We hope you’ll mark your calendars right now for our BR-KC Semi-Annual Meeting at The Road Church (4108 S Buckner-Tarsney Rd, Grain Valley MO) on October 1, 5pm-8 pm as it promises to be an especially crucial and engaging evening. I have invited pastor Jeremy Conrad to share the Calvary Family of Churches story. It is an encouraging story about how a normative sized church chose to begin planting churches and partnering with struggling churches in the Denver metro area. Since 2015 Calvary Church has planted and replanted/revitalized over 40 churches in Colorado and beyond. Here’s a short link from lead pastor Mark Hallock you might want to watch: https://thecalvary.org/about/
For the last two summers I have attended the Calvary Family of Church’s Non-Ignorable Conference. What I quickly realized is that their model of planting and replanting is so biblically based that the principles are transferrable anywhere people need to hear the gospel and anywhere churches need to be planted. It is also something that our smaller BR-KC churches can begin doing; this isn’t a model only large churches can do.
The greatest impression I walked away with two years ago from the Non-Ignorable Conference was that the Calvary Family of Churches is the purest, most organic form of what an Association of Churches ought to be. You could call it an association within the Association or multiple networks of churches partnering together for the advancement of the Kingdom. If there was no currently existing denominational structure called BR-KC Baptist Association, these kind of networks of churches partnering together for the gospel is what you would want to develop.
As some of you know, I am the candidate selected by a search committee to be your next Director of Missions. I am both humbled and honored beyond words. Of course, my new role is not official until the messengers say so at this meeting (October 1).
Assuming that happens and the Lord wills, if you want to know the direction I plan to lead our network of churches, this is it. Radical partnering for radical Kingdom growth and maximum gospel impact. When Jesus came on the scene, John the Baptist understood his role, he stayed in his lane and announced, “He must increase; I must decrease.” I am stating right now, the Association must decrease, the churches must increase. I hope to lead the Association to be a catalyst, cheerleader, and financial contributor for the work that only New Testament churches are called to do. An Association has no justification or life apart from networking of its churches. By it’s very name an “Association” assumes that churches in a given geographical area are communicating with one another, partnering for gospel ministry and that they share a common confession of faith that binds them together in cherished kinship.
I invite you to be at this year’s fall semi-annual meeting. I would be honored if you were there as a messenger to vote and affirm me as your next Director (I’m dropping Executive from the title) and to hear the amazing Calvary Family of Churches’ story. The evening is devoted, not primarily to “Associational business”, but to the vast potential of what churches networking together can do. I believe the evening will expand the vision you have for the church you serve and give you greater hope that He can do exceedingly, abundantly more than you ask or think.
