About the Association

Not a headquarters.
A helping hand.

An association is not a denomination’s branch office, and it is certainly not a church’s boss. It is something older and humbler: neighboring congregations choosing one another. Since 1924, the Baptist churches of Lake County have pooled what no single congregation could carry alone — training for teachers and deacons, care for pastors, disaster relief teams, and a common witness across the county’s lakes and groves.

Every member church remains fully autonomous, governed under Christ by its own congregation. The association holds no authority over any of them — it exists to serve them. We confess the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, and for over a century we have kept to one sentence of work: to share the gospel, equip disciples, and build up the body of Christ.

Practically, that means the association equips member churches at no cost — training for teachers, deacons, and leaders, and the tools and resources a church needs to find and call its own pastors and staff. LCBA never places or screens candidates; the calling always belongs to the church. These helps have served several member churches since they began two years ago, and remain active today.

Our Heritage

Planted in 1924.
Still bearing fruit.

When citrus wagons still rolled through the county seat, a handful of congregations covenanted to do together what none could do alone. The towns grew, the steeples multiplied, and the covenant held.

1924

Established

Organized by charter congregations in Lake County, Florida.

50

Member churches

Each one autonomous; each one a partner in the same gospel work.

102yrs

Serving Lake County, FL

Through freezes, booms, hurricanes, and harvests — together.

One Family

Near one another.
Bound to one work.

Across Lake County and just beyond it, fifty autonomous Baptist congregations have chosen one another. No church here answers to the association — each governs itself under Christ. Yet for every one of them, the association is the nearest hand of Southern Baptist cooperation: the most local level of a shared mission, serving churches it never governs.

Lake County, Florida with fifty church markers, one per member church, grouped by town The county outline, its signature lakes, and fifty gold markers clustered by town, joined by drifting lines that express the churches' shared associational bond.
Each marker is one of the fifty churches, grouped by its town. The timeline is illustrative of a century of growth, not a record of exact dates.