IMB dips into contingency funds. International Mission Board Treasurer David Steverson told trustees of the agency the mission board faces a budget shortfall “crisis.” Steverson announced the IMB would be forced to pull $7.5 million from contingency funds in order to balance the budget. However, he also told trustees more missionaries will be sent this year than originally planned, thanks to special offerings collected by Southern Baptists. In May, trustees were forced to reduce missionary appointments because of a shortfall in funding from the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The appointment of 69 long-term candidates and some 350 short-term candidates waiting to serve on the mission field was delayed. Now, about 25 of those 69 long-term candidates will be added to a group of 37 already slated for appointment in November.
International seminary’s future in doubt. European Baptist leaders gathered in Prague, Czech Republic, Oct. 1-2 to discuss the future of the cash-strapped International Baptist Theological Seminary. The seminary—owned and operated by 51 Baptist unions and conventions that make up the European Baptist Federation—has been hit hard by a weak dollar diminishing the value of gifts from the United States, rising maintenance and energy costs, and a global banking crisis that has eroded endowment funds. Leaders said finances could force the seminary to sell all or part of its campus in Prague, where it relocated from Ruschlikon, Switzerland, in 1995. If leaders determine the school must move, options are to either seek a more affordable site in Prague or relocate to another European Baptist partner union, possibly changing the language of instruction and accreditation.
NAMB taps former SBC president. North American Mission Board trustees elected Frank Page, former Southern Baptist Convention president and South Carolina pastor, as vice president of the mission board’s evangelization group. Page served as Southern Baptist Convention president from 2006 to 2008. He has been pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., near Greenville, since 2001. The church ranks in the top 95th percentile of SBC churches for number of baptisms, with 144 reported in 2008, and the congregation plants a new church each year. Page is a graduate of Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina and holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in Christian ethics from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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