SRBN is the regional expression of the Southern Baptist Denomination and has a 50 year history of starting new work, providing training and support, and acting as the hub of a network of relationships between pastors and churches.
The Sacramento Region Baptist Network (SRBN) is a California religious non-profit corporation. We are nearly 98 congregations in the Greater Sacramento Valley. Sacramento is the state capital of California and is located midway between San Francisco and Reno, Nevada.
We are the regional body of the Southern Baptist Convention (national) and the California Southern Baptist Convention (state). SRBN was founded in 1945 by people who migrated from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri to California. Originally it was called the Sacramento Valley Missionary Baptist Association. In 2013 our name changed from Sacramento Association of Southern Baptist Churches to Sacramento Region Baptist Network to better describle who we are and what we do.
The first annual meeting took place on October 2, 1945, in Stockton, California, and was made up of messengers from churches in seven cities: Sacramento, the Northgate area of Sacramento, Gridley, Linda, Olivehurst, Oroville, and Stockton.
The network currently has a very diverse membership of ninety-eight congregations, including African American, predominantly white, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian speaking, Romanian, Ukrainian, Korean, Hispanic, and Filippino.
What Does an Network of Churches Do?
A network of churches does what your local church does with one huge difference. It does it with churches, not with individuals. A network of churches trains churches; encourages churches; visits churches when they are sick; helps churches have babies (start new churches); helps bury old churches when they die; counsels churches when they are confused or wayward; and celebrates special occasions with churches.
A network of churches is the formal expression of love and concern to a church from all the other churches. It harnesses the synergy that exists when churches team together in a common endeavor. It magnifies the Christian influence and sense of Christian presence in a community.
What type of relationship holds a network of churches together? It’s called a covenant relationship. This is a sacred covenant between churches to help one another and to love one another.
Why does a network need an office and a full-time staff? The same reason a church does: to coordinate, guide and aid the work of the ministry.
In other words, Sacramento Network does the following for your church:
- Provides you with professional representation in the larger denomination and community through the services of an executive director.
- Opens your church and ministry to national resources by linking you to the California Southern Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention. You become eligible to receive training and eligible for loans and grants.
- Gives your church an uninterrupted gateway to world ministry by linking you to the Southern Baptist Convention and the larger denomination.
- Provides the leaders of your church with a support group unparalleled in other Christian networks and denominations.
- Keeps you in touch with your sister churches through newsletters, directories, meetings, and conversations with other ministers and the Executive Director.
- Lends legitimacy to your ministry by associating your church with the good reputations and long history of a larger group of churches that hold you accountable to a higher standard.
- Provides training to pastors & churches through the Church Growth and Missions Growth teams of the network.
- Gives your church help in finding quality staff and pastors through the national and worldwide networking activities of the Executive Director's office.
- Offers professional church consulting and strategy planning through the training and experience of the Executive Director of Missions.
- Puts together short-term mission trip opportunities and Christian travel opportunities for the benefit of the pastors and churches.
- Coordinates and coaches church planters and congregations that wish to plant new churches through the expertise, network, and training provided by the network staff.
- Serves as a hub and corporate umbrella for a class of community ministries not usually sponsored by the local congregation by seeking out church members of calling and passion to match up with pressing community ministry needs.
Although not an exhaustive list, this gets to the heart of what SRBN provides for your local mission dollar.
Articles of Incorporation and SRBN By-Laws.
Join the sacramento Region Baptist Network
Statement of Basic Doctrinal Beliefs of SRBN
- As a church, we have adopted the Articles of Faith as approved by the Southern Baptist Convention, The Baptist Faith, and Message, 1963.
- We believe the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is a record of God’s revelation of Himself to man. The Bible is God’s truth, without any mixture of error.
- We believe there is one and only one living and true God. We believe that the eternal God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.
- We believe in the sinless life, atoning death, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
- We believe salvation involves the redemption of the whole man and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Salvation is a work of God’s grace that a person receives through faith and is not achieved through a person’s works.
- We believe that “all true believers endure to the end,” and that God is able to keep those who have placed their faith in Christ.
- We believe New Testament baptism is the immersion of a believer in water upon the authority of the local church. We agree to receive into our fellowship only those who have received New Testament baptism.
- We believe the Lord’s Supper is a memorial of our Lord’s death and is to be observed as such by born-again believers until He comes again.
- We believe that some of the essential qualities of a New Testament church are the worship of God, the proclamation of the Gospel, the development of believers, and participation in world missions.
Statement of Cooperation
We agree to maintain fellowship and cooperation with Southern Baptist churches and Southern Baptist work, and that when in conscience we can no longer do so, we will voluntarily withdraw.
Four Requirements to be a member of Sacramento Region Baptist Network
- Pray for the work of the network (association)
- Give at least $250 annually to the network (association)
- Give your people to work in the network (association)
- Complete and return an Annual Church Profile Report each year
Download and complete the Application to Sacramento Region Baptist Network
*Sacramento Region Baptist Network is a DBA for the Association of Southern Baptist Churches