Baptist congregations reach out to their communities in many ways, with churches serving as home bases to emergency services, voting polls, blood collection drives and other activities. Scouting is one of those activities. In Alabama, 221 Boy Scout troops with 3,700 members and 1,500 adult leaders meet in Baptist churches. In some cases, churches organize troops under a charter arrangement with the Boy Scouts of America. In others, churches make space available but have no formal involvement in troop organization or activities.
“Although we have an active Royal Ambassador (RA) program for boys, we saw another opportunity for outreach with scouting,” said Ron Davenport of First Baptist Church, Pelham.
“Activities in the Scout program are different from those in RAs, with more camping, outdoor and high-adventure programs. And as a church, the scouting program gives us contact with boys who otherwise might not even know who God is.”
Davenport, a deacon at Pelham, helped establish the church-sponsored Troop 404 12 years ago and is chairman of its executive committee. This group supervises troop finances and functions, making sure that boys and adult leaders observe local and national scouting guidelines.
The 24 troop members meet in a 1,400-square-foot Scout house featuring a large meeting room, four smaller meeting rooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen and full basement.
“The church provided the funding. Scouts and adult leaders did most of the work,” Davenport said. “We had some Sunday School classes meeting here for awhile, but now the house is exclusively for the Scouts.”
The RA and Scout programs also complement each other at Hoover’s Hunter Street Baptist Church.
“They both help fulfill the church’s purpose in leading people to Jesus Christ,” said Spencer Knight, minister of ministries at Hunter Street. “The purpose of RAs is in helping lead boys to Christ and providing them guidance in leading others to Christ. Also, the RA program is very missions-oriented,” he said. “The scouting program has different activities and boys are generally older. But if there weren’t an opportunity for Christian influence in the Scout program, we wouldn’t have it at Hunter Street.”
At Eastern Hills Baptist Church, Montgomery, a Scout troop meets at the church but isn’t an integral part of church programs.
“We allow our buildings to be used for a lot of community activities — much more than some other churches do,” said Larry Armstrong, associate pastor. “For instance, our neighborhood association meets here monthly and we host basketball league games. The Scouts use our church space, but we don’t recruit the leaders, and probably 90 percent of the boys aren’t members of Eastern Hills (Church).”
These statements corroborate a recent Baylor University study on youth programs in Southern Baptist churches.
The study found that:
-Eight out of 10 boys in Southern Baptist Convention churches attend churches with ministry-based youth programs. One in four boys attends a church with Scouting programs. (In Alabama, 851 churches sponsor RA programs or Challenger programs for older boys. Membership for both groups totals more than 18,000.)
-Large urban churches are most likely to have multiple youth programs.
-Ministers from churches having both RA and Boy Scouts programs report the programs complement each other rather than conflict.
Nationwide, some 5,000 Baptist churches sponsor Scout troops with a total membership of 115,000 youths.
“There are many boys to reach,” said David Hansley, president of the Association of Baptists for Scouting. “It’s a great outreach if the churches will just take it and run.”
Share with others: