Well, here goes. This is our first posting on the Network of Baptist Associations blog. I am honored to get the chance to moderate and host this blog for NOBA, and glad to be a part, with all of you, of witnessing a new day in the work of baptist associations. This blog will serve as a running commentary and place of dialogue on the issues associations are facing, and hopefully will provide (in the postings and in the comments) some insight and wisdom on the task before us. Anyone is welcome to comment here, but we especially welcome Southern Baptist Directors of Missions and associational staff who are members of NOBA. We appreciate your willingness to cooperate with other associations to help all of us see and meet the needs and opportunities of the future.
With that in mind, let me introduce myself. I am actually not a DOM, but am a part-time Church Planting Strategist for the Gwinnett Metro Baptist Association in Gwinnett County, Georgia northeast of Atlanta. I am also planting and pastoring a church called Woodland Creek (http://www.woodlandcreekchurch.org) , and I serve on the NOBA Communications Team. And from time to time I get to serve as a worship leader and breakout leader at events like the NOBA Summit. My passion is church planting and leadership development, especially in the next generations of the church. I am fascinated by associational ministry and what it can mean to the churches and community and am looking forward to learning from all of you as you share your comments and thoughts.
I know many of you are new to blogging, so might I suggest the helpful primer on the subject found at this link: http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/001127.html. And let me encourage you to set up a website or blog for your association. I have been doing a little research and only about half of our baptist associations even have a website. So let me open the blog with these questions: how does your association communicate with churches? Do your association use email, websites, blogs, phone calls or visits to pastors? What works best for you? How is your association adapting to the new tools around us and to the use of technology to connect?
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6 comments:
Welcome to Blogging! This if posted from Springfield, Oregon, home of the Willamette Valley Baptist Association! It is exciting that DOMs can use the most modern tools to communicate the Gospel and with each other. Thanks for this new tool!
Bill Phillips, DOM
I am very excited about the potential for kingdom work that I see in both the web site and the organization. We desperately need a place to search out help from people going through the same struggles every day in this work.
The reality is- at best - there are 1200 of us. We need one another in this work that God has called us to--
God Bless!
Bill- Welcome to the blog. Please comment often and make yourself at home! It is pretty cool that we can interact like this. It sure beats a plane ticket to Oregon (though I would love to see your area.)
Dougald - From what I understand, at any given time there are around 900-1000 DOMs. But don't forget all us support staff: administrative assistants, church & community ministries directors, church planting strategists, etc. If you include those folks, we must have around 2000 in the associational community. Add in moderators and associational officers and pastors who care deeply about associational ministry and our friends in associational work in state conventions and at NAMB and IMB and it is a pretty large group. So help us get the word out! And share your thoughts with us as often as you can!
Our association communicates with our churches in all of the traditional methods of phone calls, snail mail, e-mail and our website. We only use two BLOGS at the present time. One is a missionary journal (www.findMIchurch.org/BobsBlog) that we use for mission groups and others that want to know more about our ministry as NAMB appointed missionaries to Michigan. It’s only updated monthly. The other is more of an opinion blog (http://acts-5-29.blogspot.com/) where I post a wide variety of thoughts and ideas. Nothing much of a controversial nature. It is more targeted to help readers think through doing the right thing, as the passage from Acts 5:29 notes. There are over 25 categories of articles that range from quotes, funnies, association, church, tithing, evangelism and missions.
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