Faithful Servant: Russell Bennett was a Legendary Associational Hero
A Column in the Baptist Associations Series with Applications for all Local Denominational Organizations
(This column appears this week in the digital and print edition of The Baptist Paper. Access the column in the digital edition HERE. The Baptist Paper is a publication of TAB Media. Request a free trial HERE. See all TAB Media columns written by George Bullard HERE.)(Subscribe to this Substack Blog using the “Subscribe now” button below.)
Faithful Servant: Russell Bennett was a Legendary Associational Hero
By George Bullard
Fifty years ago this month the former Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention published a book based on the doctoral dissertation of F. Russell Bennett Jr.
As of the last time I checked, a used copy of “The Fellowship of Kindred Minds” is still available for sale on Amazon.
Bennett was born the same year as Martin Luther King Jr. and lived during that era of world chaos. He also lived through major seasons of change for Baptist associations within the Southern Baptist Convention.
On the last day of 2023 Bennett transitioned to his heavenly home, leaving behind three daughters and six grandchildren.
Progress and Regression
During his lifetime Baptist associations went from conforming to SBC guidelines to competing with them to a period of collaboration. Now in many places associations are regressing to competing and conforming.
In some places they are disappearing in favor of organizational and programmatic strategies by state conventions and national agencies. In many places they are weaker, but in other places they are stronger.
To his ministry colleagues, friends and others, Russell expressed his concern about the regression of associations.
He reaffirmed the historic principles he documented in his book regarding the depth of fellowship and kindred spirit that is characteristic of a family of churches.
(Continue reading HERE.)
A long-term friend and ministry colleague--Buddy McGohon--sent me this response to the post. With his permission, I edited it and I am posting it here:
“Thank you for your tribute to Russell Bennett. I first met Russell in February 1961. Since my first child was born the previous October, I dropped out of Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY for a couple of semesters. I was teaching Speech and English at Shelby County High School as well as serving as pastor of the Buffalo Lick Baptist Church. Russell was pastor at Campbellsburg Baptist Church in Henry County.
'Pappy' Sanders was Buffalo Lick’s chairperson of deacons and the long-time clerk of the Shelby Baptist Association. He insisted I attend all the association’s meetings. Little did I know this was the beginning of God preparing of me to eventually be the director of the Montgomery Baptist Association in Alabama. It was also the beginning of my understanding that the Kingdom role of a local Baptist association was far more profound than that of being an arm of our national convention.
It was not until I had been the director of an association for a while that I learned of, and came to appreciate, Russell Bennett‘s pioneering work related to associations.”