Posted: 3/03/06
| Baptist General Convention of Missouri Executive Director Jim Hill shakes hands with BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade. |
Executive Board approves
Texas/Missouri partnership
By Ken Camp
Managing Editor
DALLAS—At its inaugural meeting, the reconstituted Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board ap-proved a three-year partnership linking Texas Baptists with the Baptist General Con-vention of Missouri.
The board ratified a strategic partnership agreement with the Baptist General Con-vention of Missouri, a fellowship of 125 churches formed when fundamentalists gained control of the Missouri Baptist Convention.
According to the agreement, staff from the Missouri and Texas state conventions will meet for annual joint strategy-development sessions, where they will collaborate on program initiatives and resource development.
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| Baptist World Alliance President David Coffey underscores the importance of Texas Baptist involvement in the global Baptist fellowship. |
“We value this relationship with Texas Baptists. Not everybody wants to have a relationship with us,” said Missouri Executive Director Jim Hill.
The Southern Bap-tist Convention refused contributions from the fledgling Missouri convention, cutting it off from representation at the SBC annual meeting, and the institutions affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Missouri have been embroiled in a prolonged legal dispute with the Missouri Baptist Convention.
However, Hill noted, the Baptist General Convention of Missouri has been received into the North American Baptist Fellowship and will seek full membership in the Baptist World Alliance, following in the steps of the BGCT and the Baptist General Association of Virginia.
During a two-day board meeting, directors also approved budget reallocations to fit the revamped BGCT organizational structure, named committees and subcommittees for the revamped Executive Board and heard a challenge from Baptist World Alliance President David Coffey.
The 90-member Execu-tive Board met for the first time since BGCT annual meeting messengers granted final approval to governing documents that reduced the board’s size by more than half and granted it greater decision-making authority.
“This Executive Board has the opportunity to shape the decisions for which it is accountable,” said BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade, who told directors they were “making history.”
The Executive Board’s five standing committees—Executive Committee, Audit Committee, Administration Support Committee, Institu-tional Relations Committee and Church Missions & Ministries Committee—met for the first time.
The committees appointed subcommittees composed entirely of Executive Board directors, as well as councils, commissions and groups that also include Texas Baptists not on the board.
BGCT Chief Operating Officer Ron Gunter introduced the staff operations team and presented an update on restructuring. Congregational strategists and church starters have been deployed to nine service areas around the state, and affinity group strategists are in place to serve African-American, Hispanic, intercultural and Western heritage churches, he reported.
The board approved a recommendation from its Administration Support Committee authorizing budget transfers and reallocations within the approved $49.4 million budget to conform to the reorganized staff structure.
The board also approved a $1.77 million advance budget for the reorganization, with funding to come from income and unrealized gain on trust funds and any Cooperative Program receipts exceeding the approved budget.
BWA President David Coffey underscored the importance of Texas Baptist involvement in a global Baptist fellowship that seeks to become known as “good news people” and “living water people” who are committed to meeting both physical and spiritual needs.
“We need Texas Baptists, and I dare say Texas Baptists need the world family,” he said.
Through the BWA, Texas Baptists have an opportunity to join Baptists worldwide in evangelism and holistic missions, addressing the problems of human trafficking and HIV/AIDS, combating poverty, working for peace and standing for religious liberty and human rights, Coffey said.
In other business, the BGCT Executive Board approved:
• Engaging the Grant Thornton accounting firm to conduct the 2005 financial audit.
• Bylaws revisions for the Baptist Foundation of Texas to bring terminology into compliance with the reorganized BGCT structure.
• Routine bylaws revisions for the Baptist Health Foundation of Texas.
• Using $750,000 in unrestricted funds for contingency to meet missions and ministry needs in 2006.
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