Bill Barker, director of Appalachian Regional Ministry (ARM), says Reggie Quimby, director of the office of global missions for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM), owes him $50,000.
“For back dues and interest penalties and fines for not joining day one,” Barker said, laughing. “So far, he hasn’t responded to that other than just a smile.”
Quimby is still smiling.
Since its inception in 1999, ARM, a ministry of the Cooperative Program that coordinates missions volunteers and resources in 11 Southern Baptist state conventions, has extended an annual membership invitation to Alabama’s convention.
This year, it RSVPed a “yes.”
Alabama Baptists had turned the invitation down before because they were already committed to too many other partnerships.
“[T]hey … didn’t feel like they could put another one on their plate and that’s understandable,” Barker said.
At ARM’s onset, Alabama’s convention was involved in a major partnership called Impact Northeast. That seven-year, 11-convention partnership to revitalize and plant churches in the northeastern United States began in 2000.
In January 2009, a little more than a year after Impact Northeast ended, Quimby picked up the telephone.
“Reggie called and said, ‘What would it take to be a part of ARM?’” Barker said. “I said, ‘Just saying so.’”
But Quimby said the decision to join the ARM partnership, which was officially approved by the SBOM on March 19, wasn’t based only on the dissolution of the Impact Northeast partnership or on the Appalachians beginning in Alabama but on logistics.
“We are close to the other states that are involved in ARM, which is very appealing to churches when they are looking to only travel a half day to the missions project,” he said. “We have had several requests from churches and associations desiring to do missions closer to home. ARM was our response to the requests.”
Barker said ARM was formed as an intentional response of Southern Baptists to the physical and spiritual needs of people living in Appalachia, a region that includes parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York. While culturally the term “Appalachia” typically only applies to people in the historically impoverished central and southern portion of the Appalachian Mountain range, he noted that for the ministry, “there is no target group of people per se.”
“On the spiritual side, we’re targeting those that are lost and on the physical side, those that are hungry,” Barker said.
The partnership has specific implications for Alabama Baptists, especially those in the northern part of the state located within the Appalachians.
“It will be that many Alabama Baptist churches will have another option for potential ministry with ARM,” said Quimby, citing evangelism, prayer walking, backyard Bible clubs, Vacation Bible School, language missions, construction, home health care ministries and leadership training as examples. “Churches and associations can adopt areas of continued ministry.”
So for now, Barker is willing to quash Quimby’s debt.
“We’re looking forward to working with Alabama,” Barker said. “We’re very excited they’re on board. We’re looking forward to a long relationship.”
For information about volunteer opportunities, visit www.alsbom.org/global.
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