Matthew Spandler-Davison is pastor of Bardstown Christian Fellowship in Bardstown, KY. He has written the below series in defense of local baptist associations.

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The Nelson Baptist Association has adopted a team based ministry approach. An Administrative Team provides over all leadership and direction as well as setting the budget. There are three ministry teams appointed at the annual meeting: 

1.  The Church Planting and Missions Team:  Our goal is to equip, encourage and resource our member churches to plant healthy churches and to go to the nations on missions. In just one year we have funded three church plants, awarded 10 scholarships for pastors to go overseas on mission, and we are developing partnerships to provide training to pastors in Nicaragua, Scotland and the Philippines.
2. The Church and Leadership Development Team:  It has hosted a Spiritual Disciplines conference with Dr Donald Whitney; a Pastor’s Forum with Brian Croft; and has planned quarterly dinners for pastors during which they will receive a free book and get to hear from the author of that book.
3. The Community Ministry Team:  has coordinated much of the work that our churches do in the area of counseling, disaster relief and benevolence ministries.

The result is that now the association is seen to have great value and purpose. Funding has increased. Meetings are well attended. Pastors are establishing relationships with one another. The annual meeting is now a two day celebration that includes a worship event with expositional preaching, God-centered singing and sharing testimonies from our work together. Around 700 attended this year’s meeting in total and most would agree the meeting is a fruitful time.

I know though that for most of you reading this you look at your association and wonder, how can we get there?  You may have concluded there is no way. Well that may well be so for you. But the idea of associating is greater than any one particular association. There is nothing in our ecclesiology or even in our Baptist structure that prevents churches from associating together. Three, four, five or more churches associating together in an informal network for the purpose of church planting, missions and providing leadership training can only be a good thing – it is modeled in scriptureScripture, and it is worth the energy to do it.

The role of the local Baptist association is not dead. In terms of making a local impact for the Gospelgospel, it has been a vital tool for us here in Bardstown, Kentucky. Do not give up on the local association. It can be changed for the good and be a force for strong Kingdom work.

You can read Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE.