According to ChristianExaminer:
The Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, which selects and trains missionaries for the denomination and has more than 4,700 field personnel under appointment, has changed its personnel qualifications to allow “new pathways” for service to those who previously could not be assigned to long-term overseas posts, Baptist Press, the convention’s news agency, has reported.
David Platt, elected IMB president in August 2014, told the mission board’s trustees earlier this week that the organization’s changes to its appointment policy represent a new “unified statement of qualifications” that will apply to all new applicants.
“We’re talking about limitless possibilities that God has providentially arranged for His people to go around the world with the gospel. And as the IMB, we want to send Southern Baptists through as many pathways as possible, which necessitates that we open up the pipeline for people to come through those pathways,” Platt said, according to Baptist Press.