On October 28th, 2014, many of the leaders of
the Middle Baptist Association along with Frank Nuckolls, our State Missionary
from the Georgia Baptist Convention for Associational Missions, met to continue
strategy planning for the Association.
So far this had been a 12 hour plus investment by these leaders, not to
mention the prayer investment. I try
to make it clear that my vision for our Association is not to make up busy work
for already busy people. My desire
is to serve the 35 churches that make up the Association by identifying and
meeting needs so that the churches are healthier and stronger and making a
difference in their various communities.
We exist for the benefit of the churches.
I want to give a
broad summary of our work in strategy planning:
1. Vision Statement – The Middle
Baptist Association envisions with God’s help that every Association church
will have an opportunity to be involved in Acts 1:8 missions and revitalization
by December 31st, 2017.
2.
Priorities
- we initially identified our priorities as follows:
·
Missions –
Missions is a priority for our Association because it gives us an opportunity
to join with Jesus in His redemptive plan for the world.
·
Prayer – Prayer
is a priority for our Association because it releases the power of God, and
opens lines of communication.
·
Church
revitalization – Church revitalization is a priority in our Association
because of the teaching of the New Testament, the rapid decline of churches,
and the growing number of lost people.
·
Resourcing
(meeting) church needs – Helping meet church needs (resourcing) is a
priority for us because churches often need an outside perspective and help to
help fill in the gaps in ministry.
·
Affecting
ethnic and generational diversity in MBA churches – Connecting to different
ages of people and different ethnic groups is a priority to our Association
because the Gospel is for everyone.
Without diversity, the church will not be effective in ministry.
3.
Priorities
refined - eventually we summarized those priorities and saw two broad
categories for accomplishing the collective vision and summons we have from
God:
·
Missions
·
Church
revitalization
After much discussion we have come to believe that all
that God is leading us to do together through 2017 can be summarized under
missions and church revitalization.
Therefore our energy and passion for ministry is going to be worked out
this way, God willing and helping. This
will mean some reorganization for our Association. We will be working toward presenting an updated
organizational model to our Executive Committee on January 29th,
2015. There is a lot more I could say to
enlarge on this, but there is not room for me to say it here. We will be communicating with the churches
and helping them understand the burden God has given us. Please pray that we can make a difference
together.
Blessings!
Bobby Braswell, Jr.
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