DALLAS—Texas Baptists’ Executive Board adopted a new agreement with the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board regarding church-starting in Texas and approved the initial reserve investment, officers and board for the Texas Baptist Insurance Program.
Last May, Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Director Julio Guarneri told the Executive Board NAMB no longer would fund church starts in Texas of congregations uniquely aligned with the BGCT, since the state convention did not affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message. The 2000 version of the SBC confession of faith limits the role of pastor to men.
In response to a question from a Texas Baptist pastor at the SBC annual meeting in June, NAMB President Kevin Ezell reiterated NAMB would not fund church starts in partnership with the BGCT unless Texas Baptists changed their statement of faith.
When a messenger to the 2024 BGCT annual meeting in Waco made a motion for the convention to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, messengers soundly defeated it.
After the annual meeting, BGCT and NAMB leaders met to negotiate a new agreement regarding church-starting in Texas. The NAMB board approved the agreement two weeks before the BGCT Executive Board met.
The approved agreement states:
- NAMB will make available church planting materials, training resources and coaching identified in other states as “Send Network” resources in a “white label” format.
- NAMB will provide a $300,000 a year grant to the BGCT exclusively for church planting and will consider the application of any SBC-affiliated church in good standing. Church planters who receive funding will complete an approved assessment process. The church plants will be expected to affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.
- NAMB and the BGCT will explore the possibility of conducting planter pathway training events.
- NAMB and the BGCT will work together to “make sure that pastors, churches and associations have reliable, true and updated information as to how BGCT churches can relate to NAMB.”
Guarneri pointed out NAMB funds represent about 10 percent of what Texas Baptists invest in church starting. Texas Baptists wants to double the number of church starts in 2025 from 2024, he added.
The agreement means if a Texas Baptist church that affirms the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message wants to start a church with NAMB funding, they can do so as a congregation singly aligned with BGCT.
Guarneri said he wanted to “go on record stating that when I started this inquiry, it was not necessarily about asking for more money, but about making sure that our BGCT churches had access to resources without having to join another state convention.”
BGCT still a ‘big-tent’ convention
In a related action, the BGCT Executive Board reaffirmed its existing practice of “receiving into harmonious cooperation churches that affirm traditional Baptist beliefs as generally stated in either the 1963 or 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, or similar confessional statement.”
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In his report to the board, Guarneri noted concerns he’d heard after the BGCT annual meeting vote against affirming the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message. Some wondered whether it might mean the BGCT was moving toward the left. Others worried 2000 Baptist Faith & Message churches would no longer be welcome in the BGCT.
Guarneri said he could give a “resounding no” to both of those concerns, asserting the BGCT is still a big-tent convention that serves all Texas Baptist churches.
So, it was important for the Executive Board to affirm the BGCT practice of welcoming churches that affirm various Baptist confessions of faith.
Guarneri also noted a recommendation approved at the 2010 BGCT annual meeting that Texas Baptists review the Baptist Faith & Message in 2020 and every 10 years, in order to keep it “relevant” or “fresh.”
The review did not happen in 2020 because of COVID-19, he noted. Also, some concerns have been voiced about whether the document could be changed or whether it was proprietary to the SBC.
But the preamble affirms Baptists making faith statements as they see fit, Guarneri said, even if the decision is to call it something other than the Baptist Faith & Message. The preamble states “any group of Baptists, large or small, have the inherent right to draw up for themselves and publish to the world a confession of their faith whenever they may think it advisable to do so.”
“It’s a delicate matter,” he acknowledged, saying he felt no urgency to act, but did not want to ignore something BGCT messengers already approved.
“I would like to suggest at the appropriate time that we study what that recommendation means for our day and time,” he said.
Taking steps to make church insurance accessible
In another significant action, the Executive Board approved a recommendation from its executive committee regarding a means to make property, casualty and liability insurance available to Texas Baptist churches.
After receiving the findings of a feasibility study, the executive committee recommended the BGCT Executive Board proceed with forming a captive insurance corporation.
In response to previous action by the Executive Board last September and a motion approved at the BGCT annual meeting in November, the board authorized investing up to $12 million from the convention’s undesignated investment fund in the Texas Baptist Insurance Program to fund the necessary insurance reserve.
The board elected as initial officers of the corporation Craig Christina, associate executive director of the BGCT, as president; Sergio Ramos, director of the GC2 Network, as vice president; and Ward Hayes, BGCT treasurer-chief financial officer, as secretary-treasurer.
The nonprofit corporation’s board will consist of the BGCT associate executive director and treasurer-chief financial officer; one additional BGCT executive leader; the pastor of a BGCT-affiliated church; and the director of missions of a partnering Texas Baptist Association.
The initial board includes Christina as chair; Ramos as vice chair; Ward as secretary; Dennis Young, pastor of Missouri City Baptist Church; and David Bowman, executive director of Tarrant Baptist Association.
The Texas Baptist Insurance Program will be a corporation separate from but controlled by the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The program hopes to begin taking applications in June or July and will be open only to churches affiliated with the BGCT.
When asked where the initial $12 million would come from to fund the needed insurance reserve, Hayes said investments from 2020 COVID-relief in the form of Payroll Protection Plan funds and an employee retention tax credit, along with having stayed under budget in recent years supplies those funds.
In other business, the Executive Board:
- Elected Cynthia Jaquez from Segunda Iglesia Bautista in Corpus Christi to fill a vacancy on the Committee to Nominate Boards of Affiliated Ministries.
- Allocated $375,000 in available JK Wadley Endowment Fund earnings with $150,000 earmarked for Baptist Student Ministries campus missionaries, another $150,000 for BSM building maintenance; $50,000 for western heritage churches; and $25,000 for MinistrySafe.
- Approved the realignment of some sectors from which Executive Board members are elected. Sector boundaries are created based on resident church membership, the number of churches and Cooperative Program giving. Sector boundaries are evaluated every five years.
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