About Us -- Today
Concord Baptist Association is composed of 40 individual churches and missions in central Missouri. Together we are committed to be a family of churches under the Lordship of Christ who serve and support one another in Christian love. We are devoted to each other's spiritual health and with a Kingdom vision cooperatively seek to fulfill the God-given mission to make disciples of all nations.
About Us -- A Brief History
The Concord Baptist Association was organized in October of 1823. Eight churches (Concord, Big Bottom, Pisgah, Mt. Nebo, Double Spring, Big Lick, Union, and Mt. Pleasant) took part in the organization. Pisgah (organized in 1819) was the first Baptist Church in this area. These eight churches were all located south of the Missouri River and had a combined membership of 335.
In 1824 the Annual Meeting was held with Big Lick Church in Cooper County, and the churches reported 41 baptisms and 359 members. The Annual Meeting of 1838 showed 350 baptisms. The total baptized between 1841 and 1843 was more than 1,000. In 1842 all of the churches above and west of the Lamine River were dismissed to form Saline Baptist Association. Yet, in 1843 Concord reported 2,346 members with a large group of earnest and active ministers.
As far as can be determined, there was no attempt to employ a missionary or traveling preacher during the first 25 years of Concord's history. However, in 1847 one of the churches suggested putting a missionary on the field. The following year eight churches sent funds for missionary purposes. Elder Snelling Johnson and W. M. Robertson were secured as missionaries. It was a great year in the history of the association, for the report in 1850 showed nearly 400 baptisms.
By 1870 there were 39 churches with a total membership of 3,166 and 286 baptisms. By 1872 there were 41 churches and at that meeting, a number of churches were dismissed to form the Lamine Baptist Association.
Evangelism in Concord Association apparently reached its peak in the decade ending in 1850. It was during this period that a request was sent to the Annual Meeting in 1847 asking that "surplus funds be used to employ a minister to ride and preach in the bounds of the association in destitute neighborhoods and hold protracted meetings with destitute churches, and also recommended to the churches to send up annually a special fund for that purpose."
Great peace and harmony prevailed among the churches and prosperity. Then in the 1860's the Civil War affected missionary progress as well as everything else in America. The financial panics of the late nineteenth century and the terrible depression of the 1930's took their toll, as did the two World Wars in the first half of the twentieth century. But things changed after the war ended.
In 1966 the association built a new home and office for the missionary. It also purchased land in Jefferson City west, gave seven acres as a building site for a new mission there and assisted First Baptist of Jefferson City in erecting the first building for what would be Concord Baptist Church.
(This information is from the "Historical Sketch of Concord Baptist Association and Its Churches" printed in 1973.)