Rodney Hammer is new Estrella Association AMS

The executive board of Estrella Baptist Association unanimously affirmed Rodney Hammer as the new associational mission strategist on March 6.

Hammer served as executive director of Blue River/Kansas City Baptist Association for the last 14 years. He and his wife, Deborah, spent 18 years as International Mission Board missionaries in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe and raised their son on the mission field.

Estrella Association has identified church revitalization, church planting, pastor and staff encouragement as three priorities and challenges.

Hammer’s job is to engage and facilitate those challenges. His method is a diagnostic approach to ministry: meeting the pastors, learning about their individual churches, and understanding how he can support and encourage the pastors with help from both the Estrella Association and Arizona Mission Network of Southern Baptists.

“We want to meet the needs of the pastors and connect to our people and partners to see how the Lord might want the association to be directly involved in ministry,” Hammer said.

“I’ve enjoyed meeting leaders and pastors in the association,” he said. “They are a sharp, supportive group with a lot of enthusiasm for where we can go from here.”
Hammer recently met with Monty Patton, AZMN associate executive director, to find out what God is already doing in the state and associations.

“We want to connect our people and partners to see how the Lord might want the association to be directly involved in meeting community needs,” he said.
During his time at Blue River/Kansas City Baptist Association, his churches and leaders worked together to help plant 43 churches.

“I’m going be out with the churches most of the time getting to know the pastors and staff, and learning how we can be most helpful, encouraging and supportive,” he said. “Together, we want to pursue those objectives/challenges of revitalization, church planting, and pastor and staff encouragement.”

Hammer will be meeting individually with 12 pastors in the first two weeks of April and will meet all the pastors as quickly as possible.

Deborah is a missionary and serves wherever she is. Last year she performed 1,000 hours in volunteer ministry, mostly through helping victims of human trafficking, all while being employed full time.

They share a passion for victims of human trafficking. In 2015 while executive director of Blue River/Kansas City Baptist Association, Hammer was instrumental in opening Restoration House of Greater Kansas City, a safe house for adult women survivors of sex trafficking, providing a full spectrum of care, counseling and personal development. He is interested in learning more about the human trafficking situation in Arizona to determine if he can make a difference here.

Irene A. Harkleroad, a freelance writer living in Carefree, is a member of Black Mountain Baptist Church, Cave Creek.