Hi family!!! My name is Carlton Bates and my dream is to inspire a generation to live missionally. When I say missionally, I don’t simply mean traditional/vocational missions and missions trips. Everyone is called to “go”, but not everyone is called to “go” the same way. I believe we are all called to a life of full surrender to Jesus. And I believe that whole heartedly following Jesus looks like carrying the message of the Gospel wherever we go, whatever the vocation, we can carry Jesus with us.
But guys, I wasn’t always this way I remember a time where my dream was centered around me. It took the love of Jesus to radically change me. Here’s the story:
MY STORY
I come from a lineage of pastors and ministers, so I was always in church. While I had a robust understanding of God as Father, and Jesus as Lord and Savior, I didn’t know the God as Holy Spirit. As I grew up, along with thriving in athletics, I realized I had a natural aptitude for public speaking. It started with speaking to large audiences in elementary school, progressed to high school speaking competitions and engagements, and culminated in being named spokesman of the year at Morehouse College. My gifts, talents, and desires began to forge a future for me, but God had a different plan.
Everything changed when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit at a leadership training experience called 21 Project. He empowered me to use my speaking gift as a tool to witness to others about the goodness and grace of Jesus! I discovered God’s purposes for me, and it began with sonship, reaching far beyond me just being a public speaker or an athlete.
Today, I know that I am a son. I am empowered by the Spirit and I am committed to a life of simple obedience to God’s will for me. But what does a life of simple obedience look like? For me, it’s looked like:
Jumping in a van and spending months on the road traveling to various HBCU campuses.
Hosting worship events, preaching the Gospel, and seeing students give their life to Jesus.
Training and equipping the students on college campuses to lead their peers to Jesus.
Over the past four years, I have been a part of seeing over 9000 young Black leaders gathered and over 1,000 surrender their life to Christ! God is moving in this generation!
Although we have seen God move in wild ways, the mission is only just getting started. We believe that God wants to empower young Black leaders all over the world to carry the message of the Gospel! In order to answer this call a movement by the name of Black Voices Movement was formed! Our mission is to equip young Black leaders into their Christ centered callings, with one of our outcomes being to see all 100 HBCU’s reached! We have reached 36 campuses, which is 36 percent of all HBCUs! Do you want to help reach the remaining 64 percent? Here’s how:
How You Can Partner
A full time missionary requires the financial support of people like you! The immediate need is to raise $2750 of monthly support by August of 2024! With your support, I can continue to see young leaders all across the world including London and Kenya be saved, empowered, and sent out to be world changing leaders that carry the Gospel!
I have so much more to tell you, so I will continue to post updates on my social media. Click the link below to join my monthly support team today (all gifts are tax-deductible)!
If you have any questions feel free to reach out to CarltonBMissions@gmail.com
Thank You!