Messengers approve record budget, future relocation efforts during meeting

Alabama Baptists meeting Nov. 13 for their annual convention voted to approve a record budget, work toward a future relocation of the offices of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM) and extend the state convention’s international partnerships.
  
Messengers to the annual meeting of the Alabama Baptist State Convention, held at Cottage Hill Baptist Church, Mobile, adopted a Cooperative Program (CP) base budget of $44,585,000 for next year. The total is a 1.5 percent increase over this year’s base budget, with a challenge budget of $1 million more.
  
A total of $18,859,455 (42.3 percent) of the base budget is marked for Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) ministries. 
  
In an August SBOM meeting, SBOM Executive Director Rick Lance explained that the SBC causes receive the single largest percentage of CP receipts. The SBOM receives roughly 28 percent, and state entities and auxiliaries share another 28 percent.
  
“We don’t present you with a budget that we don’t think we can reach together,” Lance told messengers during the annual meeting.
  
He noted that with next year’s gifts, Alabama Baptists will exceed the $1 billion mark in CP giving. “I don’t know if any state has done it, but one state will do it by this time next year,” Lance said.
  
Also approved were offering goals for 2008:
   – Lottie Moon Christmas Offering — $10,500,000
   – Annie Armstrong Easter Offering — $5,500,000
   – Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries Offering — $2,475,000
   – World Hunger Offering — $875,000
   – Disaster Relief Offering — $100,000
   The offerings and increase in the budget will help fund even more Baptist ministry work, Lance said.
  
And according to Bobby DuBois, the recommendation dealing with the state board building and property was meant to help ministry dollars, too — to plan for future building needs in a way that will keep from having to dip into additional CP funds.
  
As the SBOM looks toward future relocation from South Boulevard in Montgomery, its first proposed step to convention messengers was the sale of its Taylor Road property. The property, bought years ago with future building needs in mind, cost more than $17,000 this year in property taxes and is at its peak real estate value, according to DuBois, SBOM associate executive director.
  
“If we are going to sell the property, now is the time,” he said. “We believe it’s good stewardship.”
  
The recommendation called for the funds from the land sale to be used to purchase five to 10 acres along the Interstate 65 corridor near Prattville, an area more centrally located and thus more easily accessible for state Baptists, DuBois said. 
  
All remaining funds from the Taylor Road land sale would be invested in The Baptist Foundation of Alabama to draw interest that will be used to retire the debt on the current building, he said. Once that debt is paid off, the balance, plus any additional interest earned, would be available for use for construction on the new property in future years. 
  
The strategic plan tentatively proposes a building similar in size to the current one, plus a storage building for the state’s disaster relief equipment, DuBois said. This meeting’s steps will prepare for that possibility.
  
“No matter what you might have heard, this is not a recommendation for the immediate relocation of the State Board of Missions offices,” he said. “We have no intention of moving next week or even starting construction next week.
  
“We want to minimize future need of CP dollars for capital expense,” DuBois added. “We are positioning the convention to make a decision several years down the road that won’t put a strap on CP dollars.”
  
In other land decisions, messengers approved a recommendation to transfer ownership of Bigbee Baptist Association’s office from the SBOM to the association. In previous years, the property has housed the offices of both Bigbee Association and the Baptist Campus Ministries (BCM) of the University of West Alabama (UWA) in Livingston.
  
“For 40 years, they have shared facilities,” said Mike Northcutt, SBOM chairman. “As we see expanding campus ministries needs, there is a change in which the campus minister from UWA will have responsibilities not only at UWA but also at surrounding community colleges.”
  
To facilitate this, Northcutt said the BCM needs to relocate to have more space.
  
In other business: 
   – Messengers voted to extend the convention’s partnership with Baptists in Guatemala and Ukraine until December 2011.
  
The partnerships both began in 2006.
   – Three Alabama Baptist pastors received Troy L. Morrison Leadership/Church Health awards, presented by Teman Knight, director of the SBOM office of leadership and church health.
   Travis Coleman, senior minister of First Baptist Church, Prattville, received the award for established work.
   James “Bo” Brown, pastor of Community Baptist Church, Maylene, received the award for bivocational work.
   Ric Camp, pastor of Sonrise Baptist Church, Mobile, received the new work award. 
   – The first Associational Missionary of the Year Award was presented to co-recipients Jerome King, director of missions (DOM) for East Liberty Baptist Association, and Padgett Cope, DOM for Cleburne Baptist Association who passed away Nov. 9. 
   – The auditor’s report on the SBOM was approved.
   – The SBOM recommended that its office of global partnerships and volunteers in missions change its name to office of global missions.
   During the SBOM meeting following the close of the annual meeting Nov. 14, officers were re-elected:
   Chairman — Mike Northcutt, pastor of Eastmont Baptist Church, Montgomery.
   Vice chairman — Travis Coleman, senior minister of First Baptist Church, Prattville.
   Mary Sue Bennett, special assistant to Lance, will function as secretary.