BGCT clears hurdle toward BWA membership_20705

Posted: 2/04/05

BGCT clears hurdle toward BWA membership

By Ferrell Foster

Texas Baptist Communications

The North American Baptist Fellowship–one of six regional bodies in the Baptist World Alliance–voted in January to accept the Baptist General Convention of Texas as a member.

The BGCT and the Baptist General Association of Virginia became the first two state conventions granted membership in the North American Fellowship.

In the past, Texas Baptists related to the BWA through the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC withdrew from the BWA last year alleging theological liberalism, a charge refuted by Baptists around the world.

“For decades Texas Baptists have enjoyed healthy fellowship with our brothers and sisters in the Baptist World Alliance,” said Don Sewell, director of the BGCT's Texas Partnerships Resource Center.

“Through our BWA connections, we can participate in far more evangelism, church planting and community work than we can ever experience without such vital ties. Our BWA friends are biblically conservative and evangelistically zealous. I admire their faith and their joy in the Lord in spite of tremendous obstacles.”

Messengers to the 1997 BGCT annual meeting in Austin voted for the convention to “explore the possibility of the BGCT becoming a member organization” of the BWA.

That option was not open until last year, when the BWA altered its rules for membership, which previously had been limited to national Baptist bodies.

The BGCT Executive Board will be asked in its March 1 meeting to approve pursuit of BWA membership, said BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade.

If so, Sewell will present the application to BWA's membership committee during a March 7 meeting in Falls Church, Va. If that committee approves, Baptists from around the world will vote on the BGCT's application during the BWA Centennial Congress July 27-31 in Birmingham, England.

The BGCT already is a financial supporter of the BWA and its ministries. Last year, Texas Baptists gave $129,000 to BWAid projects through the Texas Baptist World Hunger Offering. They also have spent $50,000 a year on church planting efforts of the European Baptist Federation, which is one of the six regional BWA fellowships.