By Karen L. Willoughby
BELGRADE, Mont. – The Montana Southern Baptist Convention personalizes its annual meeting.
Rather than reports from state ministry leaders and Southern Baptist national entities, messengers listen to panel discussions that highlight the points speakers would otherwise make in five-minute reports too easy to tune out.
“I started this a few years ago,” MTSBC Executive Director Barrett Duke told Baptist Press. “The entities send a representative who brings a canned speech and our folks weren’t connecting. This way – a panel discussion with me asking each one questions – our folks get to see the breadth of ministry that is SBC life and a more personal approach to what it means to be part of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“It felt like we needed to do the same thing with our leaders from Montana,” Duke continued. “Darren Hales, MTSBC Church Strengthening Director, leads that panel discussion with a half-dozen or so of our MTSBC leaders. It’s probably one of the more effective ways we’ve found for our pastors and church family to see how significant it is to be part of the SBC.”
This year’s annual meeting – Montana calls it “Refresh” – took place Oct. 2-3 at the Bridge Church in Belgrade, near Bozeman. The 140 in attendance included 67 messengers from 33 of Montana’s 130 churches and church-type missions.
Worship was led by the Bridge worship team. Paul Chitwood, president of the International Mission Board, was guest speaker.
“He spoke from Nehemiah on the importance of staying focused on our task and of course our task is missions,” Duke reported.
Breakout sessions Friday morning included “Empowering Discipleship” led by Jesse Connors of TrueLife.org, “Every Church Renewed” by MTSBC’s Hales, and “Pastors’ Wives Together,” led by an IMB missionary serving in the Americas.
Business moved quickly with no motions, no resolutions and limited discussion. One messenger spoke for many. “How are we doing financially?”
The anticipated $700,000 in Cooperative Program giving for 2026 is “not a record but significant progress from 2025’s deficit budget of $625,000,” Barrett said. That deficit was made up by the end of August, he added.
“COVID and inflation took a toll on giving last year. Last year was one of the smallest CP budgets in the nine years I’ve been here,” the executive director continued. “I believe our churches are coming back around. It’s been a lean few years but I think churches are settling down again. We’re planting more churches than ever before. Baptisms are also up.”
Montana’s Southern Baptist churches “baptized 609 souls in 2024,” Duke said. “While that’s slightly less than 2023, it still marks a significant trend. We held above the 600 mark for the second year.”
Montana has baptized a total of 2,557 people during the first five years of this decade.
Messengers approved a $985,000 budget for 2026, including up to $160,000 from the North American Mission Board for church planting and evangelism. This includes 25 percent of undesignated offerings for national and international SBC missions and ministries.
“It’s been 25 percent since before I got here” in 2016, Duke said. “I feel that’s pretty good. For us to give 25 percent is more significant than it might look. Our people do with fewer services from their state convention in order to send 25 percent to national. Many of our state conventions give a higher percentage to our national work, but they receive considerably more in CP giving, so they still have more money left to provide ministry to their churches than we have.”
Curtis Crow, pastor of The Bridge Church in Belgrade, was elected to his first one-year term as president. Zane Officer, pastor of Libby Baptist Church in the far northwest corner of Montana, was elected to his first term as vice-president.
Partnerships with the Missouri Baptist Convention, now in its fifth year of a seven-year agreement, and Alberta, Canada, restarted this year after a COVID-related hiatus, are bearing fruit.
“We’re planting more churches now than we have in decades,” Duke said. “It has helped to have a couple of good church planting directors – Lee Merck and now Dave Howeth – and to be a NAMB Send state which gains us more visibility with Southern Baptists and more resources.”
This was Duke’s final annual meeting. He has retired from his role in Montana and moved to Maryland near grandchildren. He received a standing ovation and gifts during recognition of the difference he has made in the Montana Southern Baptist Convention.
The executive director search committee announced they have “some quality candidates” they are continuing to interview.
Montana’s next annual meeting – Refresh – is set for Oct. 1-2, 2026.
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