1. Good Associations are always evaluating and evolving. Reading, listening to podcasts, and networking with other competent leaders helps keep Associational ministry relevant.
2. Associations help member churches to experience their mutual connection in a meaningful, functioning, strategic network. Sometimes in the past Associations were viewed as good posts from which an aging minister might coast along to retirement. In a society that has become post-Christian, that is not a posture any group of churches can any longer afford.
3. Associations consider needs that are peripheral to churches as tasks of primary concern and energy.
- Denominational developments
- Crisis/conflict
- Assistance with pastor transition
- Community demographics and trends
- Ministry resources and information
5. Associations frequently evaluate ministry methods and priorities. They are current with contemporary realities and media. For example, their website is a roadmap to their ministry offerings.
6. An Association assists in matters of church vitality and strengthening. They work with willing churches to help them get healthier. In a post-Christian, post-Covid world, many churches will face bewilderment about how to be the church in a fast changing culture.
7. An association is not a church, and doesn't compete with churches or attempt to reproduce their ministries. Attempts to replicate old programming models of Associational organization will invariably frustrate everyone involved. Modern Associations have to be "fast, flexible and friendly" (Josh Ellis, Union Baptist Association, TX).
8. Associations are extra-church ministries, alongside churches to bless and assist them. An Association is funded solely through gifts from member churches. They are the closest and usually the best informed help (contextually) member churches can access.
9. Associations are shaped by the gifting and skills of their leaders. The tasks that are important to Associational work are often predicated by the local context. Obviously there are some needs that will be present no matter where you are, but the AMS himself brings his particular life experience and leadership strengths to the ministry.
10. Associations recognize that buy-in follows demonstrated value. Because everyone is functioning with limits, the best way an Association can continue to have a meaningful ministry is by providing consistently helpful support to churches and church leaders.
11. A good association helps churches steward the responsibility they have to get the Gospel to large groups of people. There are approximately 80,00 people in the three counties in the MBA. They all have a destiny. Healthy churches keep the priority of evangelism and healthy Associations help churches flesh out that priority.
This is possibly my last newsletter article as AMS (for real this time). It's been a joy!
Bobby Braswell
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