Local cooperative missions and fellowship have long been important emphases of local Southern Baptist associations, but today many churches are discovering how associational missions also can be a launching point for partnership missions efforts around the country and the world.
That emphasis is a key part of the theme for this year’s Associational Missions Week emphasis across the Southern Baptist Convention May 16–26 — “Go Ye Therefore: Churches Partnering to Communicate Christ.”
Baptist Press recently discussed those and other trends with Don Beall, director of associational missions strategy for the North American Mission Board since Jan. 1. Beall formerly was director of missions for the Puget Sound Baptist Association in Seattle, where he helped develop strategy for the “Embracing Seattle” Strategic Focus Cities evangelism and church-planting effort.
The local association remains one of Southern Baptists’ most foundational cooperative entities — with roots predating both state and national conventions in the 15th and 16th centuries.
There are currently 1,228 Southern Baptist associations in the United States and Canada, ranging in size from one church in the New Union Baptist Association in North Georgia to more than 600 in the Union Baptist Association in Houston, Texas.
BP: What are some of the changes you see in associational missions today?
BEALL: Traditionally fellowship and missions have been two driving reasons for creating an association. Fellowship is still important but there is a greater interest in associations being on-mission together.
Most small churches will never be involved in local, national or international missions unless they network/join with other churches in the association to be on-mission together.
I think a good example of this would be the Caldwell Lyon Baptist Association in Kentucky. There are 22,000-plus people living in those two counties, and in June 67 people are going to go to Seattle during Embracing Seattle to be on mission. There are two, maybe three people from each of those 40 churches who will go. Others will give and yet others have committed to pray for 20,000 families each month this year.
One of their pastors has gone to Seattle to be a church planter. They just got back from Honduras. It’s a network of churches that are on-mission. They have become a global/local association.
We are also encouraging associations to link up with pioneer areas in the United States and Canada, and to help them where they are with mission trips, volunteers, church planting and evangelism. That’s a part of our emphasis for the 21st century.
BP: How does this sense of partnership apply to local missions efforts?
BEALL: There was a time when we had mother churches, and one church by itself sponsored a mission. In Seattle we tried to have 10 partner churches to plant one church, and to at least have five. We might have four or five from the local association, and five or six from outside the association, who partner together to plant a church.
The association is taking the lead as a catalyst to bring people together. It might sponsor a new-work “Probe,” inviting laypeople and staff of churches to come in and cover a section geographically to look for where there are changes in population. Who’s moving in? What ages are there? Are there new ministries or churches that need to be started? Who would be the logical partner to go out and do that?
BP: How can associations develop this sort of “global/local” cooperative missions strategy?
BEALL: One thing the association can do is create a culture for church planting, evangelism, even revitalization. Sometimes a church is in a maintenance mode. It’s struggling to exist, and may be so busy trying to keep itself going that it might not have discovered that a whole group of Portuguese people, or Somalis, or Haitians have moved into its neighborhood. So with a network or a group of churches, one of the things I do is ask, “Where within 30 miles or a 30-minute drive of here do you know that God is at work and there needs to be a new ministry, a new mission, or a new church plant? And how can sister churches join you in meeting that need.”
Sometimes when I begin the pastor will say, “Now wait a minute. I know there’s a need over here, but we’ve got all we can do.” And I say, “We’re not asking you to do it. Your part might be to offer a building to meet in. How about having some sister churches come in and join you in meeting that need?” We become an interdependent onmission team for Christ.
BP: What is your role at the North American Mission Board in assisting local associations?
BEALL: Our goal is to assist as the local association develops strategies that are closest to the churches. Associations that don’t aim for anything aren’t going to hit anything.
So we work with state conventions to provide trained consultants to help associations develop a strategy that is custom-fitted for them. In the future I think this is going to be more important than it ever has been in the past.
BP: What other trends are emerging in associational missions?
BEALL: One of the things that has changed is the role of the associational missionary/director of missions. In the past some people, especially pastors, have looked at this as a retirement position where the role is strictly as a “pastor to the pastors.”
And sometimes the association’s been looked down upon by people who ask, “What are they doing in the cause of Christ?”
Today we’re seeing younger directors of missions see this as a calling to be a missiologist, a missions strategist, a catalyst — someone with a vision for not only reaching this association for Christ but also teaming up with others to reach our state, our nation and our world.
(BP)
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