Independent

Paul went on three missionary journeys and established over 100 local independent churches. Never is the concept of a denomination/convention taught in the Bible.

Every epistle of Paul is written either to a local church or a pastor of a local church. They were independent of each other. They did not belong to any associations or conventions.

I have some copies of different associations/fellowships, etc.
They tend to be hierarchical in nature as well as authoritative.

Having just read over one of them here are some things I noticed:
1. It had a rather lengthy statement of faith. Noticing all the differences on BB if you are not dispensational, pre-trib, pre-mil, you would not be able to be a part of this fellowship. You must agree to adhere to the entire statement of faith.

2. It lays out how many from each church may attend the meetings and how many meetings each year there are to be.

3. It takes the power upon itself to disfellowship itself with any church that it deems is walking disorderly. The executive council then must follow through the principles of Mat.18 to restore the church.
--You don't find a concept like this in the Bible. This is an internal matter for each church to deal with. And it is a matter for each church individually to make a decision how to deal with the church in question. It is not a matter of one organization to bring down the hammer on one church because they have the supposed authority to do so. That is outside their spiritual realm. It is not Biblical. And that is where these fellowships/conventions, etc. take on too much authority for themselves. It is not their place to exercise authority over other local churches. Then they are no more different than the RCC.

That is enough for now.

 

It's all semantics.

In my younger days I started out as a "fighting fundamentalist", KJVO, no-dancin', no-chewin, no-movies, playing cards, etc, etc... battling Independent Baptist.

However, though there were not necessarily "conventions" for folk like this we were in an undefined but strong, tight knit network of churches of this persuasion all answerable (sort of) to one another.

We shared speakers, supported only our cut of missionaries, used only certain Sunday School materials, etc, etc.

If there was a doctrinal or moral falling out of one of the churches, a general warning went out and that church was shunned. Usually the offending church moved on to a new "association" with like minded churches.

When I personally began gravitating away from these kinds of "independent" churches the current battle was against "Neo-Evangelicalism" the brain-child of Harold Ockenga.

If someone inadvertantly failed the neo-evangelical shibboleth, the church pastor, deacon, elders were warned (often in an oblique manner) to fall in line or else bear the consequence.s

So, in my experience, these "independent" churches were more tight knit than even some denominational churches much less Baptist conventional churches.

My current local church is associated with the GARBC but if it gets mentioned at all it is in relationship to a membership fee or budgetary line item. I'm sure many of the congregation don't even know of it's existence.

Semantics IMO.

HankD

 

What Hank said- !

 

Most of the New Testament churches were founded by Paul and there is little evidence of associational ties among them. However, they were not free of hierarchical authority and that authority was Paul himself and others under him. Except for the collections for the Jerusalem church, Paul never told the churches to do what you think is right, or to do what the majority of the congregation elects to do. No, he told them what to do and how to do it. And if they disobeyed, he reprimanded them for it.

Paul also had the likes of Timothy and Titus who he trained and taught to be overseers of multiple churches. There is no evidence that these two individuals, or even Paul himself, was the pastor of a local church. They exercised authority over whole groups of churches. E.g., Titus in Crete.

Except for the selection of deacons in Jerusalem, I can find no instance of congregational authority over their own churches. Instead, we have the unequivocal imperative of Hebrews 13:17—“Obey your leaders and submit to them.” This one of those passages that make my ears a little red when I read it. I don’t like it but I do recognize it is there so I try to be a good soldier.

So to the OP, no, there is no scriptural authority for or against associations. However, the N.T. model does call for a top down hierarchy. Pastors over their churches. Overseers, such as Timothy and Titus, over pastors. Paul over everyone, answering only to Christ. Some may say this hierarchy existed because the churches were made up of immature Christians who needed intensive supervision. This is probably true but when we move away from this hierarchical system, we move away from the N.T. model.