Blue River - Kansas City Baptist Association 2.77

The Association was started in 1981 with the merging of the Blue River and the Kansas City Baptist Associations. Both of these Associations had long histories in this part of Missouri, but the purpose of this page is to give a summary about the Association as it stands today.

Our churches are rural, urban, suburban, large, small, blue collar, white collar, traditional, contemporary, blended and all Baptist. We have 24 predominantly African-American churches, 7 Hispanic congregations, and language missions and churches that worship in Russian, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese and Haitian.

We have churches that target a specific segment of the population such as AZ-U-R, a church in Lee’s Summit that worships using rock music, and Paradise Outfitters, a church in Oak Grove that attracts outdoorsmen and their families.

The Association builds its ministries around a strategic plan called VISION 2020. Dr. Rodney Hammer became the Executive Director of the Association in October of 2008 and led us in a visioning process that resulted in the identification of five ministry areas we call VISION 2020. Those five areas are:

Gospel Outreach
Resourcing Churches
Assisting Community Transformation
Church Planting
Equipping Leaders

The GRACE acrostic is used to remind us that all we do is through the grace and mercy of God, and without his blessing, our work is in vain.