Posted: 11/17/06

Pastors face stresses,
challenges of corporate CEO’s

By Greg Garrison

Religion News Service

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) —New Hope Baptist Church Pastor Gregory Clarke sometimes feels like the CEO of a major corporation—or more than one.

“I’m president of three corporations, superintendent of the school and pastor of the church,” Clarke said. Make that two campuses, with a combined membership of 3,000 people.

The 53-year-old pastor has begun realizing the need for a full-time administrator on staff with business experience and training—something the church hasn’t had.

These days, many pastors of large churches are looking more like chief executive officers of corporations. They often have CEO-like responsibilities, salaries, perks and benefits, but also the dueling duties of running both business and spiritual entities.

“When you have thousands of members and millions of dollars, you become not just a pastor but a CEO,” said Michael Moore, pastor of the 6,000-member Faith Chapel Christian Center in Wylam, Ala., who has a degree in business administration.

To help alleviate the burden on pastors with CEO responsibilities, churches increasingly have been packing their staffs with financial wizards and veterans of business.

The preaching appeal of a pastor can have large financial implications for a church.

The Church at Brook Hills experienced that after the retirement of Pastor Rick Ousley, who helped the congregation grow from 30 members in 1990 to worship attendance of 4,000 in 2005. After Ousley retired a year ago, Sunday worship attendance dropped off to 2,300. That meant Brook Hills had to adjust its budget from $6.5 million to $5.5 million. With new Pastor David Platt preaching regularly since June, attendance is back up to 3,000-plus and the budget is adjusting upward again.

Churches have to pay competitive salaries to get the top leadership.

The salary and housing package for 882 ordained ministers serving as senior pastors ranges from a low of $15,500 to an average of $95,100 to a high of $361,000, according to a survey of churches that belong to the National Association of Church Business Administration. At churches with a $2 million budget or more, the average salary for a senior pastor is $121,000. Salaries in the South are higher than at churches in the North, Northeast and West, according to the survey. Churches did not disclose individual salaries except anonymously through the survey.

The pay for megachurch pastors may be generous, but the demands are onerous. In the past, members of the church often have expected the pastor to run everything from the pulpit to the bank account. It still can be that way, Clarke said.

“I feel that pressure,” he said. “It’s the perception that things come easy.”

Clarke is president of a community development corporation called Swan—the Southwest Area Network—and of a credit union and senior adult apartment center founded by the church.

“Our church has gone into so many different areas,” said Clarke, who oversaw recent construction on the senior adult center.

“Any successful church, it’s like a business,” said Pat Sullivan, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Birmingham.

“You have to have the right people heading up the right departments. Any pastor today who tries to run the show on his own is destined to not succeed.”

At First Baptist Church in Pelham, Ala., Pastor Mike Shaw has given up many of his former duties overseeing the budget as the church has grown. “I’ve learned to delegate,” he said. “I’m Brother Mike. I’m a pastor. I want to disciple people. I still see people when their kids want to be saved. You’ve got to delegate the financial things.”

Other pastors of churches that have long had administrators with extensive business experience highly recommend delegating and setting up management for the church that meets or exceeds corporate accounting standards. “If you tie up a minister with those responsibilities, it becomes more than he can do,” said Betty O’Neil, administrator for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Birmingham. “The law has gotten more complex. The fiduciary responsibility became more than a volunteer treasurer can do.”

Jim Lowe, pastor of Birmingham’s Guiding Light Church, has hired six staff members who previously held executive jobs at secular or Christian corporations.

“We are competing with the business world,” Lowe said. “If I’m going to get the best talent, I’ve got to pull them from the corporate world.”

Posted: 11/17/06

Congregations embrace
the business side of religion

By Greg Garrison

Religion News Service

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS)—Generating as much as $25 million a year through 105 ministries, Briarwood Presbyterian Church touches the world like a multinational corporation.

“Fifty cents of every dollar goes outside the church—whether it’s Campus Outreach or Bangladesh,” said Bruce Stallings, Briarwood’s executive pastor. “We are able to support missions all around the world.”

