Struggling associations act more like organizations to which congregations belong than they do a family of congregations. They are overwhelmed by their past-to-present organizational culture. They focus on reorganizing the association rather than on empowering congregations.
Their internal focus is on making tomorrow a return of yesterday. Change and innovation are not a priority. They do not want to take risks.
Looking forward to the new thing God is in the process of doing in and through them as a Baptist association is not an important agenda item. Why look forward? Recovery of the past is their focus.
Former years
They can point to former years when they were a vital and vibrant association. The only problem is the good old days may not have been as great as they remember.
Many congregations doubt the value of their associational relationship and fail to see the congregations as the association. The association is that office building they ride by or even go to periodically. Or it is the older — sometimes semiretired — pastor they still know as the associational missionary or the director of missions.
The association cannot compete with denominational and parachurch resources. It shows little initiative in coming alongside congregations to address their local contextual missional needs. Financial resources provided by the congregations to the associational budget are flat or declining.
It has one or more ongoing projects like a county fair ministry, camp, disaster response team or construction crews from congregations. These, however, are not helping their congregations thrive.
First, upwards of 80% of Southern Baptist congregations are plateaued or declining. Unfortunately, this makes them typical of many associations and congregations.
Second, just like their association, many congregations lack a clear understanding of God’s overall mission. Three-fourths or more are not motivated by God’s empowering vision. They simply seek to do church as they have typically engaged in church work for many years.
Third, when considering the concepts of serving as faithful, effective and innovative congregations, they are at most faithful. They love God and enjoy church worship, fellowship and programs, but little or nothing about them is effective and innovative.
The fellowship of their association may be positive, yet the lack of progress of their association reflects the lack of progress in congregations.
Fourth, member congregations may have a programmatic or missional activity for which they are well known. For some it is their music ministry, such as their amazing Christmas or Easter programs. Others have a noteworthy annual missions project in their community for which they are well known.
Fifth, one-third or more of the pastors may be co-vocational or bivocational. Bivocational pastors must work two or more jobs to survive economically. Co-vocational pastors have chosen a marketplace vocation as their primary focus and also serve as pastor of a congregation.
Sixth, struggling associations seem to make up more than one-fourth of all associations, which means 250 to 300 associations nationwide. These associations, along with spiritless associations, are unclear about their mission, purpose, values and future vision.
- Struggling associations need intervention from outside the association. Their director or strategist may easily burn out and need personal support. They want to move their association forward, but so many things they try either have only short-term success or never get supported.
- These associations should take small steps based on a new or renewed congregationally focused emphasis each year. Many congregations do not think more than a year ahead, so it is hard to do strategic planning. Helping congregations with annual planning and an event-oriented approach to trying something new may be possible.
- A needed spiritual approach is collaborative prayer among the congregations in order for there to be a breakthrough beyond simply doing “ministry as usual.”
Let’s talk
I am continuing to host several free videoconferences into the fall. We dialogue about the associational typology of soaring, strong, stumbling, struggling and spiritless Baptist associations. I ask you to complete brief feedback forms I send you so I can improve the typology and make it helpful to all associations. To get the link to these videoconferences, send your request to BullardJournal@gmail.com.
EDITOR’S NOTE — George Bullard spent 45 years in denominational ministry. He served on the staff of three associations, was a key staff person working with associations in two state conventions and served on the association missions division staff of the former Home Mission Board of the SBC. He retired in June 2022 as director of Columbia Metro Baptist Association in South Carolina. He has led strategic planning processes in more than 100 associations and has written extensively in this area. Bullard now serves as a strategic thinking mentor for Christian leaders through his ForthTelling Innovation ministry and a correspondent for The Baptist Paper.
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