Information Sheet

 

 

R         Lawrence County Historical Society (Mo.).

644                  Baptist Association minutes, 1882-1933.

                                    Fifteen folders.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

These are printed minutes of annual meetings of Primitive Baptist associations in Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio, and Oklahoma.  The most complete series are for the Center Creek and Ozark associations of Missouri.  The minutes include the proceedings of the associa­tions, lists of churches, officers, and representatives, the articles of faith and rules of decorum, and correspondence with other associations.

 

Baptist associations are organizations of churches of the same faith and order, generally or­ganized on a regional basis.  Churches maintain their independence and membership in the asso­ciations is voluntary.  Representatives of the churches assemble annually at designated churches for preaching, discussion of doctrinal matters, and exchange of correspondence with other associa­tions.  Minutes of the sessions are printed and distributed to member churches and corresponding associations.  The associations represented by this collection were composed of Baptist churches that bore the various designations of “Regular,” “Predestinarian,” and “Primitive.”  The system of beliefs was based on fundamental interpretation of the Old and New Testaments and rejection of man-made inventions in religious affairs such as foreign missions and ecclesiastical schools.  Reli­gious practices included the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, baptism by immersion, and foot-washing.

 

The Lawrence County Historical Society received this collection of minutes of Baptist asso­ciation by donation from Jewell Hendricks.  The largest part of the collection consists of minutes from associations in Missouri and Arkansas, but there are also a few minutes, probably received through exchange, from associations in Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois, and Ohio.  The minutes of the Center Creek Association, which included churches in Lawrence, Newton, Stone, Barton, and Jas­per counties in Missouri, and Craig and Muskogee counties in Oklahoma, comprise the largest se­ries in the collection with thirty-one booklets.  The minutes of the Center Creek Association begin in 1883 and continue, with a few gaps, through 1933.  The next largest series, with fourteen book­lets, is that of the Ozark Association, which consisted of churches in Laclede, Webster, Greene, Polk, Dallas, and Greene counties in Missouri.  Other small series, with less than six booklets each, include the Sugar Creek, Salem, New Hope, and Washington associations of Arkansas, the Peace Valley and Panther Creek associations of Missouri, the Bethel and Skillet Fork associations of Illi­nois, the Elk River Association of Kansas and Oklahoma, the First Primitive Baptist Association of Oklahoma, and the Muskingum Association of Ohio.

 

Folder Fifteen contains a minute book of an unidentified Baptist church.  In view of its provenance with the collection, it may be from a church in Lawrence County that was part of the Center Creek Association.

 

 

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