Founded in a storefront in 1960, Briarwood operates what’s likely the biggest church budget in Alabama, with ministries such as a ballet, high school, seminary and missions to prisoners, businessmen, students and foreign countries.

Briarwood has an operating budget of $10 million, and then it collects $2.5 million more over and above tithes to devote to mission work. When all of its affiliate ministries are combined, the budget rises to about $25 million.

Similar vast corporate church operations are on the rise. The largest congregations—those with memberships in the thousands and budgets in the millions—operate like Church Inc.

They embrace the business side of religion, often recruiting staff with corporate experience and adopting business world methods—hiring consultants, starting endowments and taking tithes electronically—as they try to meet the challenge of handling God’s business with both accounting savvy and spiritual integrity.

“There’s a need to step up to a higher level of professionalism and accountability within churches,” said former accountant, lawyer and seminary graduate Bryan Gunn, now minister of administration at Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham.

“A lot of churches operate on the philosophy that if you’re not broke, you’re not operating on faith,” said Paul Berry of the Covenant Group, a Christian consulting group. “That’s not good stewardship.”

For Chris Hodges, pastor at Church of the Highlands, also in Birmingham, it means running his congregation’s $9.5 million budget like a corporation.

“I use more of my business degree than I do my seminary degree,” said Hodges, who preaches to 4,000 people at three campuses on Sunday mornings with help from video feeds. “When you really treat it like a business, it reaches more people.”

Churches have been updating their methods to deal with the delicate merger of faith and finance. The offering plate still gets passed, but now churches frequently accept bank transfers, bequests and stock donations. Many issue budgets that look like corporate annual reports; Church of the Highlands does two a year, one on funding of projects outside the church and one on cash flow.

“I treat it like an annual stockholders’ report,” Hodges said. “Every person can see how every penny is spent.”

Church of the Highlands, started in 2001, saves 50 percent of its income to avoid future debt and paid $7 million cash for 128 acres to build a $15 million campus that will open next year.

Million-dollar budgets require a high level of professional management. The structure of many churches sometimes mirrors corporate America, with financial professionals helping pastors, who sometimes themselves have business experience, such as Shades Mountain Baptist Church Pastor Danny Wood, a former BellSouth executive.

“It’s a church, but it’s also a business,” said Michael Moore, pastor of the 6,000-member Faith Chapel Christian Center in Wylam, Ala., who has a degree in business administration. “You have to measure your spending, but it’s God’s business.”

In a way, churches have to meet the needs of members just as businesses meet the needs of customers, Moore said. Faith Chapel is spending $15 million to build a series of domes that will house a bowling alley, athletic center, teen disco and adult nightclub.

“If we only meet spiritual needs, where will people go to get the other needs met?” Moore said. “The purpose of money is to meet the needs of the people. We believe the heart of our ministry is meeting spiritual needs. We have other needs, to relate to people, to have fun. You can have fun and love God, too.”

But ministers say God’s business shouldn’t be run like a corporation in all aspects.

“You don’t treat church members like you would customers in a business,” said Hunter Street Baptist administrator Morrell Dodd, a former vice president of the Bruno’s supermarket chain. “The business side of what we do—obviously there is one—we prefer that be in the background.”

A lack of business savvy and accounting can haunt a church when fraud happens. After a 1988 fire destroyed All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Homewood, Ala., the trouble compounded when a senior warden embezzled and spent $313,000 in insurance funds intended for rebuilding. The church did not press charges against the warden.

Gary Fenton is pastor of Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. “People have a right to expect the money and time they give to the church will be used in a way that glorifies God and helps humanity,” Fenton said. (RNS photo by Beverly Taylor/The Birmingham News)

In July, the Presbyterian Church (USA) fired its treasurer, who admitted embezzling $102,000 in church funds. In 1995, the U.S. Episcopal Church fired treasurer Ellen Cooke, the wife of a priest, and sued her for embezzling $2.2 million in church funds. The thefts may have also cost the church nearly $400,000 in interest, making the total loss as much as $2.6 million, according to an audit report.

Church business administrators warn safeguards must be in place.

