Sensitive to the need for greater diversity in leadership and increased participation of ethnics, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) voted overwhelmingly June 14 on a SBC Executive Committee (EC) recommendation asking for greater accountability regarding their involvement in SBC life.
The recommendation was a response to a motion made during the 2009 annual meeting, directing the EC to study greater involvement in the convention by ethnic churches and leaders. The proposal offered 10 specific points “designed to foster conscious awareness of the need to be proactive and intentional in the inclusion of individuals from all ethnic and racial identities within Southern Baptist life.”
The points included encouragements to make committee appointments and select program personalities that represent the diversity within the convention, “particularly ethnic diversity.” A failed attempt to amend the recommendation, brought by Channing Kilgore of South Whitwell Baptist Church, Whitwell, Tenn., would have replaced ethnicity with “gospel minded” as the criterion for selecting committee appointees.
During a news conference after the vote, Paul Kim, pastor emeritus of Antioch Baptist Church, Cambridge, Mass., said: “I want ethnic pastors and leaders to also have the opportunity to express their love for Southern Baptists in Christ. We have to work together.”
It was Kim who asked messengers at the 2009 SBC annual meeting to study how ethnic churches and leaders could better partner with others to serve the SBC.
For the first time in history, the convention will ask its entities to provide “a descriptive report of participation of ethnic churches and church leaders in the life and ministry of the respective SBC entity;” the SBC president to “give special attention to appointing individuals who represent the diversity within the convention” to committees under his purview; and a subcommittee of the EC to provide a report each year in February with an update on how each of the recommendations has been addressed.
Four other recommendations approved by messengers related to the “Great Commission Resurgence” report adopted at the 2010 annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.:
• Providing additional funding for international missions by reducing the EC’s share of Cooperative Program funding and proportionately increasing International Mission Board (IMB) funding. The proposal adopted by messengers calls for reducing the EC budget share from 3.4 percent to 3.2 percent in 2011–12, with a goal of reducing it to 2.4 percent over time.
• Adding a new Annual Church Profile reporting category called “Great Commission Giving” to highlight each church’s financial commitment to Southern Baptist mission enterprises. The recommendation also reaffirmed the Cooperative Program as “the most effective means” of missions outreach and asked churches to increase their contributions by 2.5 percent of undesignated receipts by the end of the 2013 calendar year.
• Amending the IMB ministry assignment to allow the organization to “provide specialized, defined and agreed upon assistance to the North American Mission Board (NAMB) in assisting churches to reach unreached and underserved people groups within the United States and Canada.” The current ministry assignment focuses IMB work outside the United States and Canada.
• Rewriting NAMB’s mission statement and ministry assignment. The new mission statement refocuses NAMB on partnership with churches, associations and state conventions in “mobilizing Southern Baptist as a missional force” in North America. The new ministry assignment consolidates nine points to six and rearranges its priorities. Where appointing missionaries was the first assignment, planting churches now heads the list. A previous ministry assignment on “Christian social ministries” has been merged into an assignment to assist churches “in the ministries of evangelism and making disciples.” The assignments of “communicating the gospel … through communication technologies” and “strengthening … and providing services to associations” have been eliminated.
Two additional recommendations related to the 2011–12 budget:
• Adopting a $186 million 2011–12 Cooperative Program Allocation Budget that increases the IMB’s percentage of budget receipts from 50 percent to 50.2 percent and decreases the EC’s percentage proportionately to 3.2 percent.
• Adopting a $7.47 million 2011–12 SBC Operating Budget that allocates $2.2 million to administration expenses and $5.26 million to operations expenses. The budget represents a reduction of more than $1.2 million over 2010–11. (Compiled from BP stories)
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