As Southern Baptists have focused on fulfilling the Great Commission, the discussion has largely centered on the work of our two mission boards — the International Mission Board and North American Mission Board. I’ve also shared quite a bit about how the Kentucky Baptist Convention is engaging in missions both across the street and around the world as well. Today, though, I want to talk about one of our Great Commission partners that sometimes gets overlooked — the local association.

I’m spurred on by a great report I received recently from the Christian County Baptist Association, which serves 43 churches in the area surrounding Hopkinsville, Ky. Bobby Melton, the director of missions there, was reporting on missions projects and trips that the association’s churches had engaged in during 2008-09 and it definitely impressed me. According to Melton, nearly 1,800 volunteers had participated in more than 70 community, state, national and international missions projects or trips during the time frame.

Locally, participants from the association were involved in missions projects to help elderly residents with home repairs, canvas neighborhoods for an inner city medical ministry, engage in disaster relief activities following our huge ice storm, conduct door-to-door evangelism, minister at nursing homes and much more. In-state projects included participating in Kentucky Changers, helping the Oneida Baptist Institute, conducting vacation Bible schools, and providing quilts, food and clothing to ministries in other parts of the state. National hands-on missions and ministry projects included work in soup kitchens, providing disaster relief services and ministering through World Changers.

This association also participated in hands-on international missions impacting eight different countries outside the United States — Brazil, Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti, Jamaica, Ecuador, Costa Rica and South Korea. The projects included medical missions, evangelism work, poverty and hunger relief work, church planting, construction, aid to orphanages and more. In the case of Haiti, a youth group was not able to go to the country itself but worked to raise more than $24,000 to purchase generators for several churches there.

And this was just one association. Kentucky has 71 associations and while they all may not have been able to engage in hands-on missions at the level that Christian County Baptist Association did, all were out there ministering in vital ways that were impacting not only their own communities but the world.

Here in Kentucky, we rely heavily on our associations in the work to reach our state for Christ. They are vital partners with us in communicating with the churches, planting new churches, providing training opportunities and coordinating evangelism activities.

The “Find it Here” evangelism campaign we are preparing for now is a great example of the important partnership between associations, the state convention and the North American Mission Board. “Find it Here” is a door-to-door evangelism effort that is going to enable us to get a gospel presentation in just about every household in Kentucky before Easter next year. We are praying for a great harvest here as Kentucky churches and associations have truly taken ownership of the campaign.

Although large in its scope, the implementation plan is really pretty simple, thanks to the work of our associations and directors of missions. Essentially, association directors of missions and moderators have worked with pastors to divide the association geographically and make assignments. The churches then placed orders through their associations for “Find it Here” brochures and plastic bags that they will take to those households. (The bags and brochures are being provided through the KBC, working in partnership with NAMB.)

The associations have heavily promoted “Find it Here,” as has Kentucky Woman’s Missionary Union, and the churches have responded. The churches have already begun prayerwalking the areas to which they will deliver the bags, training their church members to be strong witnesses and working to make sure their church is ready to make a good impression on new guests. The bags will be delivered March 6-21, the same time that the KBC and North American Mission Board will be conducting a major media campaign to provide “air support” for the 50,000 church volunteers who will be delivering the bags.

I don’t think this campaign would have caught on the way that it has or have the potential for success that it has if it were not for our associations. NAMB has been able to provide the vision, get the ball rolling and offer various kinds of support for the campaign, which is part of the GPS effort that is being conducted in other state conventions as well as Kentucky. Our state convention has been able to provide statewide coordination, handle materials, provide training, work with NAMB to develop the media campaign and otherwise provide logistical support. It is the association, however, that has had the detailed knowledge about the communities, neighborhoods, participating churches, etc. to pull this together.

I’m grateful for the ministries of our associations. I see them as vital partners in fulfilling the Great Commission!