People almost expect a lack of ethics and financial impropriety in business; in church it’s inexcusable, said Gunn, the administrator at Shades Mountain Baptist. “We answer to a higher standard.”

Following accounting procedures means nobody ever is alone with money, and different teams check it at different stages, Gunn said. One team counts money, then another team makes a second count, still another team makes the deposit. The administrator has accountants backing him up.

“I need somebody behind me, so none of us are in a position to commit fraud and cover it up,” Gunn said. “It keeps you from being falsely accused.”

When churches run their budgets with integrity and provide facilities that promote spirituality and support for ministry, churches are able to do more of God’s work, Gunn said. “Out of that growth, people give,” he said.

“We work very carefully to make sure we are in compliance with good management techniques,” said Gary Fenton, pastor of Birmingham’s Dawson Memorial Baptist Church, which has a $7.2 million annual budget.

“People have a right to expect the money and time they give to the church will be used in a way that glorifies God and helps humanity.”

Greg Garrison writes for The Birmingham News in Birmingham, Ala.

Posted: 11/17/06

Posted: 11/17/06

African-American rally focuses
on worship & thanksgiving

By Jenny Pope

Buckner International

LEWISVILLE—Hundreds of African-American Texas Baptists gathered at Westside Baptist Church to worship God and give thanks for the growth of African-American churches in the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

“We haven’t gotten to where we want to be, but we’re further than we used to be,” said Oscar Epps, founding pastor of Community Baptist Church in DeSoto.

• See complete list of convention articles

“It took a collective effort. You cannot have community if you don’t have unity.”

Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Director Charles Wade praised BGCT President Michael Bell, the convention’s first African-American president, as well as the growing number of BGCT-affiliated African-American churches working together to “advance all the interests of the Redeemer’s kingdom.”

Wade also asked the congregation for prayer in a time of need, referring to the recent investigation of the misappropriation of BGCT church startup funds in the Rio Grande Valley.

“There is no manuscript of what I’ll preach tomorrow” at the BGCT annual meeting, he said. “What I preach tomorrow only God knows.”

Ronald Edwards, president of the African American Fellowship of Texas, presented an award of appreciation to Michael Evans, director of BGCT African-American ministries, who decided to leave his position in order to devote full attention to his pastorate at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Mansfield. “I am humbled by this opportunity, this chapter in my life, and I’m trusting God that there are even greater days ahead,” Bell said.

Posted: 11/17/06

Battle of the Bands winner The Jonathan Stege Band won the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ first Battle of the Bands competition, held in conjunction with the BGCT annual meeting. The band, which leads worship for the college group at First Baptist Church in Lubbock, beat out 11 other competitors. • See complete list of convention articles Trae Castles Band won second place. Iconoclast won third. The Jonathan Stege Band will receive studio recording time and a spot on the BGCT Youth Evangelism Conference fx band lineup in July. Trae Castles Band and Iconoclast both won Guitar Center gift certificates. More than 350 people attended the event, which was part of Weekend Fest activities that led up to the BGCT annual meeting.

Posted: 11/17/06

Trust in God in turbulent
times, president tells BGCT

By Sara Hawkins

Houston Baptist University

DALLAS—In turbulent times, Texas Baptists can rest in the promise: “God will take care of you,” Michael Bell of Fort Worth told the Baptist General Convention of Texas in his president’s address.

“As I prepare to exit stage left, I am compelled to call your attention to the importance of your participation and your increased involvement in the life of our convention,” Bell said.

“One of the under-appreciated strengths of our partnering together is the participation of the members of our churches on convention committees. It tremendously blesses our work.”

When briefly addressing the issues currently facing the BGCT in the Rio Grande Valley, Bell used his distaste for flying as an example.

“When it comes to traveling, I must confess, I do not like flying. I avoid flying at all cost. And it’s because of the turbulence. But I had an epiphany a couple months ago. To get from here to there, you have to experience turbulence sometimes. Ladies and gentlemen, we have experienced turbulence.

• See complete list of convention articles

“We just have to ride it out. But there is calmer air ahead. Be not dismayed; God will take care of you.”

