Johnny Hunt, pastor of Woodstock’s First Baptist Church and president of the Southern Baptist Convention, is known for his visionary leadership, charisma, passion, and mentoring of young pastors.

He recently led a team of 32 people on a mission trip to Palabra de Vida (Word of Life), a Bible institute near Buenos Aires, Argentina. For ten years Hunt has been going to Palabra de Vida to hold his Timoteo Bernabe Escuela para Pastores y Lideres (Timothy Barnabas School for Pastors and Leaders).

Timothy + Barnabas is a ministry of instruction and encouragement fashioned in a mentoring setting. The Woodstock pastor first began these pastors’ retreats more than 14 years ago. Since then thousands of pastors have been blessed and strengthened by this ministry.

This year well over 400 pastors from all over South America and beyond came to the school for a time of “instruction and encouragement.” On several occasions the students from the Word of Life Bible Institute came into the worship sessions to swell the attendance of participants to well over a thousand.

Word of Life, a ministry started by Jack Wyrtzen more than 50 years ago, is committed to reaching youth with the gospel. The ministry has a camping ministry, over 1,500 Bible Clubs around the world, and Bible Institutes on all six continents.

The reception Hunt received from the pastors and leaders from all over South America was most notable. Many had driven for many hours to get to the meeting and all seemed to know the Woodstock pastor and hold him in high esteem.

After flying all night and landing at the Ezeiza Ministro Pistarini International Airport at 8 a.m., Hunt wasted little time getting the Timothy/Barnabas School underway. Just hours after collecting his luggage and making his way through customs, the SBC president, accompanied by his wife Janet, a First Baptist Church Woodstock vocal team, and almost a dozen pastors, was going full-throttle preaching the Word.

“I want to live in such a way that I will be missed,” Hunt articulated. “I want to make a difference in this world. I want to help people become fully devoted followers of Christ.

“You teach and preach what you want your people to know, but you live what you want your people to do. If you are stingy, your people will be stingy. If you are generous, your people will be generous. If you are not a dreamer, you people will not be dreamers. But if you are a dreamer, your people will dream with you.”

Hunt continued, “God has called us to do a work that we are incapable of doing in our own strength. A Christian can become emotionally and spiritually weary in the Lord’s work, but may we not become weary of it.”

Session after session the conferees would surround Hunt to shake his hand, ask questions, and request prayer. In each case the Woodstock pastor responded with great interest in every person and with great grace.

Hunt invited other pastors to accompany him and teach breakout sessions, providing them on-the-job training so they could replicate his teaching/mentoring ministry in other countries

Attendee Jeremy Morton, pastor of Crosspoint Baptist Church in Perry, stated, “This is my first time with Pastor Johnny. I want to get my whole church involved so we can find a country and teach this material.”

Indeed, that is the goal. Hunt has a vision of having scores of pastors reproduce the Timothy/Barnabas schools all over the world for the purpose of instructing and encouraging pastors. Several countries, including Mexico, Chili, Ecuador, Peru, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ukraine, and Belarus, already have TB Schools led by pastors mentored by Hunt.

Steve Flockhart, pastor of New Seasons Church in Dallas and one of many pastors greatly impacted by Hunt’s life and ministry, has taught in the Timothy Barnabas School in Equator and led the one in Peru. He plans to go back to Peru in February next year. He also led some of the breakout sessions in Argentina.

Flockhart commented, “Pastor Johnny has been a father, brother, and friend to me. He baptized me, licensed me, and ordained me.

“Some people say, ‘Call me if you need me.’ Johnny Hunt doesn’t wait to be called; he does the calling. A true friend walks in when others walk out. Johnny Hunt is that kind of friend.”

Each year Hunt has two young men he mentors personally by pouring his life into them. The Woodstock church essentially places them on staff as interns and gives them a book and travel allowance so they can spend a maximum amount of time with the pastor.

One of the interns this year is Barry Chesney, son-in-law of Mac Brunson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla. Chesney is also working on his dissertation as a Ph.D. student at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

Chesney admitted he travels with Hunt about three-fourths of the time and is engaged in reading books required for the Woodstock pastor’s interns. He attends senior staff meetings, transports special guests to and from the airport, occasionally does research for the pastor, and serves in other capacities as requested.

“He gives us access to his life and family,” Chesney explained. “There is a real authenticity about him. There is nothing hidden with him. He has no secret meetings and no secret phone calls. It is all open and up front with him.

“I think Pastor Johnny is a great man of God, a great leader, and he empowers others to lead. He releases them to fulfill their ministry. He is not a micro-manager. He is humble and walks with God.

“He is very connected to his family. He genuinely loves his wife, his children, and grandchildren.”

Chesney added, “Pastor Johnny is very disciplined. He has his quiet time each morning. He reads from Psalms and Proverbs and from some devotional book, like the one by Oswald Chambers. He often shares out of the overflow of his personal devotional life. He also runs six miles a couple days a week and practices great self-control by watching what he eats.”

