By Jeff Brumley
More than 300 Christians from 10 Atlanta-area Cooperative Baptist churches got fired up for collaborative ministry at a combined Sunday night worship service that may be forging new ground in Fellowship life.
“It was really empowering,” Park Avenue Baptist Pastor Tony Lankford said about Listen: Hearing the voice of our church, our city, and our God, which was held at Druid Hills Baptist Church. “It was a challenge to us to be the church in the city.”
While churches have felt that challenge throughout Christian history and even in CBF life, the formation of CBF Georgia-Atlanta about a year ago marks the first time a group of local churches have created a formal organization.
At least in Atlanta, with all its gritty urban challenges, taking that step was necessary, Lankford said.
“We have responsibility to be the presence of Christ and we are coming together (Sunday night) to state that and be encouraged by that and be challenged by that,” said Lankford, who has been coordinating the CBF Georgia-Atlanta effort.
The Atlanta group is described by some as typical of CBF culture but also groundbreaking in its formality.
“This is not unusual,” Bo Prosser, CBF coordinator of missional congregations, said via e-mail. “There are ‘regional’ gatherings all over CBF within our states and regions.” But it is an “anomaly of sorts” to have a group made up solely by metropolitan churches, Prosser said.
It’s also a first in CBF to see a group of congregations make their cooperation official, Harry Rowland, CBF missional church engagement specialist, said in an e-mail to ABPnews.
“The formal organizational nature of this group and the desire to work long term and strategically together around common identified … needs such as violence, education, social needs … is unique,” Rowland said.
Regional focus
It may be a first but it’s unlikely to be the last – at least in Georgia, said Frank Broome, coordinator of CBF Georgia.
Broome said there are other places in the state where churches are cooperating, which he said is natural in CBF with its culture of collaboration and bottom-up initiatives.
Because of its large size, CBF Georgia for some time is divided in to 12 regions. But even within those there sometimes are needs so geographically specific that it makes sense for local congregations to organize around certain issues.
In the Athens area, he said, eight or nine churches agreed to contribute money to increase the hours of the CBF ministry at the University of Georgia from eight hours a week to 20.
“I think we will see more emphasis on doing things regionally because of the sheer size of our state,” Broome said.
What’s uniquely CBF about it, he added, is that the impetus will come from the local areas and it will be role of the state organization to assist. CBF Georgia/Atlanta is already modeling that approach.
“I am listening to them,” he said. “I am not telling them what they need – they will determine what they need.”
Historically, there is a precedent in Baptist life for the kind of metropolitan and other geographically centered groupings centered around missions.
“In my views these are precursors to associations,” Broome said. “That’s my take. That’s not CBF’s position.”
‘The value of fellowship’
Lankford said he has avoided using the association label because it conjures unpleasant memories for many Fellowship Baptists.
“I have been unsure what language to use,” Lankford said. “But I believe there is real value in Fellowship churches coordinating together to be the presence of Christ in the city.”
And those were his words Sunday night, when he said from the pulpit that those gathered “are not just an organization … but a movement of people wanting to impact this city,” according to the CBF blog account posted today.
CBF Executive Coordinator Suzii Paynter said the coordinated ministry made possible by CBF Georgia-Atlanta is a way of living out Fellowship values. Paynter preached that “we can be alone, or we can be a Fellowship.”
Lankford said he left the gathering feeling empowered to seek ways his church can be a voice for the weakest in Atlanta, including children the city’s violence- and poverty plagued schools.
The challenge lying ahead for CBF Georgia-Atlanta is knowing what its next steps should be. “Our goal is to leverage our voice for the good of our city, but how can we do that?”