Dr. Tom Cheyney, Executive Director of Missions
cheyney@goba.org
407-293-0450 office
An Association is what churches make it. This truth is widely recognized: A particular church is what the members of that church make it. Of course, a church cannot be reduced to only that. There are biblical and theological norms for what a church should become, and there are historical and contextual variables that fairly well limit what you can become. The primary determinant of what it will become, is whatever the members decide to make it.
The same is true about a Baptist Association. The Greater Orlando Baptist Association will become what the churches of GOBA make it. Whether your Association is or is not what it should be, the churches have shaped it. If changes are desirable, the churches determine what they will be.
How do the churches shape it? How do the churches determine what their Association will be? How do they make it what it becomes? Churches shape the Greater Orlando Baptist Association in at least the following ways.
Churches shape their Association by their expectations. Those unstated expectations perhaps of what they feel the Association should be!
People do the same regarding their church. They imagine it in a particular way, and then gradually move, often unconsciously, to implement that vision.
How should an Association be viewed or imagined? A definition thathas found wide support among Southern Baptist during the last 15 to 25 years is that “an Association is churches in fellowship on mission in their setting.” Those churches are autonomous. The fellowship is self-governing. The fellowship of 177 churches in the Greater Orlando Baptist Association share a common faith, and if those churches are true to their essential missionary nature as a Southern Baptist church, they are actively on mission both home and abroad.
The incorporation of those ideas, newly stated, but a part of associational understanding from the first, results in the following definition:
“A Baptist Association is a self-governing fellowship of autonomous churches sharing a common faith and active on mission in their setting."
The purpose of an Association then is to enable churches to be in fellowship and to be on mission both individually and together. In the days ahead as we gather together for our Annual Meeting Celebration, I would like to talk with you further about some exciting ways we could corporately work together both locally and internationally!
Churches shape their Association by the significance they give to the role of their Messengers and Executive Board members.
First, consider how the messengers are selected. Have you ever seen anything happen like the following? Imagine we are looking in on a church business meeting in September or October. Both the old and new business has been conducted.The reports have all been given the moderator asks, “Anything else before we adjourn?”
Someone says, “Brother Moderator is it not time for the Greater Orlando Baptist Association meeting this month?”
“That's right since the moderator has almost forgotten who can go to the Association meeting next Monday night?”
A few raised their hands. Someone says the Smiths usually like to go.”
Then someone gets up and says, “Brother moderator, I make a motion that those who raised their hands, the Smiths, and anyone else who finds out they can go, up to the number of messengers we are allowed, be elected as our messengers."
“I second the motion!” “All in favor raise your right hand. Any opposition, by like sign.” “If there is no further business, let us stand and brother Ray Byam would you dismiss us in prayer?”
Now, how will that church contribute to the shaping of its local Association? How seriously will the people of that church take the actions of their Association?
Early Southern Baptist associational documents going back over 300 years now (304) indicate that Associations have given far greater attention to protecting the autonomy of the charges than they have to claiming any authority for the
Association. Yet, they had authority. Their actions were not binding on the churches so they had no ecclesiastical authority. Associations could take nothing from a church except what it had given, and that was fellowship.
Associational actions were taken seriously by the churches. So where did Associations get their authority or power of influence? It was derived from the confidence which the churches out of their own messengers, the wisest, most spiritually mature leaders of their church, and from their confidence that the other churches had likewise chosen their messengers with care.
What are messengers supposed to do? If a church thinks anything of much significance is occurring in the Association, they would probably want to hear about it. Messengers should carry messages both ways from the church to the local Association from the Association to the church. What kind of information? Regardless of anything else, a church should expect to sense the life and heartbeat of other churches within the Association. That is what I will be trying to share with you in the days ahead. Imagine 177 churches and missions strong seeking to reach Central Florida for the cause of Christ! That ought to make each and every one of our ministers and church members excited that they live in one of the most strategic mission fields in this country and the world.
Churches shape their Association by the manner in which they relate to associational planning.
The Greater Orlando Baptist Association is an instrument of the churches created by the churches for the well-being and advancement of the churches. If Associations are to be so church oriented, then associational planning needs to be anchored in what the churches intend to do, in response to God's guidance, in addressing the opportunities and needs they confront.
A church that does not intend to do anything has no basis for deciding what kind of assistance it needs, and an Association's efforts to be responsive may wind up as nothing more than an effort to do something the churches “like” instead of what the churches identified they needed.
Churches can have a positive influence on their associations planning efforts in at least three ways:
One - the actions of the association influence the pattern of church’s work. This body, made up of messengers from the churches, reflects the sensitivity of the churches as it decides on the major directions and priorities.
Two - the leaders of the church's various programs presumably understand the opportunities, needs, and resources available to their church better than anyone else. An associational program has a primary responsibility of assisting the counterpart programs in the churches. If the associational program leader does not have a detailed knowledge of the needs of the program in each single church, then he lacks the most important information he needs for his part in planning the association’s total overall program.
