Jon Auten, Kentucky WMU Royal Ambassadors/Challengers/Church Staff Relations Consultant
Jonathan Auten of Louisville is a new consultant for Kentucky Woman’s Missionary Union, focusing his efforts on missions education for boys.
Most recently he served as pastor of Poplar Level Baptist Church in Louisville since 1995.
In addition to his work with the two missions education groups for boys, Royal Ambassadors and Challengers, Auten also will help strengthen Kentucky WMU’s relationships with Kentucky Baptist pastors and other church staff.
Kentucky Baptists can meet Auten July 29-30 at Excel, WMU’s summer training event, held this year at Severns Valley Baptist Church in Elizabethtown. At Excel, Auten will lead conferences on missions education for boys.
“We believe this is a new day for involving boys in missions,” said Joy Bolton, Kentucky WMU executive director. “With the growing awareness of the need to mentor boys and help them grow into manhood, the renewed emphasis on gender-specific missions is very timely.”
Auten said his interest in missions began early. “As a boy who grew up in RAs, I saw my parents take leadership roles in WMU, (Girls in Action) and RAs so that adults and children could be educated to the possibilities and power of being on mission with the Lord,” he said. “I know how vital the work of WMU is.”
Bolton noted that WMU has “plans and resources already in place (so) churches can use gender-specific missions groups to accomplish both mentoring and mobilizing children and youth in life and missions.”
Auten’s position as Royal Ambassadors/Challengers/Church Staff Relations Consultant is new to Kentucky WMU. Previously, missions education for boys was the responsibility of the Kentucky Baptist Convention Baptist Men on Mission Department.
Bolton said the decision to transfer RAs and Challengers to Kentucky WMU was in progress when the announcement came in March that the North American Mission Board and national WMU were making the same move.
“I saw this as a confirmation of the direction that Kentucky WMU and the Kentucky Baptist Men on Mission Department were already moving,” she said.
It was national WMU that first organized Royal Ambassadors in 1908. Nationally it was transferred to the Southern Baptist Convention Brotherhood Commission, the predecessor of Baptist Men on Mission, in 1953.
As part of the Kentucky Baptist Convention Missions Growth Team, the Kentucky Baptist Men on Mission Department coordinates such ministries as Kentucky Changers and Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief.
Coy Webb, who will lead the Kentucky BMEN Department as of Sept. 1, said missions education for boys has been extremely important and rewarding for KBC, but he is confident that RAs and Challengers “are in very capable hands.
“We believe that missions education is vital in the spiritual development of boys, and believe the creation of (Auten’s) position in WMU will strengthen and expand the ability to assist churches with missions education,” Webb continued. “We welcome Jon to this role and will work with him in the transition.”
Since 2008, Greta Wilson, a Mission Service Corps missionary, has served as missions-education consultant in the Kentucky Baptist Men on Mission Department. Wilson has worked with missions education trainers around Kentucky, encouraged regional missions events for boys, and organized the annual Royal Ambassadors overnight camp event.
She also began e-newsletters for Royal Ambassador and Challengers leaders, a Kentucky RA Facebook page, and the e-newsletter for Baptist Men.
Bolton said Wilson will assist with the transition of the RA and Challengers program to WMU. She will continue in a part-time capacity with Kentucky WMU to sustain the e-newsletters. These will be adapted for a wider audience and continue to provide updates to missions education leaders.
Begun in 1908 by WMU, Royal Ambassadors grew out of a need for Southern Baptist boys to learn that they are commissioned as Christ’s ambassadors to go into the world and tell the story of Jesus Christ. The work grew and the first convention-wide RA director, J. Ivyloy Bishop, was hired in 1943.
The program was transferred to the Brotherhood Commission in 1953, and to NAMB in 1997. Kentucky WMU had three RA consultants, or secretaries, from 1944-56: John Wren, 1944-49; Glendon McCullough, 1949-50; and J.C. Ballew, 1950-56.
More about Jon Auten
Auten, who became a Royal Ambassador at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, said some of his RA memories include a 10-mile hike every summer for missions, reading missions books, going to RA classes and learning about missions in other ways.
Auten’s father served in the Air Force. The family moved to Guam when the young Auten was in middle school. They attended a Southern Baptist church while there, an experience, Auten said, that gave him a great appreciation for SBC missions beyond mainland U.S. His dad is now a director of missions in Texas.
When Auten was pastor of Poplar Level Baptist Church, his wife, Misty, started a Girls in Action ministry. The group was changed to Children in Action when a boy joined. As more boys became active, the church once again formed Royal Ambassadors and Girls in Action groups.
Poplar Level has been involved in missions locally and also partnered as a sponsoring church in the Iglesia Bautista de Jeffersontown church plant and sponsored several vacation Bible school missions trips to Eastern Kentucky.
In 2009, Auten was assistant coordinator for the Crossover evangelistic effort held prior to the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in Louisville. He coordinated 24 evangelistic block parties around the city.
As association relations catalyst for the Long Run Baptist Association, Auten met with pastors and facilitated the formation of small groups for encouragement, support and prayer. He also was a member of the Long Run Association Finance Committee, and served as association clerk and secretary of the credentials committee. From 2002 until 2005, he represented Long Run on the Kentucky Baptist Convention Mission Board.
Auten has served as a small-group facilitator for Formation and Supervised Ministry Experience classes at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, a chaplain for the Masonic Homes of Kentucky, and a summer missionary.
Release prepared by
Dannah Prather
Marketing & Media Relations Associate
Kentucky Baptist Convention
