Rusty Sumrall was called to Christian ministry during high school, and during college he was called to pastor three small country churches, but he arrived in seminary knowing he did not want to be a pastor and was “really searching for the Lord’s leadership.”
He can now see how God was going before him to prepare him for a lifelong ministry with Baptist associations.
At Mississippi College in Clinton in a course on the Baptist denomination, Rusty became aware of associations as a dimension of Southern Baptist life. He realized the Bible drills in which he participated growing up were a program of his association.
During seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, he and his wife, Becky, spent a summer in Missouri directing an association’s missions center.
When Rusty returned to seminary, he enrolled in a class on the Baptist association taught by Russell Bennett. (See the recent tribute article on Bennett HERE.)
This class was a great learning experience. It allowed him to be mentored by Bennett to consider associational ministry as a career.
He later attended a training session with the former Home Mission Board for potential associational directors. He was the youngest person there. Few young adults consider this ministry role.
A lifelong service to Baptist associations
As he and his wife as a true ministry team were completing seminary, a staff opening with Etowah Baptist Association in Gadsden, Alabama, came to their attention. They both applied for the Christian social ministries position. They asked the association to decide which one of them they wanted for the role.
The association created a new staff position in church development and evangelism. They offered the new position to Rusty and the social ministries position to Becky. The Sumralls accepted.
Several years later, Rusty felt God now wanted him to direct an association. Greater Rochester Baptist Association in New York called him as their director.
He went from a large association of almost 100 churches to a small one of 15 churches. He left hot summers and pleasant winters to experience reasonably warm summers and cold, snowy winters.
It also called for a change in his ministry style. In Alabama he served a consultant role to churches on their programs and evangelism efforts. In New York he was a pastor to pastors and helped plant churches.
The relational role with pastors and their families in New York called for the best efforts of Rusty and Becky. They became close to many pastors’ families, almost like they were extended family members.
It was in Rochester where Rusty deepened his understanding of the association as a family of churches. He helped plant five churches and led his association’s participation in the Mega Focus Cities strategy of the Home Mission Board.
In the early 1990s he was approached to serve as a staff person to the 200 churches in Nashville Baptist Association in Tennessee. He and Becky accepted this new spiritual call and moved back to the South.
Rusty served as an associate and then as the director for a total of 30 years. In Nashville he took on a greater role as the vision caster for the overall missional strategy.
Throughout their ministry Becky has always had a ministry role. She served in staff positions with churches and associations, with Tennessee Baptist Convention, in apartment ministry and with Christian Women’s Job Corps of Woman’s Missionary Union.
Words of wisdom
Rusty and Becky are a delightful and committed ministry couple. During my recent conversation with Rusty, I heard wonderful insights from him.
First, he affirmed that the call of God to serve in a Baptist associational staff role is a unique call within God’s constellation of ministry calls.
Second, he advocated for the motto that to serve in an associational role one must “love God, love pastors and love churches.”
Third, he experienced a differentiation of roles in the associations he served. He was a ministry leader, a pastor to pastors, a church planter, a vision caster or a consultant based on what the situation required.
Fourth, associations have a unique role within Baptist life. No role places leaders in such close contact with pastors and churches. The spiritual and emotional bonds run deep.
Fifth, more people should consider that God might call them to a lifelong commitment to serve Baptist associations.
Is God calling you?
