Local Baptist Associations are alive and well!” Ray Gentry declared at a regional meeting of Midwest leaders in Springfield. The question of the health of local networks of Baptist churches was legitimate, given the challenges faced by all kinds of churches and networks in the previous decade.
At the same time, Gentry warned, “Too many associations are living as if it’s a Blockbuster world, but we’re living in a Netflix world.” Gentry heads the Southern Baptist Conference of Associational Leaders which organized the regional conference.
“For some associations, it takes six months to make a decision. But we need teams that can move quickly, so we can be serving our mission fields better,” Gentry said.
He told leaders of local church networks, “Do you have a mission, a vision, and ministries worthy of your churches’ participation and their money? Ask yourself that question, ask your leadership that question.”
In some states, associations have shifted from full-time paid leadership to part-time or volunteer leadership in response to economic declines and shifts in funding streams. The challenge was complicated by the pandemic, which for networks of all kinds made plain the need to narrow their purpose and clarify their goals.
Some associations have merged, finding strength in numbers. The limitations of geography that once brought churches into missional partnership are overcome by easier transportation and the information superhighway. The Thirty Mile Zone that once limited partnership and relationship doesn’t control us anymore. So local associations of churches are revisiting the missions and theology that brought them together in the first place.
“Why does our association exist?” is a common question today. The Illinois Baptist State Association (IBSA) is working with 15 of its 33 local associations in revitalization projects to bring new focus to their work.
The answers are as broad and varied as the associations themselves. In Southern states with the oldest and largest networks, local associations are still relatively strong, and they can fund a great variety of missions and ministries that often mirror the work of their state convention.
But outside the deep south, local associations are tending to coalesce around a few goals, mostly related to church planting and evangelism through their congregations.
The linked article by David Roach features an association on the northern Illinois border. Its story is typical of local networks in the Midwest.