Why We Did Not Need an Baptist Associational Office
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.
(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.)
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Why We Did Not Need an Baptist Associational Office
"George Bullard explores why a Baptist association is not an office building to which people go."
During my most recent tenure as the director of a Baptist association, we sold our office building. Then we moved into small offices in one of our churches. Ultimately, we went virtual.
Why?
We did not recognize the answer at first. When we realized it we celebrated because it reflected the true meaning of being an association.
There were three phases of our journey. We started with an office building people came to for personal conferences and meetings. We ended with no place to which people could go and say they went to the association.
That happens if a Baptist association is a building. It is not.
Phase One: Selling the Office Building
Our association had a nice office building. It had been totally renovated a dozen or so years prior to selling it. It had three offices, a reception area, a small conference room and a large gathering area that could hold up to 60 people.
At one time the state convention office building was in the next block. Then they built a new building a couple of miles away. After that people did not naturally stop by our building for fellowship.
When I began my role, the association was losing money every month. The budget receipts would not support the staff and programming. We quickly moved from a full-time administrative assistant to a part-time assistant and later to a virtual assistant.
This left me and the two-thirds time community ministry associate as the only staff people for almost 100 congregations. We also had a contract worker to help nurture our African American congregations.
I monitored the number of visitors to the building. I discovered one person per week came by the office without an appointment.
Since we had a small staff we did not need all the space. Over a series of months I talked with our leadership about leasing out the building and moving to smaller offices. I finally suggested we sell it.
Some leaders had an emotional attachment to the building. When the major building renovation took place a dozen years earlier, they did a fundraising campaign. Some people and congregations had given sacrificially.
But we needed less office space and more money to help congregations engage missionally. Operating the building cost us nearly $25,000 per year.
We sold the building, tithed the proceeds to the Metropolitan New York Baptist Association and invested the rest with the Baptist foundation in our state.
This allowed us to add several contract workers for a total ministry team of eight people. I was the only full-time person.
The ministry team — called The Huddle — possessed a diversity of spiritual gifts that allowed us to serve congregations in many ways.
(Continue reading HERE.)
Let me hear from you if you want to talk about this.