At the beginning of his term, Bell said, he sought to represent the interests of all Texas Baptists as well as improve the president’s council on the BGCT Cooperative Program and attempted to think generationally while forming stronger alliances with Kids Hope USA.

He also convened the first Inter-Fellowship Consultation—a gathering that included the leaders of community groups, the Texas Fellowship of Cowboy Churches, Hispanic Baptist Convention, African American Fellowship of Churches, intercultural ministries, and smaller-membership churches and bivocational ministers.

The purpose of convening the consortium was to strengthen their involvement in the life of the BGCT.

• See complete list of Valley funds scandal articles

“As the convention continues to become more and more diverse, God continues to nudge us beyond the cozy confines of our comfort zones,” Bell said. “We truly are a broad Baptist family. We must negotiate the tension between diversity and inclusion. We have made significant strides toward inclusion in the decision- making process, we must build on this. What I said at the beginning of this journey is still true. The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.”

Bell told messengers their participation is essential to the success of the BGCT.

“The BGCT doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, this is collaboration, and together we are doing more,” he said.

Posted: 11/17/06

Texas Baptists challenged to ‘share the light’

By Craig Bird

Baptist Child & Family Services

DALLAS—The question for Texas Baptists is “how do we do more together this century to tell the world about Jesus Christ,” Duane Brooks, pastor of Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston, told the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting.

“God is calling us, not to perpetuate the past, but to be a light to all the people of the earth,” Brooks said during the annual meeting sermon. “If we have more memories of a glorious past than dreams of the future, we are dying.”

Anyone can count the seeds in an apple by cutting it open, but “only God can count the number of apples in a seed,” he pointed out.

“When we spend all our time figuring out what can be done if we invest this much money, this program, that is counting seeds. But when each of us becomes a seed God can use, we not only will bring salvations, but we will be salvation.”

God’s vision for his people surpasses their dreams, he said.

“Whatever our vision for Texas Baptists is, it is unlikely that our vision is greater than God’s vision for us,” he explained, calling for a commitment to “being servants” rather than “serving.”

“If I choose to serve, then I get to choose whom, when and where I serve,” he explained. “But if I am a servant, then I serve at the pleasure of the master who created and redeemed me. I have no agenda of my own.”

• See complete list of convention articles

Recounting an experience from his student days at Baylor University, Brooks told of a next-door neighbor from Ghana whose sexually immoral lifestyle, blaring music that surged through paper-thin apartment walls and a habit of stealing newspapers caused Brooks to resent him.

But one evening, Brooks heard someone knock on the neighbor’s door and turned down his television to eavesdrop. He recognized the voice of Ed Wittner, music minister at Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in Waco, and listened as Wittner shared the plan of salvation with the young man. Then he heard his neighbor pray to receive Christ.

“I hung my head and wept,” he confessed. “I had grown up giving to Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong missions offerings. As pastor, I had led my churches to give increasing amounts to those mission offerings. But God had to send another minister to win the soul of my next-door neighbor.”

Texas is filled with such neighbors today, he noted. “And it’s time we quit outsourcing ‘missions’ to Lottie Moon and invest our lives in spreading the gospel.”

Preaching from Isaiah, Brooks explored what the Scriptures say about being a servant.

“It is easy to grow weary as servants,” he admitted. “Isaiah says, ‘I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain.’ He almost gives in to despair. Perhaps his role is not as important as he had thought. But he never loses sight of the God in whose hand he rests and the God who is his great reward and portion. And in the next verse, he remembers God’s purpose and power.

“My friend Shawn Shannon always has an excellent answer when I ask her how she is doing. ‘I am sustained.’ If we are sustained today, it is because we have a Savior who upholds us. When we choose to serve the most high God, we can trust him to sustain us even in the darkest times.”

Texas Baptists servants “must share the light with the nations” by “embodying the light that is Jesus Christ” as well as “extending the light to the ends of the earth.”

“If we will not take salvation to the ends of the earth, God will find someone who will,” he concluded. “While we wrestle over the control of our convention and institutions, the world is dying without Christ, and our state is dying without Christ, and our cities are dying without Christ.

