What is a Baptist Association?

I’ve recently been pondering that question.  There are several reasons for the pondering. Certainly attending the Southern Baptist Conference of Associational Leaders earlier this month contributed to it.  I’ve also had some questions come directly to me recently that have piqued my pondering.

I don’t know that there is an “official” definition/description of a Baptist Association anywhere and, to be honest, it seems a little un-Baptist for such a thing to exist.  I do not intend for the definition below to become official in any way, but I don’t know of an association anywhere that would disagree with the conclusion to which my pondering has led me, so I offer a first draft of my definition here:

A Baptist Association is a covenant partnership network made up of churches who are (generally) within a common geographic region, who have covenanted with one another to cooperatively and voluntarily share mutual support and resources so that the resources of the association are equally available to all partner churches within the network for the glory of God and the work of the kingdom within their region.

What does all that mean?  Well, I could probably write an entire white paper on that (and perhaps I should at some point), but the bottom line is that lack of clarity on the nature of the covenant partnership leads to inaccurate and unhelpful conclusions on many levels.

Understanding Partnership – Two Models

If the partnership is believed to be between the association office and individual churches, represented in Figure 1 below  (I’m calling this the Membership Services Model), then we run the risk of a vendor/customer relationship between the association office/staff and individual churches. The blue square represents the association office/staff partnering with each individual member church, represented by red circles of varying sizes. The churches may or may not partner with each other and there is certainly no sense of community or covenant among the churches.  If a church decides they no longer wish to receive the products and services of the office (or to support those products and services through financial contributions), then the partnership is easily dissolved.

But if the partnership is understood to be between the churches, represented in Figure 2 below (I’m calling this the Covenant Partnership Model), every association church has a partnership covenant/connection with every other association church. In this case, the association office/staff is a resource that the churches are providing for each other, making all the resources of the association available equally among the churches, regardless of size, location, amount of financial participation, or particular preference of what resources are most needed.  One particular resource may be vital to one church and meaningless to another, but the covenant partnership between the churches means that they work together (including financial investment) with an outward and expanding kingdom focus (represented by the yellow circling arrows), rather than in inward congregational focus. This covenant partnership is not easily dissolved because churches understand that their actions affect the ministry of every other church.  I believe this is what each Baptist Association at its heart, desires to be.

More pondering to come

I had the great opportunity this past Sunday to share those ponderings for the first time with one of our association churches. I am so grateful to pastor Ford McElroy for the invitation to share the work and vision of HBA and have a meaningful Q&A dialogue with the great folks at Post Oak Baptist Church.

I’m continuing in my pondering and trying to identify some helpful and creative ways to communicate our vision of cultivating a kingdom-focused culture of engaging churches who are on-mission to sow seeds of transformation into each local congregation.

I look forward to sharing more in the days to come. If you would like me to come and share with your church, contact me at dom@harvestba.com and let’s get it on the calendar.  

Your grateful partner in the work of the kingdom,

Gerry