By Vicki Brown
At a time when many denominations are waning, the head of a breakaway 10-year-old Baptist state convention in Missouri believes “genuine” collaboration will keep congregations working together.
“The vision we have … is to try to create a new paradigm in denominational life,” Churchnet Executive Director Jim Hill said in an interview in advance of the group’s 10th anniversary meeting scheduled April 13-14 at Fee Fee Baptist Church in Bridgeton, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis.
Gary Snowden, Churchnet’s missions mobilization team leader, translates for Roger Marquez, president of the pastor’s association in Guatemala’s western region, during the 2010 missions banquet. (Churchnet photo)
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That’s the same place where about 350 Missouri Baptists “tired of fighting” for control of the Missouri Baptist Convention gathered April 19-20, 2002, to form a separate Baptist General Convention of Missouri. Two years ago the group started doing business as Churchnet: A Baptist Network Serving Churches, to better reflect its denominational philosophy.
“In some ways, it is an effort to get back to early denominational life, in which churches could help each other to strengthen the work,” Hill said. “It’s what the association was at its birth.”
The new convention started out with offices in Columbia, Mo., but closed them and moved to a virtual office after Hill became executive director in 2005.
Convention staff all work part-time and also have jobs in local churches. Rather than creating resources for churches, Churchnet leaders believe the expertise congregations need already exists in the churches and works to connect them.
“We’re creating space where genuine collaboration can take place between churches and ministry partners,” Hill said. “Our goal is to create that space in which genuine collaboration can take place.”
“We want to challenge churches to look to one another,” Hill said. “ Often when a church contacts us about a need, we try to connect them to a church,” Hill explained. For example, leaders in a Jefferson City church recently trained ministers and members of two St. Louis congregations.
Hill said the resources section on the Churchnet website “was set up, not for us to put out a massive amount of stuff, but for churches to share.”
“We serve the larger kingdom by helping one another to serve one another and by doing things together,” Hill said.
Former president Bill Miller, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmington, Mo., said a lean organization allows more resources to be directed toward ministry. “It is an organization that highly prizes the freedom and autonomy of the local church under the leadership of Jesus Christ,” he said. “[It] continually strives to make serving churches a priority” and “finds opportunities for churches and for Christians to assist one another.”
Collaboration has guided Churchnet missions efforts, particularly in its partnership with Baptists in Guatemala, noted Gary Snowden, missions mobilization team leader. The convention also has assisted with church construction in north China, tsunami relief in Indonesia and other projects.
Snowden anticipates Churchnet will form other partnerships in the years ahead and will help provide any missions training churches might need.
“On the local, state and national level, I foresee Churchnet taking a more active networking role to connect churches with a wide variety of missions opportunities while providing a forum to share best practices,” Snowden said.
The goal for strong collaborative efforts also led the convention to establish ties with the Baptist World Alliance and its North American regional body, the North American Baptist Fellowship. Hill was recently elected to a two-year term as the next NABF president. He will assume the role at the BWA annual gathering this summer.