First appeared in The Baptist Paper, July 16, 2023 issue. Used with Permission.
What do you call the parable in Luke 15:11–32? The Prodigal Son? The Elder Son? The Lost Sons? The Loving Father?
Depending on your perspective as a reader and interpreter, all these titles might fit. Why does the title matter? And what does this have to do with Baptist associations?
In the same way the principles of love, forgiveness and restoration ultimately express great beauty in this parable, so a Baptist association — as a family of congregations — is at its best an expression of love, forgiveness and restoration.
Consider the characters in the story. Think about their role in this parable and how they are like congregations in an association.
These congregations periodically wander off. They lack some of the convictions we believe as Baptists. Yet they are still congregations of worth created in the image of God.
As autonomous congregations we must allow them to go on a wandering journey and love them through it. Perhaps it’s because they have a certain pastor for a season, and the next pastor is going to be in a different place.
We do not need to reject congregations who for a season express some convictions or take some actions that do not excite us.
We continue to love them and nurture them with open arms even though they may be in a season of unfaithfulness. We pray for them and stay close enough to them to prophetically speak into their situations.
We also need to be compassionate and challenging regarding the elder son congregations. They are concerned about the rules and whether all congregations follow the leadership of our denomination in doctrine and practice.
They are proud of themselves and their role in the denomination. They may want to reimage every congregation in their image. Or they may want everyone to look at them and see how they are the model for doing Baptist church life the right way.
Their pastors are unsure the association is giving them their desired focus and positions of service. Or they are feeling some inadequacy in their ministry. Or they are ministers in their late-20s to mid-40s who are in a hurry to achieve various ministry goals.
They act like elder sons who have an attitude problem. Yet their congregations are effective and innovative in their ministries.
These congregations are faithful every day in the life of the association. They are not always the most effective and innovative, but they desire to be active in the association with financial support, volunteers and by attending the events.
If you call them when you need help during a crisis or are looking for resources or volunteers, they are ready to help.
They also call on the resources in the association when they are between pastors, facing a hinge point of some type or experiencing a crisis. Their pastors need the associational staff to call on them just to check in with them as part of the family.
As humble servants, they are more dependent on the association than some other congregations.
The idea of the loving father does not represent a person or a specific church or churches.
It is the love that emerges out of the relationship of churches in association with one another. The image is one of open arms welcoming all congregations — those wandering, those effective and innovative and those faithful and dependent.
It is the core concept of a family. It is like a parent celebrating every possible aspect of all their family members.
Associations weep while watching prodigal sons, elder sons and servant congregations who need to ask for help but are too proud to ask. Even when they ask, they do not want to do the things the loving father knows they must do.
Like families who at times are dysfunctional, associations seek to embrace congregations who on their worst days are angry, arrogant or apathetic.
All of this is why there are occasional “Blue Mondays” in associational ministry, just as there are in every pastor’s home.
Yet the father is always loving. It is what is so great about associations.
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