A new title is beginning to pop up in Alabama Baptist life. It is associational mission strategist. That is the title recommended by the Southern Baptist Conference of Associational Leaders and endorsed by a number of other groups for the position commonly known as an association’s director of missions (DOM).
In making the recommendation a study committee reported the DOM title was appropriate when various levels of Southern Baptist life functioned like cogs in a wheel to promote a common program.
The report continued, “To a great degree, a coordinated program no longer exists.” The study committee said the new title attempted to address how Baptist life functions today. Nationally it seems promoting programs to strengthen local churches is no longer a priority for Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) entities.
Since the adoption of The Great Commission Resurgence in 2010 state convention resources have been reduced in many places as states prioritized national and international efforts over state missions and helping local churches. A frequent result has been less help available for local churches from state conventions.
Renewed opportunity
The argument will continue about whether this was a “downsizing” or a “rightsizing.” But no matter which position one takes, most agree an unanticipated result of these developments is a renewed opportunity for associations to take the lead in local missions efforts.
That is part of the reason for the new title — associational mission strategist.
Historically Baptist associations were the point-of-the-spear in Baptist work. The first Baptist association in America was founded in 1607. That was 138 years before the SBC came into existence. The association provided doctrinal guidance for Baptists coming to America from many different European nations, even to the point of approving ordinations.
The Philadelphia Baptist Association — the first association in America — sponsored missionaries, started schools, published literature, disciplined churches and more. The association provided the missions strategy for Baptist advance in the early colonies.
Now associations face a similar opportunity. Each association can (or must) develop its own strategy for strengthening its churches and reaching the people of its area for Christ.
Alabama Baptists are about missions. That is why the state convention gives more to missions causes through the Cooperative Program than any other state and why Alabama Baptists provided more total missions giving to causes beyond their state than any other convention.
That same commitment is seen in the state’s 75 Baptist associations as missions takes precedent over personnel in the budgets of association after association. One association we recently visited pointed with pride to the fact that the 2019 associational budget did not reduce spending for missions and ministry even though it did change the full-time DOM role to part-time.
However, at least two major hindrances stand in the way of most associations becoming catalysts for strengthening churches and implementing strategies to reach people for Christ. Those two hindrances are lack of resources and artificial barriers.
Alabama’s DOMs are great servants of God. They are good and godly men offering themselves in service to others. Some serve in a full-time capacity. Many serve part-time or bivocationally. But all face the challenge of insufficient resources.
Fifty-one of the state’s 75 Baptist associations lost membership from 2016 to 2017.
And according to the 2017 Alabama Baptist State Convention annual, total receipts of cooperating churches fell by 6.5 percent, or more than $50 million dollars, from the previous year. As the drop in giving works itself out from church offering plates to the many missions efforts of churches, there are fewer dollars for everything including associational missions.
The lack of dollars supporting associational work translates to a lack of personnel, a lack of time, a lack of material and a lack of all the other things necessary to formulate and implement a strategy of reaching people for Christ across the association and helping cooperating churches.
If there were sufficient resources there would still be the challenge of artificial boundaries. In Jefferson County, for example, there are all or parts of five different associations — Birmingham, Bessemer, North Jefferson, Mud Creek and Sulphur Springs.
When the Birmingham Metropolitan area is considered additional associations must be added.
How can a missions strategy for the state’s largest metropolitan area be created and carried out when Baptist associations seldom talk to one another about shared missions opportunities?
In the Montgomery area three associations — Montgomery, Elmore and Autauga — are beginning to coordinate ministry efforts under an informal River Region Network title. In the Black Belt some associations are sharing the same DOM, offering the possibility of coordinated efforts for associations facing similar challenges.
In Georgia and other Deep South states a number of associations with similar challenges are beginning to merge in order to better position themselves to strengthen churches and make holistic strategies for reaching the lost. Others are forming entirely new associations. These are ways of responding to Baptist life as it is now working, to reference the report of the study committee mentioned above.
Commitment to missions
Such an approach in Alabama may be difficult. We are proud of our Baptist history and rightly so. But we must be careful not to allow commitment to history to supersede commitment to missions. Just as the new title associational mission strategist signals a changed situation in terms of function, the title may also indicate a new opportunity to realign associational identity to reflect Baptist life as it is now working and not as it was in days past.
But no matter the title or the structure, the bottom line is that changes in Baptist life have made the work of associations in strengthening churches and reaching people for the Lord as important today as it ever was. It would be a shame to miss this opportunity.
Share with others: