A new chapter in missions training is taking shape in New England as the Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE) Multiplication Center celebrated the graduation of its first class of students from the Reverse Mission Course: The Full Circle of the Gospel. The graduation celebration brought together pastors, ministry leaders and students from across New England for an evening marked by worship, partnership, celebration and a renewed commitment to the Great Commission.

The students represented five churches across Massachusetts and Connecticut:

New Life Community Church, Georgetown, Massachusetts
First Baptist Church, Haverhill, Massachusetts
Family Church, Framingham, Massachusetts
Harbor Church, Hyannis, Massachusetts
Shalom Baptist Church, Waterbury, Connecticut

Rather than viewing graduation simply as the completion of an academic course, BCNE leaders emphasized that this first class represents something more significant: a generation of leaders being equipped and sent for mission in a changing world.

Preparing for Such a Time as This

The Reverse Mission Course was developed in a hybrid format, combining online learning with opportunities for interaction, discussion, ministry application and cross-cultural engagement. The course addresses a fundamental reality facing churches throughout North America: the demographic and cultural landscape surrounding the church has changed dramatically.

“The Gospel has not changed. But the world in which we carry the Gospel has changed.”

That conviction is at the heart of Reverse Mission. The course challenges church leaders to recognize the missionary potential already present in their communities, particularly through immigrant and diaspora populations. Rather than seeing immigration solely as a social or demographic phenomenon, Reverse Mission asks churches to consider how God may be bringing nations into their own neighborhoods.

The course equips participants to recognize the missionary potential of immigrant and diaspora communities, build relationships across cultures, develop culturally intelligent ministry, equip and send missionaries from everywhere to everywhere, and help churches multiply disciples, leaders, churches and missionaries. In that sense, the course is designed “for such a time as this.”

The nations are increasingly living alongside one another. Churches are becoming more culturally diverse. Missionaries are being raised up from places that historically were viewed primarily as mission fields. The question for the church is no longer simply how to send missionaries from the West to the rest of the world. It is how to recognize, equip and send God’s people from everywhere to everywhere.

Pastor Lierte Soares: Leading the Multiplication Center

The Reverse Mission initiative at the BCNE Multiplication Center has been led by Pastor Lierte Soares, Director of the Multiplication Center. Soares is a Brazilian-American pastor, missionary, educator and missiologist whose ministry has focused increasingly on the intersection of immigration, global Christianity, church multiplication and cross-cultural mission. His ministry experience includes pastoral ministry in Brazil, missionary service in New England, church planting and revitalization, theological education and leadership within the Baptist Churches of New England.

Through his work with Reverse Mission, Soares has advocated for a broader understanding of the missionary movement of the 21st century. For Soares, immigrant churches should not be viewed merely as communities receiving ministry. They can also become missionary communities that send. That perspective is captured in the central language of the course: From everywhere to everywhere. And: Completing the Circle of the Gospel. The course reflects Soares’ conviction that God is moving people across borders and cultures and that the global church must learn to recognize and participate in what God is already doing.

Pastor Rick Harrington: Academic and Ministry Leadership

Serving alongside Soares is Pastor Rick Harrington, Provost of the BCNE Multiplication Center. Harrington brings extensive pastoral and ministry leadership experience to the Multiplication Center and serves in the intersection of theological education, ministry preparation and church multiplication. As Provost, Harrington has helped provide leadership for the educational development of the Multiplication Center and the preparation of leaders who are being equipped not merely to gain knowledge but to put that knowledge into practice within the local church and beyond.

The Reverse Mission Course reflects that philosophy. The goal is not simply to teach a new vocabulary for missions. It is to prepare leaders to live missionally in the communities where God has already placed them.

Pastor Marcos Madaleno Brings a Global Perspective

The graduation celebration featured Pastor Marcos Madaleno, Global Leader of the Inspire Network, as the special speaker. Madaleno’s participation highlighted the growing international partnerships surrounding the Reverse Mission initiative. The celebration represented a growing connection between New England, Brazil and Europe, including collaboration involving BCNE, Inspire Network, the Convenção Batista Pioneira do Sul do Brasil and Faculdade Batista Pioneira.

Madaleno encouraged the graduating students to see their ministry assignments within the larger purposes of God and the Great Commission. His presence also demonstrated the increasingly international character of the Reverse Mission movement.

Graduation Becomes Sending

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the celebration is what comes next. The first graduates are not simply completing a course. They are stepping into opportunities to serve and apply what they have learned in international ministry contexts. A BCNE mission team is preparing to serve at the Reverse Mission Conference in Northern Italy, while members of the graduating class are also engaging in ministry opportunities in Italy and England.

The timing is significant. The first Reverse Mission class is graduating, and immediately moving toward the mission field.

The classroom is becoming a launching pad. The certificate is becoming a commissioning. The learning is becoming ministry.

From New England to Italy and England

The upcoming Reverse Mission Conference in Northern Italy represents an important next step in the movement. For BCNE, this is more than an international trip. It represents an expression of the Multiplication Center’s purpose: to equip leaders who can cross cultural, geographic and organizational boundaries for the sake of the Gospel.

New England has historically been one of America’s most diverse regions, with communities representing nations and cultures from around the world. Reverse Mission asks an important question:

What if the nations God has brought to New England are not only people we are called to reach, but people God is preparing to send?

That question has implications far beyond one course or one conference. It challenges churches to rethink discipleship, leadership development, missions and church multiplication.

Completing the Circle

The Reverse Mission Course is built upon a simple but consequential conviction:

The Gospel has not changed. But the world in which we carry the Gospel has changed.

The Great Commission remains unchanged. But the context in which churches fulfill that commission is increasingly global. The church in New England is no longer simply sending missionaries overseas. New England itself has become a meeting place for the nations.

And as immigrants, international students, refugees, professionals, families and diaspora communities become part of local communities, churches have new opportunities to build relationships, make disciples and identify future missionaries.

The movement can therefore be described in four words:

From everywhere to everywhere.

It is a vision of a global church in which mission is no longer understood primarily as a one-way movement from the West to the rest of the world. Instead, God is raising up His people in every region, culture and nation to participate in His mission.

A New Generation for a Changing World

The first graduating class of the Reverse Mission Course represents only the beginning. Students from five New England churches have completed the initial journey. Now they are being challenged to take what they have learned into their congregations, communities and ministry contexts.

Their churches are different. Their communities are different. Their cultural backgrounds and ministry experiences are different. But they share a common calling: to make disciples and participate in God’s mission wherever He sends them.

The BCNE Multiplication Center’s first Reverse Mission graduates now move from learning to living, from classroom to community, and from preparation to participation. And their next assignment is clear:

Go. Go across cultures. Go across borders. Go into neighborhoods. Go into relationships. Go wherever God sends.

Because the mission field is changing. The Church is changing. The nations are moving. And God is raising up a Church prepared to participate in His mission:

FROM EVERYWHERE TO EVERYWHERE.

Completing the Circle of the Gospel.

From New England to the Nations: BCNE Multiplication Center Celebrates Its First Reverse Mission Graduates