Throughout the vast majority of my pastoral ministry, if I were to think about SBC life, I would first think about the local church and then the national entities. I’d think about the Annual Meeting, the notable pastors, the entity heads, denominational strategies, the Cooperative Program, Lottie, Annie, and all of this work that we do together. I’d consider the state conventions too, especially my own, and then I’d think about my local association, primarily quarterly when we’d have our executive meeting, which was always over lunch. I participated, but I didn’t put a huge amount of effort into it. When I thought about the SBC I thought small (local church) and big (national entity) and not too much in between.
State Conventions have gotten a lot of attention over the past decade since the Great Commission Resurgence called for more Cooperative Program money to go the national entities like the IMB, NAMB, and our seminaries to train future pastors and leaders. So, many state conventions down-sized. That is good and I supported that, but I also support state conventions and think that they often do great work. I think there should be a middle ground there. Through Disaster Relief, church planting, children’s homes, colleges, and all kinds of other ministries, our state conventions play a prominent role in SBC life.
With 5 entity head positions open and SBC President JD Greear rightly calling for a day of prayer and fasting on Monday, October 8th for these search committees, we are also right to be paying attention to what is happening at top level leadership in the SBC. It is really important and I don’t want to take anything away from that.
But, with all that said and with a need before us of church planting, church revitalization, church health, discipleship, evangelism, local missions strategy, cooperation, and so much more that the local church cannot do by itself, have we missed the greatest tool before us that Baptists have devised to accomplish these things? Historically, before we ever had national entities or state conventions, we had local Baptist associations. Beyond the local church itself, the association is the fundamental organizational grouping of cooperative Baptist life. Yet, we often neglect it.
Do you ever hear a young minister aspiring to be a Director of Missions? Perhaps, but often not. If you step back from it, it seems like it would be an incredible job – to direct missional effectiveness for a network of churches across a region. The Montgomery (AL) Baptist Association where I live and serve has an incredible DOM in Neal Hughes. He is a former Montgomery pastor and NAMB VP who came back to Montgomery to lead our association in planting churches, reaching the lost, being healthy, making disciples, and addressing areas of great need and division in our city with a gospel witness. He is doing a great job and lives and works as a local missionary every day. If every association had a Neal Hughes as DOM, the SBC would be in a very different position, I think. (As a disclaimer, I’m on staff with Neal as a Missional Strategist for the MBA, so he’s my boss, but I’d say this even if he wasn’t.)
The truth is, though, I’ve met quite a few DOMs who share Neal’s heart for evangelism, church planting, church health, church revitalization, and global missions. I’ve met DOMs across the South who are really laying their lives down to do great Kingdom work. But, I’ve also met a lot of pastors who tell me that their association is basically not functioning. I’ve met DOMs who are past what we would consider retirement age, and while their hearts are good and their love for the Lord is genuine, their energy is declining. They need help, encouragement, and support. They can’t do all that is required by themselves and they need people to hold up their arms. And, unfortunately, there are other associations where there is division, lack of vision, and no energy at all. It becomes a monthly minister’s lunch with whoever shows up. That is a shame.
What if we refocused our energy, effort, resources, and some of our most gifted leaders on local association leadership? The Bible Belt is rapidly dissipating and the South has become a mission field. Did you know that the South grew by 21 million people between 2000 and 2015? At the same time, between 2000 and 2017, Southern Baptists have lost 1 million people. We are going backwards while our primary region is exploding in growth. The South is by far the largest region of the country and would encompass the 12th largest nation in the world and the world’s 3rd largest economy by itself. And, immigrants from all over the world have flocked to the South over the past two decades.
Almost half of all first generation immigrant growth in the United States the past 2 decades occurred in the US South, where we have the vast majority of SBC churches. While there has been significant reaction against that politically and culturally, have we considered that God might sovereignly be at work here? In Montgomery, for example, the IMB visited us a few years back and told us that we had an Unreached, Unengaged People Group (UUPG) living in Central Alabama – the Mixtec People from Southern Mexico. They came to us by the thousands over the past 20-30 years. The Montgomery Baptist Association adopted that people group missionally (I have been closely involved in this work over the past 4 years) and we have now planted a Mixtec church in our city with a pastor, baptisms, new believers, and disciples being made. The IMB no longer calls the Mixtec “unengaged,” in part, because of the work our local association is doing.
