It’s Not About SBC or CBF but BGAV

prayerThis is our common ground as Virginia Baptists. It’s not about churches with either a Southern Baptist Convention or Cooperative Baptist Fellowship affinity, it’s about our future together as the Baptist General Association of Virginia.

As we work together (approximately 1,400 congregations) cooperating in Virginia, we have incredible opportunities ahead:

We must plant more churches together. There is a significant dechurched and unchurched population in our state. We don’t have enough churches in Virginia; the current inventory is insufficient to effectively engage the population. Let’s double the number of church planters in Virginia this year. 

With a majority of our churches struggling with stagnation or decline, this is a great revitalization moment. Let’s work together helping churches re-dream a fresh vision for their neighborhoods and communities. This is the perfect time to re-invent and do something new.  Let’s see 200 churches in our state take steps to revision a missional future and intentionally start something new this next year. 

At any given time, there are a number of vacant pastorates and other ministerial positions in our churches. With the number of opportunities and congregational complexities, there’s significant need for leadership development beyond traditional theological education models. Virginia Baptists could benefit greatly from a strong leadership pipeline and network. A stronger pipeline will equate to fewer vacancies. Let’s see 150 pastors and staff members in learning cohorts this year either through peer networks or residency programs.

The challenge is evident. We don’t need to talk these to death and in turn throw limited resources at them, we need to reallocate resources investing significantly in these three strategic areas.  We have great vehicles available to us such as V3, Fresh Expressions and Spence, just to name three. Let’s get behind these cooperatively (and a few others) and significantly resource the efforts with our participation and finances.

This is a defining moment in our state, let’s not miss it.

4 thoughts on “It’s Not About SBC or CBF but BGAV

  1. Alisa

    Great vision! If young (and existing) leaders aren’t engaged, discipled, and trained now, the church will lose a generation of missional leaders willing to step up and help stagnant churches or to plant new ones.

    1. Brad Hoffmann Post author

      Alisa, thank of the comment! How true! There’s a huge need to raise up leaders for the next generation.

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