A church leader needs to view his association counterpart as a “consumer representative” for the churches of that Association. The associational leader, armed with an understanding of the churches he serves, goes to the denominational marketplace to “shop” for those churches. Everything in the marketplace looks wonderful, and if he has not gained a careful understanding of his churches before he leaves, there is no telling what he will bring back! Everything may be of highest quality, but not everything is designed for or suitable for his churches. His job is not to go to the marketing get some of everything in order to “sell” the churches on various programs. No, he shops for the churches, and he interprets the needs of his churches to his program counterparts in the Convention.
Three -churches can also have a positive influence through participation in Associational Strategy Planning. We have a great opportunity to consider our options regarding what the Lord would have us to do and be as we begin together this new journey. As you know, I will begin sharing (October 17, 6:45 PM @ Lockhart Baptist Church) some of the things I see as well as your Association EDOM Search Committee saw as they were considering a new Executive Director. Over the last several months through your EDOM Search Committee, your Association has been working diligently in reshaping some of the primary ideas and strategy planning for the days to come. Many Associations engage in associational strategy planning about every five years. In the course of the strategy planning process, the intensive involvement of the churches is necessary at several points. Strategy planning offers a primary “shaping time” when churches help mold the Association into what they want it to become, or allow it to ooze out into other shapes because it lacks direction.
Churches shape their Association when they make decisions about their church budget.
To be or not to be missionary in budgeting that is the question. As Southern Baptists, we are a missionary people doing missionary activities all in order that we might reach some for Christ. You see a church budget is a theological document. It reflects the values and priorities of a local church. It is referred to more often throughout any given year than any church-adopted Statement of Faith, than any church covenant, or anything else. It does in fact reflect a church’s values.
Now I have to question today! Is your church missionary? Will your church become missionary? Does your church participate in missional activities in order that people might be brought to Christ in the Greater Orlando area? The one scripture that is perhaps more revealing than any other on this issue is found in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. The Lord knows the heart of His missionary churches and “He will always make you rich enough to be generous at all times" (2 Corinthians 9:11 Good News Bible). Whether it is in personal giving or in the church’s budgeted giving to missions, the question is, “Are you generous?”The issue is not obviously just an amount given, but also a spirit of giving. Does your church operate in a way that causes it to be constantly asking, as a church, how much more it can give to missions without weakening the base?
After the basic issue is settled of whether church’s values are indeed missionary and whether its budget accurately reflects its values, it then must decide how to allocate its budgeted gifts.
Essentially there are three church budgeted channels for missions giving:
Initially, for the direct missions effort of the individual church.
Secondly, for Associational missions as the churches work together on mission in their particular area.
Thirdly, for the Cooperative Program, which is the means through which Southern Baptists work cooperatively all over the world.
The percentage of the church budget goes to associational missions should be appropriate in relation to Cooperative Program giving, and it should be adequate in relation to what the Association is doing. Some churches need to recognize that their Association needs to be self-supporting and assertively missionary for the same reasons that churches should. Associations should be sustained by the local churches; the advancement of the work of the churches - individually and together - provides the very reason for the Association's existence.
Churches shape the association by the priority they place on the Association when they write the checks.
In some churches the problem is not with the budget, but with the method of getting the gifts to the association. The percentage of their budget for missions may be adequate and appropriate, but they pay the missions items (association and Cooperative Program) after everything else has been paid. “We’ll pay it if we have enough left over to afford" is the attitude some churches. Have you ever heard of anyone preaching or teaching that concept of individual giving to its individual members at church? While the we’ll-pay-it-if-we-can-afford-it view, is more frequently expressed regarding church giving for missions it is no more valid.
If missions in general or associational missions specifically, is based on “what we can afford,” it clearly shapes the association in a particular way and the converse is true.
Churches shape their association by their attitudes and actions toward providing leadership for the Association.
There is an long standing church saying that goes: “you cannot have first-class programs with second-class leaders." The same missionary impulse that causes the church to be generous (missionary) in giving money should result in a church’s generosity towards its giving of leaders to assist the association in accomplishing its work.
Churches should have a kingdom vision, not of building a kingdom out of their church, but of seeing that their church is one part of the much larger whole of God's eternal Kingdom.
Let me give you a faith principle. The Lord God on high has supplied all the resources needed, including leadership, for our local association to be completely obedient to His plan of mission or His will for our Association. The church that has a kingdom vision recognizes that some of its very best leaders may, in the providence and plan of God, be entrusted to that church for the benefit of all the churches in that local Association. Hardly anything should please a church more than to have leaders emerge whose influence for Christ goes beyond that one individual church.
Churches either make their Association a vital force for advancing God's work, or they hamstring it, by their attitudes and actions in supplying leaders who benefit all the churches.
Begin checking out the GOBA website regularly for useful downloadable tools our pastors, planters, and revitalizers can utilize within their ministries. With the new website capabilities, we will begin to provide new tools delivered in new formats within the next few weeks. Look for these resources under Downloadable Resources icon.
Changing the Way You Think About the Association!
Tom Cheyney, Col 4:6