Imagine a New Beginning for Your Baptist Association
A perspective for local denominational organizations/judicatories on how they best empower their churches to serve from the base of their local context.
Rundown: Articles on Baptist associations are often applicable to the local denominational organizations/judicatories of various denominations. They may be called associations, districts, classis, synods, and by other names. They are typically organisms more than organizations. Relational more than functional. Regional and national expressions of denominations are more organizational and functional.
GBJ Blog Post 103 includes—a Column, personal Reflections from George, and questions for your Reaction.
(This column appears this week in the digital and print edition of The Baptist Paper. Access the column in the digital edition HERE. The Baptist Paper is a publication of TAB Media. Request a free trial HERE. See all TAB Media columns written by George Bullard HERE.)(Subscribe to this Substack Blog using the “Subscribe now” button below.)
Imagine a New Beginning for Your Baptist Association
Let’s engage in a “what if” exercise.
What if your association did not exist? What if there were no Baptist churches in the fellowship area of your association? What if few — or no — Great Commission and great commandment churches were present?
What if you thought about your associational fellowship area as an unentered missions field with unreached people groups to which you were called by God and commissioned to develop a missional engagement strategy for this unentered and unreached area?
RELATED: Check out more from Bullard on Baptist associations and missions here.
What would that be like? What would you do first?
Churches develop myopic vision regarding the transitions happening within their churches and in the communities around them.
So do associations!
It is important for an association to take a deep dive and imagine a new vision for their missions field. The idea of a year of jubilee would mean that you engage in this way every 50 years.
I urge associations to do this more often. Do this every 21 years to be a model of leading-edge missional engagement for your churches.
(Continue reading HERE.)
Reflections from George:
I first learned the principle of taking a completely fresh look—a new beginning—in a missions field when I was a teenager. My family moved to Philadelphia, PA to plant Baptist churches in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. When we moved to Philly in 1965 there are already seven Southern Baptist congregations.
It might seem odd to move to the location of the national office of the American Baptist Churches (formerly Northern Baptist Convention) and start churches there. In reality it was not.
Southern Baptists represented a doctrinal, missional, and congregational approach missing in the area. The purpose of our presence was not to compete with American Baptists, but to add our approach so that more people of greater diversity might be reached with the gospel message.
We had the opportunity—-as the new entering group—to look afresh at the missions field and see unmet needs and unreached target groups. American Baptists, other Baptist groups, and various Protestant denominations experienced myopia regarding the unmet and unreached. With our fresh eyes we could see them when they could not.
The principles in the post above applied in this setting.
For these same reasons, in my adult ministry working with around 50 denominations, I often suggested to their church planting leaders they should engage in new planting initiatives that would bring them to southern states. The reason was in our areas of strength and even dominance Southern Baptists were myopic to unmet and unreached needed.
Everyone needs an opportunity to take a fresh look at the missions field near and far.
I urge existing denominations through their local denominational organizations to take a fresh look at their missional strategies—even in the places where they believe they are being most successful.
Start with a virtual “clean sheet of paper”, ask God for guidance, do the research, following the seven rounds suggested in the post above, and then take actons on the new strategies that emerge.
Reactions:
You are invited to share some reactions (comments) to this article and my reflections. Here are three questions to guide your reaction:
What is the evidence that your denomination has become myopic and does not see the unmet needs and the unreached people groups in the area your serve?
Do you see the unmet needs and the unreached people groups, but there are barriers to new initiatives? Churches who do not want the competition of new ministries and churches. Leaders without a vision to minister beyond their comfort zones. A lack of resources to engage in new initiatives. The lack of innovative thinking and strategies to develop them.
What seems impossible today that if it could happen would transform Kingdom ministry in your missions field?