FoNAC leaders stand with Jimmy Anderson and Ernest Best (in wheelchair) after their Honoring Ceremony.
BIXBY, Okla. – Two men from the Muscogee Creek Nation were honored as “Native American Trailblazers” during the recent regional meeting of the Fellowship of Native American Christians (FoNAC).
Jimmy Anderson and Ernest Best both have served for more than 50 years – Anderson as a pastor and national missionary; Best as a pastor and missionary evangelist.
“These are two precious men who have devoted their lives to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Native people of North America” FoNAC Executive Director Gary Hawkins told Baptist Press. “I just wanted our people to recognize the tremendous impact these two servants of God have contributed, and also to focus on the challenge we face in the lack of people following in their footsteps.”
The FoNAC regional event took place Sept. 19-20 at First Baptist Church in Bixby, eastern Oklahoma, with “Whom shall I send?” as the event’s theme, and Isaiah 6:8 as its scriptural watchword.
The honoring involved gifts and much ceremony for men who gave their lives to Native Americans, from proclaiming God’s unconditional love for Native peoples, to identifying and nurturing potential leaders, to starting and strengthening churches, their leaders and members.
Anderson felt God’s call on his life when as a teen he repeatedly saw children sitting on the curb outside Oklahoma City bars, waiting for their parents to emerge. The sight pierced his heart, he said. His father had died from alcoholism.
Anderson was 29 when in 1961 he entered the Gospel ministry to reach his own Native people in Oklahoma. By 1964 he had become a missionary associate for the Home Mission Board, now North American Mission Board.
Anderson created a national Indian fellowship in 1987. That same year he started a national newsletter for all Southern Baptist Indian groups, and started work on an Indian Sunday School quarterly, even as he ministered among 39 Native American tribes in Oklahoma and still more across North America.
“Anderson has been instrumental in organizing mission teams to crisscross North America, starting and strengthening Indian churches,” according to a 1995 Missions USA article. In 1979 he was named HMB’s “Language Missionary of the Year,” and in 1994 he received HMB’s “Catalytic Missionary Church Planting Award.” He retired from HMB in 1997 and returned to the pulpit at Many Springs Baptist Church in Holdenville, Okla.
Anderson, now 93, preached “my last sermon,” he said on Aug. 17, 2025, at Many Springs Church.
Best, called to preach in 1969, preached his first sermon in 1972 at Little Coweta Indian Baptist Church in Lenna, Okla. He left there 10 years later to serve as a fulltime itinerant evangelist among Native peoples.
Best, now 87, credits Anderson for mentoring and guiding him as Best sought God’s direction in ministry. FoNAC’s Hawkins credits Ernest Best for discipling and mentoring him. Very early in his Christian life, Best took Hawkins to go alongside of him as Best preached to Natives in western Oklahoma, Oregon and South Dakota.
Best preached at missions conferences, revivals, crusades and single-day services on Indian reservations and in remote villages across the United States and Canada, as well as to indigenous people in India, Mexico, Honduras and New Zealand, according to a description of his life posted to FoNAC’s Facebook page. Best was known to go wherever he was invited, and for arriving in a camping trailer. Despite three strokes – in 2019, 2021 and 2025 – Best continues to pastor, though today in a limited capacity, at Weogufkee Indian Baptist Church in Hanna, Okla., near Eufaula.
“FoNAC has truly have made a wise choice in giving this honor to this great man of God,” Charles Locklear of Morning Star Ministries in Pembroke, N.C., posted to FoNAC’s Facebook page. “Few men have made the impact Brother Ernest has made in kingdom work among Native People. It would be interesting to know how many men he has inspired over the years to take serious the call to pulpit ministry.”
Best received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oklahoma Indian Evangelism Conference in 2014 for his work in evangelism.
Anderson and Best each received a handmade star quilt, created by Native women as a token of appreciation designed to comfort the recipient as the giver was comforted by them. The men also received a handmade Muskogee treasures box from the tribe, a financial gift, and a personally inscribed acrylic arrowhead from FoNAC.
Anderson’s reads: “Missionary Trailblazer, John 15:16, ‘You did not choose Me but I chose you,’” his life verse.
Best’s reads: “Missionary Trailblazer, Isaiah 9:2, ‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,’” his life verse.
Great ceremony and words of gratitude and honor from the giver arrived with each gift.
The regional FoNAC gathering was also to focus the attention of the 200 or more attendees that, “The number of churches versus the number of preachers, pastors, and missionaries is very lopsided,” Executive Director Gary Hawkins told them. “Our people are desperate to hear from God. They need – and our churches need – men who will respond to God’s call on their lives.”
“Small churches tend to get smaller as the members pass on,” Hawkins said. “New pastors – young pastors, with young families – bring in new people and the church starts growing again.
“God is moving among us,” the FoNAC leader continued. “Our people want to hear Him speak truth in their lives.”
Anderson and Best are both Muscogee Creek, a tribe with an established rich heritage of Christianity. Many of their ancestors were reached by Scottish missionaries and were converted in the 1700s, though today as then many tribal members choose to be identified as ceremonial or traditional Muscogee Creeks, differentiating themselves from Christianity.
In order to reach a larger and media-savvy generation with the Gospel of Jesus, FoNAC is collaborating with School to the Nations, a Christian film production non-profit.
School to the Nations has produced “The HOPE,” an 80-minute film presentation of biblical history from creation to Christ, designed to be adapted for different cultures and languages. With FoNAC’s help, the film has been adapted for a Northern Plains audience. Filming for the nine major tribes in Alaska is to start next spring. FoNAC hopes to see at least four more regional videos produced in the not-too-distant future.
Additional outreaches: FoNAC board member Junior Pratt has developed a VBS curriculum for Native Americans, and he and his children minister visually through their “Tribe of Judah” presentations. FoNAC board member Josh Leadingfox has a weekly podcast titled “The Victory Call.”
“We’re developing resources that are relevant to today’s – and tomorrow’s – culture that are doctrinally sound, that don’t compromise the uniqueness of the Word of God,” Hawkins said. “We are praying for God to connect us with the men He has called for us to mentor or coach even as they in turn call others to trust Jesus with their whole heart. I believe that something worse than having no crop to harvest is to have a bumper crop and no laborers.”
Karen L. Willoughby is a national correspondent for Baptist Press.
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