April 24, 2025
Kentucky Baptists, working with the International Mission Board, is embarking on a new emphasis with the goal of reaching Chile with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“The idea of this trip for us was to find true partnerships with Chilean churches,” said Brad Walker, pastor of Briensburg Baptist Church in Benton and president of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.
He was one of 19 people from Kentucky who took a vision tour to Chile on March 13-20.
“Churches there are doing a wonderful job of teaching and discipling,” Walker said. “I was very impressed with the teaching and preaching I heard. There is just a lack of churches. The need is to partner and plant more churches.”
Walker outlined two next steps “for us to find true partnerships with Chilean churches.”
First, he said, is “for us to find way to help them — going and helping with training or help with construction of a building or health clinics or working in schools.”
Second is for “people from Chile coming in this direction. That is a true partnership of us working together — where a Chilean pastor comes and shares what God is doing in that area. A true partnership is where we are part of one another’s lives.” Walker said the partnership principle involves more than just trips. "We want to be involved 52 weeks a year praying for one another and knowing what is going on in one another’s churches.”
He added this is “a new emphasis than what we have always done in the past. I love this idea of partnerships, of really investing in one another in a greater way.”
Reflecting on the trip, Walker said it “was an opportunity for us to go and meet not only IMB missionaries, but also our sister churches in the Santiago area. I didn’t realize Santiago is a city of 8 million people — it’s a massive city with very few true believers. There is definitely a need there for more Baptist churches in order to reach 8 million people.
“It was really encouraging to see the ministry that is taking place in that area. And it was challenging to me to see that churches which we might consider small in size were planting churches, building halfway houses, and meeting the needs of those getting out of drug rehab centers, feeding the homeless. They were going out and finding them and ministering to them.”
The trip’s agenda included meeting and worshiping with churches and being part of an area-wide crusade. While noting he doesn’t speak Spanish fluently, Walker said, “to hear hundreds of Chilean believers singing blessed me, and I know it blessed the Lord.”
Much of the time was spent at the Andes Baptist Church, about an hour outside of Santiago. “It was next to a government school, and the church has a wonderful relationship with the school,” Walker said. “There is the opportunity to do ministries there. They are looking to begin a local free clinic. There were probably 120 in the worship service on the Sunday we were there.”
Walker returned to Kentucky saying it was a “challenging and encouraging” time for the KBC delegation of pastors, associational leaders, and mission team leaders.
___
This story first appeared in Kentucky Today.