“I challenge you to go back to your churches and say, ‘Beginning now, let’s start going on short-term mission trips every day for the rest of our lives to tell our world about Jesus.’”

Posted: 11/17/06

Church starting policies
designed to ensure accountability

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—A workshop during the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting provided a peek into new, strengthened church starting guidelines that include more accountability and frequent assessment meetings.

• See complete list of convention articles

The session—originally billed as a discussion of the BGCT Valley investigation but changed when the Executive Board called a special meeting at the same time—provided pastors and associational directors details of the strategic church starting guidelines, which will roll out officially next February as proposed policy.

Jimmie Auten, director of missions for Greater Forthood Baptist Association, looks at proposed BGCT church starting policies.

The BGCT Executive Board passed a motion Nov. 13 that requires BGCT staff leaders to show the church starting guidelines to the board for approval.

“Sometimes the ball gets fumbled, and we want an intentional process from Day 1 so that all parties—the churches, the sponsors and all involved—have a clear understanding of their roles,” said Ron Gunter, chief operating officer of the BGCT Executive Board staff.

“A disconnect exists between church planters, starters, associations and the BGCT, which called for a dialogue and establishment of new starting process.”

To cultivate and train church planters more effectively, the BGCT has strengthened its process with a strategic plan developed during the past nine months by 300 Texans involved in church planting.

The scope of the BGCT church starting project was to develop a process for congregational strategists, church starters and affinity groups to use when starting and developing churches that are reproducing and contributing to the convention.

“The new strategic process will provide a consistent, repeatable and accountable process when starting and developing new churches,” said Andre Punch, BGCT Congregational Strategists Team director.

“We want to establish a baseline from which to measure future accomplishments, to qualify what works and what does not, and to determine strength and weaknesses.”

• See complete list of Valley funds scandal articles

Eleven components will be assessed at every step of the new church start. One of the most critical elements of the new BGCT church starting process will be the qualification and selection of church starters.

“If this is not done, it cripples the whole church starting process,” said Tim Randolph, a BGCT congregational strategist.

The church starting process is built around strong relationships between the various partners committed to achieving the same goal—new healthy churches that reproduce and replenish church starting funds through the BGCT Cooperative Program.

The process will start with an online BGCT application, followed by a call from a BGCT church starter—the start of a relationship. A resource assessment will take place, and the BGCT will see where it can fill the gaps.

The church planter enlistment starts the process of discovering and involving leaders in the church starting experience.

Prayer and spiritual vitality are pillars of the new BGCT church starting process, which includes determining whether a church starting leader demonstrates maturity, growth and spiritual life, Randolph said.

A new more-explicit covenant will list the roles of each person in the church starting process with mutual understandings that clearly guide relationships, teachings and behaviors aligned to the Bible.

Another important component is intentional mentoring and coaching relationships that befriend, teach and advise leaders in the church starting process.

Other components include:

• Core group development—Establishment and maintenance of the essential group of people who are committed to the church starting experience

• Vision development—how a God-driven dream continues to support the church starting experience

• Church type—a unique identification through ministry and worship designed for a group or given body of baptized believers

• Lay leaders.

• Training and development.

• Funding.

Posted: 11/17/06

City Reach meets needs

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

DALLAS—Sharing an 18-wheeler of donated chicken and Christian love, the Baptist General Convention of Texas City Reach 2006 missions project connected with hundreds of families across the Dallas-Fort Worth area during a “Day of Sharing” partnership with Lift Up America.

The BGCT City Reach collaboration with Lift Up America—a corporate partnership that included Tyson, Interstate Batteries, FC Dallas and Ty Beanie Babies—was the first initiative of its kind for the Texas Baptist convention.

The City Reach 2006 alliance will put food on the tables for many less fortunate families in the Thanksgiving season. Volunteers distributed more than 20,000 donated chickens to needy people through Baptist churches or affiliated agencies during the missions effort, scheduled in conjunction with the BGCT annual meeting.

