In Defense of the Association, State Convention, and SBC

I am in favor of a Great Commission Resurgence. I would have voted to assemble the Task Force if I had been able to attend the SBC annual meeting in Louisville in June. I am committed to praying for the Task Force daily. I believe the local church should hold all agencies, institutions, etc., accountable to be good stewards of the resources we send them.

This is the purpose of a Great Commission Resurgence and I hope the Task Force will stay on task. Getting side-tracked by a personal agenda would be easy and tempting; but the churches of the SBC do not want representatives of a handful of megachurches to restructure the denomination to suit them.

Now, let me defend the existence and work of the Pulaski Baptist Association, Arkansas Baptist State Convention, and the Southern Baptist Convention from the perspective of a small church pastor who desires to see his community and world impacted by the church he leads.

Pulaski Baptist Association, under the leadership of Danny Johnson, is a group of churches working together in places like Little Rock, New York, Mexico, St. Louis, and New Orleans. Using a modest budget, the association staff does some preliminary groundwork and planning that helps churches like mine get plugged into ministry. Our church sends 3% of our undesignated receipts to PBA – that’s not much money. In return, we get the planning mentioned above plus the availability of vans to use on our trips. That saves us the expense of owning and operating a van ourselves. We have an older van but it is not road worthy for a long trip. PBA also gives pastors opportunities for fellowship where we encourage each other and have lots of fun. We need that. Ministers receive support for further education. Danny takes groups of pastors and leaders to convention meetings and mission vision trips. Even if our church is not able to go on a trip, we participate through our contributions. We are impacting lives through PBA.

The Arkansas Baptist State Convention receives 10% of our undesignated funds. This funds missions and ministry around the state. Their staff helps us with education, training, and planning. Bob Fielding and Robby Tingle have helped us with logistics of planning an international missions trip. The Arkansas Baptist Builders coordinated work in New Orleans so our teams could spend the week helping remodel houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina. ABSC sends about 42% of our contribution to the Southern Baptist Convention where additional ministry and mission work is carried out.

The biggest advantage of being part of the SBC for our church in recent years has been our partnership with SBC missionaries in Russia. We are able to work directly with TeamSOAR, led by Rusty and Lori Hart in Ekaterinburg. I have made two trips since coming to CRBC and plan to take one trip each year and lead many in our church to also go. While in Russia, we are able to plug into the work already ongoing and we also can help establish new work in the region. Our impact in that part of the world is greater because of the SBC.

A proposal by the Great Commission Task Force that hinders these relationships in any way will face opposition by small churches like ours. Big churches have pulled support away from local associations and state conventions in recent years. Many have reduced Cooperative Program contributions, too. The truth is, they don’t need associations, state conventions, and the SBC; and small church can’t make it without this cooperation.