In addition to having his interns accompany him on the trip to Argentina, Hunt has impressed upon his whole staff the need to be globally minded in terms of missions. One staffer commented, “Some places have no churches, no gospel, no witness, no preachers, no missionaries, and not one Christian. God told us to go, and that is why we must go.

“If I wait for my neighbor, to whom I have witnessed often, to believe before I go anywhere else, I may never go.”

Consequently, the people of FBC Woodstock are constantly on the go with the gospel. Hunt’s church is among the perennial leaders in baptisms among Southern Baptist churches each year, baptizing 505 persons last year

The church has been a leader in church starts and in recent years has started churches in Portland, Seattle, New York (2), Las Vegas (4), and Cleveland as well as more than 70 church starts in Georgia. Hunt stated, “On Easter Sunday there were 42,000 people worshiping in our church and the churches we have started.”

In 2008 the church sent out over 700 members on short-term mission trips, another 1,500 locally over the course of the year, and mobilized more than 2,700 in their local “Love Loud” campaign to minister in their own “Jerusalem.” Their Love Loud campaign this year is scheduled for October.

Hunt explained, “We don’t lose people out of our church who are called out, we consider them being launched out of our church, essentially extending our ministry to the ends of the earth. The sun never sets on the ministry of our church. We have over 100 families serving Christ around the world.”

There is no doubt Hunt dreams big dreams. He knows that without a vision the people perish. Concerning vision, Hunt declares, “If you don’t see it before you see it, you will never see it. In fact, when you dream big most people don’t see it. But there is something worse than dying with God’s dream in your heart. It is having God’s dream in your heart and doing nothing about it.”

In the Wednesday morning session in Argentina, Hunt preached a powerful sermon on II Kings 7:1-15 about the flight of the Syrians and the discovery of the four leprous men who found a bountiful supply of food, raiment, gold, and silver. Hunt emphasized the cry of the lepers who declared, “We do not well: this is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace.”

The SBC president proclaimed, “In verse 5 we are told that those leprous men rose up. Jesus also rose up, and since He arose we must rise up, because we have a story to tell to the nations. We must be on the go with the gospel. And we must remember that God doesn’t call the equipped; He equips the called.”

Hunt issued a plaintive appeal at the end of his sermon for the pastors and church leaders in attendance at the Timothy/ Barnabas event. It was a call for them to go into the predominantly Muslim countries with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He indicated that Southern Baptists have had missionaries in Argentina for 100 years, but it was time for Argentina to become a force for evangelism and not just a field for evangelism.

Hunt appealed, “Don’t place a condition upon His call. It’s either ‘yes’ or ‘no.’” The response to the invitation was overwhelming as scores of pastors and church leaders came to the altar to surrender their lives to the call of God.

One man from Argentina, who is a household name in the Pan-American soccer world, has already gone to the Middle East to establish soccer camps and use them as a platform to present the gospel.

The former professional testified, “On December 3, 2007, I was reading Proverbs 3:5-6 and God spoke to me in those verses. His Word was never sweeter and it was the happiest day of my life. On the very next day I made the decision to go to the Middle East as a missionary. I knew it was God’s will; and He gave me peace about my decision.

“A year later (after studies at Word of Life) I moved in among a certain people group. I didn’t know the language, but what God did was incredible. I give God the glory because I believe in the truth of II Corinthians 3:5: ‘Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.’”

The school’s ministry is to children ages 7-12. Last year he had 360 children go through his soccer camps and in the coming year he intends to open more schools and share the gospel with more of his students.

When he returns he will represent Word of Life and an alliance of Southern Baptist churches. His ministry is in a former “no fly” zone. It is safe there now although people have been terrorized in the region for many years. That is where God has called him and that is where he has found God’s perfect peace.

The passionate athlete remarked, “I got my vision from First Baptist Church in Woodstock and Pastor Johnny Hunt.”

Are Southern Baptist missionaries ministering in Argentina? Are they asking the believers in Argentina to go to other parts of the world to serve? Absolutely. The International Mission Board has 17 units (couples and singles) in Argentina. Eight units serve in Buenos Aires, where almost half of the 38 million people in Argentina live.

Stanley Clark, an International Board Mission strategy mobilizer in Argentina, along with several of his colleagues was present for the Wednesday sessions of the Timothy Barnabas School.

Clark commented, “Johnny’s message is timely and the kind of challenge South American pastors’ need to hear. American missionaries are suspect in the Muslim world, in places like Iraq, but not missionaries from Argentina. The message of Johnny Hunt is the message of the International Mission Board.”

One of the Timothy Barnabas speakers proclaimed, “It will take multiple partners to finish to task. We will have all eternity to celebrate the victory, but only one life to win those victories.”