• See complete list of convention articles

“We had 23 Baptist churches and relief agencies pick up the bulk of their Tyson chicken distribution this morning,” said Gerald Davis, BGCT community missions specialist and coordinator of City Reach 2006.

Texas Baptist Men volunteers loaded trucks and vans at the Baptist Building parking lot, including one headed for Valley View Baptist Church in Farmers Branch.

“This will help us tremendously,” said Ernie Boren, pastor of Valley View Baptist Church. “We are seeing an increase in the numbers of families needing food this year.”

Distributing chicken and a message of hope through Christ, Valley View aided at least 35 needy families in one day, and church leaders expected to help another 35 families before Thanksgiving.

“We had a 30-year-old lady who was saved in the parking lot,” Boren said. “She became a Christian during a block party last weekend. We also gave the names of 35 prospective Hispanic church members to our mission church.”

Posted: 11/17/06

Fellowship of Cowboy Churches
points to continued growth

By Barbara Bedrick

Texas Baptist Communications

WAXAHACHIE—Pastors and western-heritage church leaders who believe God must be a cowboy at heart voted to ramp up the growth of the cowboy church movement at the Texas Fellowship of Cowboy Churches 2006 Annual Cowboy Gathering, prior to the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting.

Fellowship members voted to increase their current budget of $120,000 to $290,500, hire two staff members, double church planting school funds from $4,800 to $10,000, double ranch house school funding to $8,000 and quadruple event funding.

The BGCT 2007 budget, approved by messengers to the annual meeting, increased funding for the fellowship fourfold—earmarking $25,500 for western-heritage churches.

“The BGCT has been there for me as a pastor,” said Charles Higgs, director of BGCT western-heritage ministries. “They realize we’re reaching lost souls for Christ and want to be a part of that. God has given me the privilege of walking with men I admire.” Higgs leads Erath County Cowboy Church in Stephenville, where he is founding pastor.

The fellowship hired 2006 President Greg Horn to expand the cowboy church outreach in East Texas and Shannon Morgan, pastor of Palo Duro Cowboy Church in Canyon, to expand the westernheritage movement in West Texas and the Panhandle, including Midland-Odessa, Lubbock and South Plains, as well as South Texas. Members also voted to almost triple the chuck wagon and western hauler outreach efforts.

“Sometimes God uses nobodies like me to do his work,” Horn said. “I’ve been honored to serve as your president and look forward to working for you to reach others for Christ. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come in a year.”

“The western-heritage church movement continues to gain strength as numbers of new cowboy churches started by the Baptist General Convention of Texas have almost doubled from 51 to 82 in 2006 alone,” said Ron Nolen, director of the Texas Fellowship of Cowboy Churches. “The amazing thing is we baptized more than 3,000 Christians this year so far.

“We know there is a need for the western-heritage church. Seventy-five percent of these people will be adult men and women never before targeted. We’ve got work to do. We’ve got to put boots to the ground and cross the state to meet this unreached segment of Texas.”

Fellowship members also elected 2007 officers, including President Pat Traxler, pastor of Brush Country Cowboy Church in George West, Vice President Paul Howie, pastor of Leon River Cowboy Church in Eastland, and Secretary Jamey Burrus, pastor of Cowboy Church of Young County in Graham.

Posted: 11/17/06

DaVinci Code DVD dialogue a starting place

By Jenny Pope

Buckner International

DALLAS—With the upcoming release of the DaVinci Code on DVD, Dallas pastor Jim Denison believes the best-selling book remains relevant because “it’s an opportunity to have a conversation with culture.”

“The DaVinci Code is so popular because it reinforces what this culture already wants to believe,” said Denison, pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church, noting more than 50 million people claim to have read the book and 10 million say it has influenced their faith.

The novel, which claims to be based on historical fact, has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide. The book claims Jesus Christ was elevated to false deity by third-century Roman emperor Constantine the Great. It also claims Jesus married Mary Magdalene, who gave birth to a daughter who holds the bloodline of Christ.

• See complete list of convention articles

“If the conversation about this book is based solely on facts, we’d win,” Denison said, adding that the Christian New Testament and numerous documents that proclaim Jesus as deity date hundreds of years prior to Constantine’s proposed third-century trickery.

