Paintsville—Now one of the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s most enthusiastic ministry partners, Jason Hutchinson was not always as committed to the Baptist denomination as he is today.

Before affiliating with the KBC in 2006 to launch one of its High Impact church plants, Hutchinson said he seriously considered becoming non-denominational to avoid the Baptist label. Since then, he has gained a deep appreciation for the convention and its funding source, the Cooperative Program.

It is difficult for Hutchinson to even place a value on the suggestions and advice he has received from convention staff, adding that the interaction is what persuaded him that becoming a Kentucky Baptist church was the wisest choice.

“I do have an appreciation for it,” he said of the Cooperative Program and the state convention staff. “Just knowing that they’re there and they’re not just going to talk about (church planting) but they’re going to help. They’re going to do what they can to help you with missions.”

Mountain Community Fellowship in Paintsville, where Hutchinson serves as pastor, now has 100 to 120 attending Sunday services in its converted office complex location. The church has also seen 20 people accept Christ, including two families who decided to follow Jesus last spring.

One was a couple who had been living together prior to their conversion, along with the woman’s 14-year-old son, who has since sensed God’s call to the ministry. The other was a family of five headed by a single mother who led her four children to faith in Christ.

“We want to stress we’re a missional church,” he noted. “We’re on mission wherever we are, taking the gospel home and sharing it with family and friends. That has gotten across the DNA of our church better than anything else.”

Hutchinson said he believes the church’s effectiveness is a result of the strong foundation of support laid by the KBC.

“In church planting, you need substantial resources and the KBC has put substantial resources into this,” he explained. “They put their money where their mouth is.”

Hutchinson recalled changing his mind about affiliating with Kentucky Baptists after meetings with Larry Baker, KBC’s director of new work and associational missions; Mountain Missions Director David Aker, and Randy Jones, leader of the convention’s missions growth team.

While in a meeting to discuss a different planting effort, Hutchinson heard Jones break into tears over the lost during a prayer time. He said those tears touched his heart.

“I came out of the meeting and called a friend and said, ‘I’m about as blueblood a Kentucky Baptist as you can get,’” Hutchinson recalled. “I’ve always encountered that same spirit, that same desire, in the state convention.”

While not all of Mountain Community’s funding is directly attributable to the Cooperative Program, the KBC’s training programs, church planting efforts and Hutchinson’s salary—a combination of Southern Baptist North American Mission Board and state convention funds—all come from CP monies. So did the funds that helped provide the pastor’s education at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.

Baker pointed out that the Cooperative Program played a key role in forming the Paintsville church even before it applied for a High Impact grant.

The church planter who attended a three-day training session with Mountain Community’s core group decided he was not called to this field. Meanwhile, Hutchinson realized his vision did not match up with the group he was part of at the seminar. The KBC staff was then able to help match Hutchinson and the other group, and the rest is history.

“We bring in church planters on occasion and allow them time to share what’s working and what’s not, and try to develop a network,” Baker said of the cooperative nature of the effort. “We also have a reporting system that allows them to share prayer requests, what problems they’re facing and what questions they have.”

Baker said the exciting thing about all KBC church planting efforts is the new congregations’ emphasis on reaching converts and the “de-churched,” people wounded in the past who are reluctant to return to church.

Supporting Mountain Community Fellowship is just one way the gospel is spreading through the Cooperative Program in Kentucky. Throughout April, churches across the state are celebrating 83 years of combined missions and evangelism efforts during Cooperative Program month.

According to Billy Compton, KBC’s executive associate for Cooperative Program and resources, it is an important focus because “the Cooperative Program has been the most consistent funding source for most Southern Baptist missions and ministry endeavors.”