In the midst of this incredible era of opportunity, how much more could local associations LEAD out in church planting, missional strategy, engaging immigrant and refugee people groups with the gospel, love, and good deeds, and in church revitalization? While I’m happy for the work our national entities and state conventions do, it is sometimes easy to fly at the 30,000 foot level. But, we already have local associations all over the country who are doing great work on the ground and could be doing so much more if they had the resources and focus that some of our other levels of cooperation have had. And, we have many associations that desperately need to be revived and refocused.
Could it be that associational cooperation on the local level is the missing emphasis that could help revitalize older churches, reach the lost (including immigrant groups), develop new leadership, be the ground floor for racial reconciliation, plant new churches, and be a spring board to reach the nations in North America and around the world? There is always competition for dollars and when you have state conventions and national entities constantly needing funds, I know it is hard to stretch offerings. But, what if we saw a strong association as the FIRST thing that our local church focused on instead of what is often an afterthought?
At the MBA we always talk about “doing more with less.” There is no area of SBC life that I’ve seen a dollar go further than in the incredible work of the Montgomery Baptist Association. I know that this is the case elsewhere as well. As both a pastor for many years and now a staff member at our association, I’ve seen it from both sides. And, while I know that associations across the SBC are not all that they should be, what if they were strengthened and became local missions agencies with the purpose of helping the local church reach their region for Christ?
What are some of your ideas? I’d love to see the mission work and church strengthening of the local association grow into one of the strongest aspects of SBC life. How much healthier would we be if this focus was strengthened? How much more leadership could be developed? How could we better reach areas that still have strong churches but are quickly seeing the overall churched population dwindle?
I think there is a lot of good work being done here and a lot of potential for even more. I’ve talked with others about this who agree. I’d love to see a renewal of strong associational life in the SBC that helps bring local churches together to reach their region and grow stronger together. It can be done. What is stopping us?
Experience with local associations can vary widely. If you’ve only had bad experiences, it’s understandable in some ways that you might marginalize the role of associations. Thankfully the association we’re a part of (called The Bridge Network, which merged the Norfolk Area Baptist Association and the association on the Eastern Shore of VA) has had excellent leadership during the recent past who have helped the association adapt to modern realities well.
It’s encouraging to see an association being proactive in adjusting its role to serve churches effectively and do what they are positioned to do, because of proximity, that other levels can’t. Thankfully I’ve got a number of friends who can tell the same kind of story about the associations they’re a part of. Maybe we’re in the midst of recovering the importance of the local association. I think that would be a good thing – as long as its an adapted view of the association and not a doubling down on the 1950s-1980s model that no longer fits today’s context.
Exactly. Thanks for sharing that story. I enjoyed being with Your Association (network) last year and I think that new models of associational life are needed. I’m just thinking through the need for local Kingdom partnerships that take more of a priority in our perspective than perhaps we have been giving it. If Associations were really strengthened across the SBC to be what you and I are seeing locally, the results would be trememendous. And, it IS happening. I’m encouraged and am gaining more of a vision for associational life primarily because of good stories and really good DOMs that I’m meeting all over.