Denison suggested the best way to handle cultural conflicts is to “engage the culture where the culture is” and have conversations.

“Become the salt and the light to the world. Salt dies, and light diffuses,” he said. “When salt flavors food, it stops being itself to become something greater. In the same way, you have to die to yourself to become the salt of the earth.”

Denison also encouraged Baptists to see where God is giving them influence and evaluate where they can engage others for the kingdom, even if it means taking a stand politically and running for public office.

“We cannot stand for a world where Christians cannot speak with a biblical world view,” he said. “Every Christian should ask that question: Should I run for office? I can’t wait for a day where Christians can stand unabashedly and state their beliefs.”

Posted: 11/17/06

Steps already taken to
implement recommendations

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

DALLAS—All of the recommendations made by an investigative team regarding misuse of church starting funds in the Rio Grande Valley will be implemented—and some were initiated long before the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board mandated them, Executive Director Charles Wade said.

At a closed-door meeting Nov. 13, the board voted to implement the recommendations “expeditiously and in full.” The board also instructed Chairman Bob Fowler to name an ad hoc committee to monitor implementation and report to the Executive Board at its February meeting.

“Now we’re going to sit down with key staff, identify everything in the Executive Board motions, break the items down and develop plans, assign responsibility and set timelines,” Wade said. “We are prepared to give an accounting. We’re going to work on that.”

• See complete list of convention articles

Wade once again stressed his commitment to leading the BGCT Executive Board staff through the process, dismissing rumors of any imminent retirement announcement.

In an interview immediately following the BGCT annual meeting, Wade outlined his plans for carrying out the seven recommendations presented to the board by the investigators who uncovered mismanagement and misuse of church starting funds in the Valley.

• Church starting guidelines should be reviewed and revised.

The process review began in February—before the investigative team even started to work, Wade noted. Chief Operating Officer Ron Gunter worked with Tim Randolph—former associational director of missions and now a BGCT congregational strategist—in the review process. (See related story on page 16.)

At its Nov. 13 meeting, the Executive Board approved a motion that the guidelines be elevated to “policy” status and be incorporated into the BGCT policy manual. Policies are mandatory provisions established by the Executive Board that can be modified only by the board. Guidelines are developed by staff and can be revised by the chief executive officer.

• Develop more accurate and accessible mortality rates for new churches.

Personal contacts by congregational strategists around the state and calls by service center personnel will help verify whether church starts survive and thrive, Wade noted.

• Integrate and coordinate record keeping.

The BGCT Executive Board staff already has adopted two software programs—one related to finances and the other designed to help track church relations, Wade said.

• See complete list of Valley funds scandal articles

Staff also is “making headway” toward consolidating more than 80 databases previously maintained by individual offices in the Baptist Building, he noted. The largest ones have been completed, and staff continues to work on eliminating duplications and errors.

• Develop better internal controls over disbursements.

“We’re going to make sure there’s adequate oversight over checking” and related accounting issues, Wade said. “We don’t have to wait for the board to do that.”

• Control and design of BGCT reporting systems should be performed by the accounting department.

The specifics of how to implement that recommendation have not been determined yet, Wade noted.

However, he pointed out a related matter—implementing an internal audit function—already was in process long before the investigators brought their report. The Executive Board’s audit committee introduced the idea at the board’s May meeting.

• Response to allegations must be immediate.

“We are going to create a culture of accountability,” Wade said. “When we hear anybody complain, we’re not going to just dismiss those complaints out of hand.”

• Trust, but verify.

The internal audit function will help the BGCT Executive Board staff verify not only financial information but all quantifiable data, Wade noted.

Rebuilding trust and correcting problems demands high priority, and Wade pledged to give it the deserved attention. However, the problems revealed by the investigators’ report cannot become an all-consuming passion, he stressed.

“As grievous as this matter is and as committed as I am to resolving these issues, this cannot be the focus of all our energies,” Wade said. “We have ministry to do, churches to encourage and a missions vision to implement.”