Introduction

The Williamson Baptist Association (WBA) is a voluntary, non-profit association of Baptist churches in and around Williamson County, Texas. The WBA serves and assists these churches in achieving their mission.

Member Services

The WBA provides the following benefits, resources and services to its members:

• Specialized Consultants - The WBA seeks to identify the needs of each member church and respond in an intentional, effective way to meet that need.
• Demographic Profiles - The WBA provides to its member churches, extensive information on the demographic profile of the people who live in Williamson County and the Greater Austin metropolitan area.
• Strategy Planning - The WBA has excellent leadership and consulting resources available to help its member churches develop a mission and strategy plan. This service is comprehensive and includes ongoing consulting through plan implementation.
• Conflict Resolution - The WBA has staff skilled in the area of conflict resolution that can help you resolve a conflict in a way that pleases God.
• Leadership Training - The WBA provides a variety of leadership training opportunities for you and the leaders of your church.
• Meeting Facilitation - The WBA building is available for your church to conduct meetings. The WBA facility can accommodate up to 50 people.
• Mentoring - The WBA staff Director is skilled and trained as a mentor. He is are available to meet with you in a formal or informal way to help you develop life and ministry goals.
• Retreats - The WBA facilitates marriage retreats for pastors and church staff and their spouses. This is an excellent opportunity for fellowship, learning and relaxation.
• Special Training Events - The WBA sponsors several training events during the year. Recognized experts come here to train you to do a more effective job.
• Church Staff Search Assistance - The WBA can help you find a new pastor or staff member and counsel you through the process. The WBA can also help pastors and staff members seek new ministry opportunities.

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Purpose

The Purpose of Williamson Baptist Association is to assist member churches in effectively accomplishing the Great Commission.

The WBA purpose drives the philosophy that the association exists for the local church. We support the churches in their ministry to the community and world. Our focus is providing the churches with the kind of support that increases their effectiveness. We strive to address strategic challenges related to fulfilling the commission Jesus Christ gave His church.

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Vision

Williamson Baptist Association will impact Williamson County and surrounding areas for Christ by serving pastors, staff members, and church leaders who utilize resources and opportunities provided by the association.

The ultimate result of the work of the WBA will be a lasting impact for Christ on the lives of individuals, families, and other institutions in our area. We desire to provide services, resources, and opportunities to leaders of our churches. We recognize a significant opportunity to have a positive influence in our community through our support of WBA churches.

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Values

The Core Values of the Williamson Baptist Association are:

• Cooperation - realizing we can accomplish much more together than separately
• Autonomy - respecting the autonomy and authority of each member church
• Unity - relating to one another in a spirit of love as we focus on Kingdom priorities
• Diversity - rejoicing that God created different people and churches for His glory
• Excellence - reaching for high standards of quality in all that we do
• Innovation - reforming structure and strategy to meet the changing needs of members
• Accountability - reporting all actions in a spirit of honesty and openness

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Strategic Plan

The Key Strategies of the Williamson Baptist Association are:

• Use existing reputation and relationship to effectively communicate the value of training to involve more people in leadership development.
• Utilize pastors and church planters who are supportive of the Mission Advance Fund to cast the vision to other churches and pastors for supporting church planting through the Mission Advance Fund.
• Develop recruiting system that connects high potential church planters to sponsoring churches.

Our vision is to impact Williamson County by serving, pastors, staff members, and church leaders who utilize the resources and opportunities the WBA provides. Our timetable includes specific targets for 2007, 2008, and 2009.

Each strategy relates to a specific challenge. Having become a resource of choice for the church leaders we can more effectively communicate the value of Leadership Development.  In utilizing the peer relationships between the pastors, we can cast the vision for more involvement in church planting and our mission advance fund.  Through past experience and existing relationships, we can develop a recruiting system which will effectively lead to locating and connecting effective church planters with association churches. 

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Metrics

The WBA is committed to evaluating our effectiveness and efficiency through 24 specific performance measures that track the implementation of our strategic plan and core values.

Measuring our performance helps us develop short and long term goals, discern important trends in relevant areas, innovate to make improvements, and ensure accountability.

WBA 2006 Ministry Achievements

• Trained 205 different church leaders in a variety of conferences and seminars including: Trimergent, Leadership®System: Leading Self, Leading Teams, leading organizations; Leadership Institute; Pastor and Staff Retreat; Building Relationships and Learning with Preschoolers and Children; Tax Seminar; VBS Overview; and Handle Misbehavior in Children.

• Provided customized demographic services for 10 WBA churches to assist them in planning new outreach and community ministries.

• Conducted 45 consulting projects with 14 different churches on various needs including Leadership Development; Strategy Planning; Teambuilding; Organizational modeling; Sunday School and working with Interim Search Teams.

• Sponsored 3 couples, pastors and staff members with their spouses, to the Intimate Life Galatians 6:6 Marriage Retreat.

• Received over 23,156 unique hits on our Website.

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Staff

The Williamson Baptist Association employs one full-time Director, one full-time staff member, and one part-time staff member to accomplish its mission.

Clint Anderson - Director

• Provides overall direction of the WBA with the Leadership Team
• Consults with churches in the areas of strategy, leadership, and teamwork
• Trains and mentors pastors and staff members in leadership skill development
• Develops innovative training and development curriculum for church leaders
• Plans training conferences for church leaders

Lisa Hoy - Administrative Coordinator

• Directs WBA Leadership Institute
• Identifies un-reached demographic groups for churches and church planters
• Manages training events
• Manages and tracks budget and accounting
• Purchases supplies and equipment
• Prepares Annual Church Profiles

Bonnie Bailey - Administrative Assistant

• Greets guests, answers phone, and hosts meetings and training events
• Assists director with training materials, reports, and presentations
• Maintains the WBA website
• Schedules the utilization of resources
• Promotes WBA training events and manages registrations
• Creates and distributes a monthly newsletter
• Manages the quality of WBA services through metric development and tracking

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Leadership team

The WBA Leadership Team manages the Association to ensure it fulfills its purpose.

The Leadership team serves with the Director to advise and give direction to the WBA. The team also nominates officers and other team members to serve in the association and examines churches seeking WBA memebership. The Director nominates the Leadership Team members, and the Association elects the team members on an annual basis.

Leadership Team Members

• Brian Lightsey - Lakeline Church, Austin
• Charlotte Watson - First Baptist Church, Georgetown
• Dan Wooldridge - Crestview Baptist Church, Georgetown
• Darrell Koop - Hill Country Fellowship, Leander

• Keith Abbott* - North Hills Community Church, Austin
• Tom McCollister- First Baptist Church, Liberty Hill

*Moderator of the WBA

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History

In 1917 nineteen churches came together to organize the WBA. In 1984 the WBA formally became a non-profit corporation in the State of Texas. Over the past eighty-seven years the WBA has partnered with member churches and other Baptist conventions and organizations. However, in the last decade this system has undergone major changes requiring the WBA to redefine and re-invent its identity, strategy, and structure.

Constitution and Bylaws

The Williamson Baptist Association is a non-profit corporation incorporated under the laws of the State of Texas.

View our Constitution and Bylaws ( Acrobat Format )

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Meetings

The WBA holds two regular meetings annually to conduct the business of the association.

Each church elects representatives who form the decision making body of the Association. The meetings are held in March and October of each year. The Leadership Team and WBA Staff determine the agenda for the meetings based on the current needs and circumstances.