eyes to a whole world of missions. And so I think that's a great move and I'm excited to hear that churches of all types are supporting this and helping make this happen, because that is so key. Getting on the field, getting out and seeing what's happening is so important.
Jason Thomas: Yeah. And also, just in the Southern Baptist Convention itself, there's a growing diversity of churches that are not as connected. So alongside of us, alongside of our department, we're all a part of the church mobilization department, but we have a Hispanic Church Mobilizer, Oscar Tortolero. And then we have an Asian-American Church Mobilizer, Ezra Bae. Ezra basically just served in Muslim China. And so he's excited as well to bring all of these churches and associations and fellowships together, so that all of us will be able to mobilize for the kingdom.
Gary Myers: Well, that's great. Well, if there's anything that connects Southern Baptist, the cooperative program. But IMB, we want to see mission succeed, and I couldn't be happier to hear about all these initiatives and just the great work that's going on there. So I'm excited about where you guys are headed and what you're doing. Keep it up.
Jason Thomas: Yeah. Thank you. And it was interesting, if I even just recall my letter to the seminary, and this is something that most people won't even remember, what they wrote when they wrote their letter to enter seminary. But my letter that I wrote to enter seminary ended with the Revelation 7:9 passage.
Gary Myers: That's awesome.
Jason Thomas: Then, I didn't know what God was doing then. I had no idea that I'd be working for the Mission Board, but I've always had a passion to see not, just my community, African-American community, which I love, which I'm proud of, and you know me, I'm not at all ashamed of our community, and the rich history in the black church, and the rich history of local missions, and in the support of global missions that often gets unnoticed.
Gary Myers: That's right.
Jason Thomas: Because of course they've not had the same sort of wealth and influence that other churches have had. But I don't think it's going to take one congregation to reach the world. And so we eventually want to see Christ's return, and for him to return, every church of every ethnicity has to be activated to fulfill the Great Commission.
Gary Myers: Yeah. Amen. I'll give you an amen on that one. So it's been great to talk to you and I always enjoy every chance I get to touch base with you. Full disclosure, Jason is someone who has taught me so much and is such a dear friend. And so it's kind of strange to interview somebody with which you're so close to in this way. But I wanted to close out with, how can we pray for you? How can we pray for IMB in your work? How can we, even as we're giving, and hopefully most of us will get to start going again on short-term trips, but how can we pray for you now?
Jason Thomas: So I would say specifically that one, that I not get discouraged. I am committing myself to a life of biblical diversity. There's a lot of noise around us that allows us to kind of put too much attention on one thing or another, but I know us as an organization, we're committed to being people of the Scripture, people of the Book. And so a biblical idea of diversity, that I not be sidetracked and not necessarily be discouraged from the work ahead.
But also that God would bless the work, not just that I'm doing, but the prayers of those who came before me that wanted to see a larger presence from the African-American community. Now I go back and I read, and I've met a lot of my predecessors, and I go back and I read Keith Jefferson. And one of his prayers was that he see a larger number of African-Americans, pastors, leaders, members, signing up to become a part of this great mission force.
So that's a prayer of mine as well, that we see more African-Americans from African-American church backgrounds, who are proud of their culture, but also even more so, more proud that Christ himself has saved them, and they want to commit that to the world. Those are the people who we want. We want those who love Jesus, who love the church, and who love serving. And so that's my prayer, that all of those guys would sign up and come, not those who want to be superstars or rock stars.
You know me, I hate the spotlight. I'd rather just be in the back room somewhere serving. And I think that's what it's going to take, because the missionary themselves has to go into another culture and not be recognized, but yet make more of Christ than of themselves.
Gary Myers: That's great.
Jason Thomas: And so that's my prayer. And that we would get the resources to be able to support a number of our African-American churches, to have a bigger vision. Being from a small town and a small community that is deeply impoverished, a lot of the times you don't necessarily know more, and that's because you feel that everything in front of you is presently urgent.
Gary Myers: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Thomas: And so there's the urgency for survival, but I think God wants more than just survival. He wants to be able to help people thrive. And I think that's what the body is for. And not just one local body, but we are a convention of churches. None of us agree on hardly any of the things that are third and fourth issue, but all of us should agree that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that we need to spread his gospel across all the nations.
Gary Myers: Well, those are great calls to prayer and great reminders. And I, for one, am going to commit to pray for these things and to pray for you as you do this task. And just before we go, how's the weather? You left us.
Jason Thomas: Well, yes.
Gary Myers: We have warm weather down here.
Jason Thomas: As a Louisiana native, I will say it's taken me a bit of time to get used to snow in my front yard.
Gary Myers: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Thomas: You know, we've had snow in Louisiana, but it's usually gone by the next day.
Gary Myers: That's right. A dusting.
Jason Thomas: Yeah, the whole idea of two to four inches of snow is very new to me. And so it's taken some adjustment, but praise God, that last year during our quarantine, we didn't get any of that. So my first year, at least, God was sovereign towards that. But now I think this is the norm. And it's taken some adjustment. And I miss Mardi Gras.
Gary Myers: Uh-huh (affirmative). Yeah. There's a lot to miss if you leave New Orleans.
Jason Thomas: Yes. I miss king cakes. I miss Mardi Gras. I miss crawfish.
Gary Myers: Yeah. So, moving up, even to Richmond, which is not like moving to Maine.
Jason Thomas: Right.
Gary Myers: But you experience a lot of culture shocks. And so, you're experiencing some of what the people that you guys are sending to the field are experiencing. It's culture shock.
Jason Thomas: Yeah, yeah.
Gary Myers: But you hit on the real culture shock, of the food. You just can't take New Orleans food with you.
Jason Thomas: I will say though, my wife just recently... Again, some of the things that happens, my wife just recently made gumbo and it was really good. And we have friends that send us Louisiana boxes and we praise God for that.
Gary Myers: That's good. Well, I'm going to let you get back to your day, but I'm so appreciative of you for joining us. We're proud that you studied here, we're happy for what God's doing in your life, and we will commit to pray for you as you go forward.
Jason Thomas: Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Gary Myers: Thanks.
Joe Fontenot: Hey, it's Gary and Joe here again. Would you do us a favor?
Gary Myers: If you liked this podcast, go to iTunes and leave us a review.
Joe Fontenot: This would mean the world to us. Thanks.