Things in the SBC were a lot better when the SBC, State Conventions and Local Associations all stayed in their own lanes. The SBC seems to be all about centralizing ministry, power and $$$. The ERLC is indifferent to the political concerns of the average Baptist church. NAMB is trying hard to take over DR and Church Planting, eliminate smaller churches and marginalizes State Conventions and local Associations. Many State Conventions are so stripped down that they lack the resources to do much of anything. And Local Associations have been largely abandoned by younger pastors, at the recommendation of NAMB and our SBC Seminaries. CHURCHES are the entity with the primary responsibility for fulfilling the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. LOCAL ASSOCIATIONS are charged with providing encouragement for pastors and church leaders, providing the training churches need to fulfill that mission and bringing churches together for cooperative missions efforts; primarily church planting and mission trips. STATE CONVENTIONS have been traditionally charged with speaking to political/moral issues, providing support for the efforts of local Associations as well developing and implementing plans for effective Church Planting and Church revitalization. The SBC was established for International Missions and some domestic missions efforts, like reaching out to Native Americans and establishing an SBC presence in what have been considered New Convention areas. If everyone would stay in their lane the SBC would be more effective with far less redundancy and there would be plenty of $$ to go around.
My point here is not to say anything negative about the other areas of SBC life but rather, to lift up one area that is often neglected and that we would all benefit from if it were strengthened.
I apologize for the negativity. I guess I see it as related. It is rather easy and tempting for the layer with the deeper pockets to marginalize the lower layers in the food chain. For example, a conference on Evangelism or Church Planting offered by a local association will not be of the same caliper as ones offered by NAMB. So if a pastor attended a NAMB focused conference in the last three years on the same subject he may be tempted to think the local association conference will have nothing to offer that will be worth his time. It would be better, IMHO, for someone like NAMB to offer resources (like videos and training for local trainers) to allow local associations to have a better conference instead of offering a flashy competing conference. That is the gist of my comment about everyone staying in their lane.
Prior to Dr. Ezell, NAMB briefly had a VP position focused on investment in Associations.
http://bpnews.net/28484
It was some really great work, and I think a first for NAMB to put these kinds of resources into Associations. The position was a casualty of the philosophical shift to church-planting, which I think is unfortunate for church-planters. I believe that DOMs with excellent resources and equipping would be a huge benefit to the health and longevity of church plants, not to mention their benefit to existing churches. This type of work is different from what a Church-Planting Catalyst can provide. Granted it’s up to the local churches to Associate as they desire, but NAMB is a key influencer. I would love to see NAMB flex their muscles on this topic as a strategic piece of North American missions.
What’s stopping us from Associational work?
Besides the obvious reasons (maverick pastors; bad experiences; historical amnesia; etc.) I am finding our old model is increasingly difficult to sustain especially outside the south. There is often duplication of work from the State level to the Associational level that seems unnecessary. What’s more, churches have fewer resources to fund Associational staff. This is especially true in metro areas where church-planting among ethnic populations is exploding, but finances are desperately low.
So according to me, we need a renewed emphasis from NAMB, kingdom-minded pastors, and contextualized models.
I appreciate your positive look at your accociation. You cover all the ground as usual, but your association is one of the “super associations” of which there are maybe a hundred, probably less, and that out of over 1,100 across the SBC. My church is in one and I’m pleased at what they are accomplishing.
The best ideas about the association these days point to (1) smaller associations reverting to volunteer or part time leadership and (2) mergers to create a smaller number of super associations that actually do ministry valued by the churches.
State conventions are mired in maintenance and vested interests. NAMB shouldn’t invest a penny in salvaging old style associations.
Pointing to Acts 17 at the Reach The Nations Conference in Nashville a couple of years ago, J.D. Payne first brought it to my attention that God may be bringing the nations to us. It was compelling and I was convinced – still am. The People’s Next Door project, put out by NC Baptist association (I think – could be Southeastern Seminary), could be a huge help for DOM’s seeking to rejuvenate their churches’ efforts in evangelism. The difficulty, as you pointed out, is convincing the political Evangelical Right to rise above their political worldview and embrace the opportunity God is bringing to us.
Brett, what you just described is what I do. I try to work with churches and associations and anyone I can to see the immigrants who have come to us as people we should love and reach with the gospel instead of people we should fear or reject. Political reactions against people have complicated that. It’s a shame. But, I press on.
Every association should have a plan to reach immigrants in their midst with the gospel and with love and good deeds.
Here are my ideas for what it is worth.
