By Carrie Brown McWhorter

TAB Media Group/The Baptist Paper

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VIRGINIA BEACH, VA - What happens when a church stops measuring ministry by the people who are already present and begins paying attention to those who are not yet there?

That question posed by BGAV executive director Wayne Faison in his remarks to messengers set the tone for the Nov. 9 opening session of the 2026 annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia.

Introducing this year’s theme, “Heart for the Not Yet,” Faison challenged messengers to recognize that “God’s mission is bigger than our present reach.”

“There are people who have not yet heard the gospel in a way that they can understand,” he said. “This is the ‘heart for the not yet.’”

“The early followers of Jesus Christ were described as people who had turned the world upside down,” Faison said, referring to the meeting’s focal Scripture. Acts 17:6b “gives us a remarkable picture of what can happen when the gospel takes root in the world around us,” he said.

“They weren’t simply gathering people into religious meetings. Their lives were a witness. … They were carrying a gospel so powerful that people could not ignore it.”

“What would happen if Virginia Baptists developed that kind of gospel presence in our communities? What would happen if our churches … developed a heart for the people who are not yet connected to Christ and the communities that have not yet experienced the fullness of His love? That’s exactly the conversation we want to have,” Faison said.

In her message “A Heart Awakens,” Miriam Swanson, national director of Fusion USA, continued the theme, calling for the local church to make room for the next generation of Christ followers.

Swanson called attention to an empty chair on the stage, asking those gathered to imagine the unexpected guest who might sit there.

“Does it change the way we journey if the empty chair we see is made to be filled with the stranger, foreigner, friend, and enemy? Do we want the room to change by the one that could sit there? … What could it look like for our chairs to be filled with color, new languages, generations, abilities, and cultures? … Who are we missing, inviting, dismissing? Who seems too out of reach?”

The mission of Fusion is to prepare high school seniors as campus missionaries and to equip local churches for outreach on the campuses of colleges and universities, she said.

Campuses are “mini cities, little towns within your town … where other people’s children have just moved onto your doorstep. They don’t have a place to call home unless they find it with you.”

Swanson shared a recent story from a Florida church reaching out to international students attending a local college. At the end of a Bible study with girls from Haiti, Russia, Scotland, and China in attendance, a Chinese girl turned to her neighbor and said she was experiencing something she couldn’t explain.

“She asked, ‘What’s happening to me?’ The Scottish girl said, ‘Oh, I know what it is. You're sensing God leading you to believe in Him.’ The Scottish girl prayed with the Chinese girl, [and] the Chinese girl placed her faith in Jesus.”

“What would you do if the empty chair was occupied by a girl from China? … What would you say if she turned to you and said, ‘I don't know what's happening, but something is happening to me right now. Can you explain it?’”

“The local church is the sleeping giant of campus ministry,” Swanson said, but churches must be ready to accept that new converts to the faith will change their congregation.

Comparing the change to how a newborn changes a family’s dynamics because “a new life showed up,” Swanson said that when prayers for the gospel to take root are answered, a response is required.

“Our job is to begin to show what it looks like when God is on His throne in our lives and in our churches and in our communities,” she said.

Swanson shared stories of college students having spiritual and supernatural experiences, reporting dreams and visions, reading Scripture and encountering God, showing up at church to learn more.

“The Kingdom is really close at hand,” she emphasized. “The ‘not yet’ is closer than we think.”

Monday evening’s main session also included welcoming remarks from this year’s emcee, Fola Ojumu, followed by a time of worship including special music and a responsive reading led by Taylor Vancil with the David Esleck Trio. Jim Bunce offered the benediction prayer.

Earlier in the day, messengers had the opportunity to visit the Art for the Not Yet Exhibit and ministry fair, as well as participate in a variety of on-site and virtual Learning Labs. Read more about this year’s annual meeting here.

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