State Baptist associations provide effective network for enhancing, concentrating ministry on local level

Retired pastor Hughie Denton and his wife, Geraldine, wept when they learned recently that churches in Bethlehem and Pine Barren Baptist associations were buying a lot and building them a house.
   
The couple had served churches in the area for years and wanted to move back there to retire.
   
“They gave a lot of time here. He never was in a huge church with a big retirement plan, and we wanted to try to build a house for them,” said Wayne McMillian, director of missions (DOM) for Bethlehem and Pine Barren associations. “One of our church members has donated a site, and one of the laypeople who’s an architect is drawing up the plans. Lots of tears — they are just delighted.”
   
Church members in the two associations constantly have some sort of construction project going on, whether it’s roofing their local tornado-damaged Sav-A-Life facility or packing up the trailers and heading to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast. It’s normal fare for them, really. Like church members in the other 73 Baptist associations in the state, they just like to build things and bless others.
   
Gary Farley, DOM for Pickens Baptist Association, can attest to that statement. And as in Bethlehem and Pine Barren associations, he said he doesn’t have to look far to find things that need building — or rebuilding.
   
The string of church fires that impacted parts of Alabama earlier this year provided a definite rebuilding need for Pickens Association. Four churches damaged or destroyed by the second rash of arsons Feb. 7 are within the association’s geographical reach. 
   
“Their (the four burned churches’) support system isn’t as well developed as our support system,” Farley said, referring to the state Baptist associational network. “Our role here in Pickens Association has been to be the conduit of information, volunteers and so forth.”
   
The help Pickens Baptists offered to their non-Alabama Baptist State Convention church neighbors soon turned into a strong friendship. Farley’s churches began housing out-of-town rebuilding crews and routing help to the congregations in every way imaginable. And he also began what has become a Monday afternoon mainstay — the Burned Churches Response Group, a group of pastors and church members from the affected congregations that meets at Jack’s in Aliceville to discuss needs and how God is rebuilding what they lost.
   
“After the second group of churches burned — none of which were Alabama Baptist churches — the people rallied to our DOM. What this says to me is that we Southern Baptists are blessed to have an infrastructure of people all over the state who are already in place ready to respond,” said Gary Swafford, director of the office of associational missions and church planting for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
   
Prior to the blazes, Farley and his churches had already made enough of an impact on the fire victims that when the situation merited major help, they immediately turned to Pickens Association, Swafford said. “That’s what it takes to be an associational missionary with a Kingdom vision. It’s a real compliment to Southern Baptists.”
   
The neighbors of Calhoun Baptist Association congregations are no stranger to those churches’ impact on the community either. Every summer, several hundred youth with World Changers descend on the association, rebuilding homes and sharing their faith, said Sid Nichols, DOM for Calhoun Association. “Everything is planned through our office here. This is our seventh year in a row, and we’ve got 278 folks scheduled to be here in July,” he said. In a week’s time, they will complete about 25 projects, the majority of which will be putting roofs on local homes.
   
“We house the volunteers in a local school, and all the churches feed them. It’s a good event; we usually have several folks get saved, and we pray some of the kids who come to work will follow the Lord into ministry one day,” Nichols said.
  
 Or perhaps follow Him into construction or disaster relief ministry like the Baptists in Conecuh Baptist Association, said DOM Cleveland Brown. Church members in his area recently trained to do disaster relief work and ordered a trailer for their equipment that will be ready for travel in two or three weeks.
  
 But team members there are so revved up that they are cranking up their chain saws and doing practice runs on any need they can find — houses with leaning trees, churches with dangerous limbs, neighbors who still have trees down from hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. “Everyone’s ready to go. It’s a wonderful ministry for us to be a part of,” Brown said.
  
 But it’s not all work in Conecuh Association. On a recent Sunday night, the churches gathered for their first areawide praise sing, packing out Oak Grove Baptist Church, Repton, until it was standing room only. “It was an overflow crowd, and everyone had a good time,” Brown said. “We definitely think we’ll keep doing things like that.”