–Sell state convention administration buildings. I have seen where our state convention built an enormous, palatial building and all of their communication (my viewpoint) was about churches paying more CR money to pay for the building. It was demoralizing and as a younger pastor, caused me to question the wisdom of state denominational leaders in any other area of ministry. Show their focus on the local church by renting office space from churches & rest work from home. Honestly, the church member who is paying for the Cooperative Program (CP) does not care one bit about fancy office space of convention administrative staff. It crushes the SBC’s argument for churches to give more to the CP when they are working out of fancy, plush office space. Follow Golden Gate Seminary and Lifeway’s lead and sell valuable properties and pour the income back into growth of the ministry. Less focus on fancy buildings, beautiful campuses and more focus on effective, streamlined ministry.
–Create scorecards for DOMs. Have the key metrics for Director of Mission positions as relaunching dying churches, mentoring younger pastors, and church planting. Otherwise, eliminate the DOM position.
–Partner with groups and orgs that are working…Catalyst, Passion Conferences, Youth Specialties–humbly join what is working. Cut what is dead. Save money on full time staff and outsource training.
–Actively connect seminary graduates with a mentor. Set aside funds to aggressively connect retired pastors to pass the baton upon seminary graduation.
–Seminaries expand existing partnerships in OVERDRIVE with other universities for bivocational degrees. Seminaries should share campus space with local junior colleges to equip seminary studies with trade skills, teaching certificates to equip them to realistically prepare for bivocational work. 80% of ministers are bivocational. Prepare that way and EMPHASIZE it! I am bivocational and later earned my MBA following earning my MDIV at SWBTS 15 years prior.
Those are my thoughts . . .
I am super grateful for the amazing DOMs I have worked with over the years who are making an incredible impact for the Kingdom of God. Mike McLemore, Jim Goodroe and Hugh Richardson are three which immediately come to mind. When I served in SC, I was incredibly grateful for the ministry of Reggie McNeal with the SC Baptist Convention. Great men and wonderful examples.
I know Jim Goodroe and JUST left lunch with Hugh Richardson in Shelby Co. Alabama. Small world! Good man doing good things with energy. Yes, there are a lot of good ones. We talked about this article and it was good to hear about some things that are happening.
I am an under 30 pastor, who is about to graduate from seminary, I say that to state my viewpoint.
-I agree with you about the state convention buildings. The state convention in which I am apart of has a brand new HQ in the wealthiest town in the state.
-I think many associations reason of their modern existence is to have enough funds to pay their DOM. I do think there are probably many wonderful DOMs but I think the whole structure needs to be reexamined to fit the modern era.
-I absolutely agree with having older pastor mentor younger ones.
-I think skill training is desperately needed for pastors. I have an undergrad in Business/Accounting so this topic hits home for me. I was shocked when I went to seminary, of the utter lack of training in areas other than ministry that my fellow seminarians had. I think we need to encourage people who want to go into ministry to get bachelor’s degrees in majors other than Ministry/Christian studies. I think, if you can, should still minor or double major in Christian/Ministry Studies.
In all the years I served in an SBC congregation, I did not have the opportunity to serve in an association that was much more than a golf fellowship for Wednesday afternoon, and a coffee klatch for a small group of the DOM’s favorite pastors. Other than one association, where I served on a committee that was a liaison with a Baptist student center on a large university campus that came in contact with 1,000 students a week, and which the association supported and included in its budget, and helped local churches connect to students, I haven’t seen much in the way of productive associational-level ministry where I’ve been before.
Coming from a part of the country where associational DOM’s were mainly NAMB staff, and got most of their support from NAMB, many associations are not able to financially support enough staff members to get much done. My home church is in an association of 15 churches, of which only two average more than 200 in worship on a Sunday, and of which four are language or ethnic missions. When the NAMB funding was cut off, they merged with another association of seven churches located in a predominantly Mormon area, and it is more than a three hour drive from one side of the association to the other, but I don’t think they have a full time DOM any more. And when I was in a large, southern city, the megachurches never bothered much with the association, not feeling they needed it.