The Alabama Baptist State Convention adopted a record budget for 2005, but only after a motion from the floor to reduce the amount allotted to the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee failed.
The budget is the largest in the history of Alabama Baptists and includes more than $17 million going to special offerings alone, noted Craig Carlisle, Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM) chairman.
The 2005 base budget is $41,500,000. Carlisle said the amount reflects a 2.65 percent increase over the 2004 base budget.
Carlisle said the 2005 budget allows Alabama Baptists to be intentional in evangelism. “It’s about reaching people for Jesus,” he said.
The special offering amounts are: $9,500,000 to Lottie Moon Christmas Offering; $5,000,000 to Annie Armstrong Easter Offering; $1,950,000 to Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries; $875,000 to World Hunger and $100,000 to Disaster Relief.
The 2005 budget total — inclusive of the special offerings and of $500,000 for Cooperative Program (CP) state causes — is $59,425,000.
But before the budget was approved, Allan Murphy, pastor of North Shelby Baptist Church, Shelby Association, objected from the floor to the budget. He brought a motion to reduce the amount of CP money budgeted from Alabama to the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee by $30,000.
In the same motion he proposed that the $30,000 be given to the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), which the SBC pulled all financial support from earlier this year based on claims of theological liberalism in the BWA.
“I do not believe that the Baptist World Alliance and its head, Denton Lotz, the brother-in-law of Billy Graham’s daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, are theologically liberal,” Murphy told the convention.
Murphy said he and his own church are “biblically ultra-conservative” and that he is opposed to abortion and homosexuality. But he believes in supporting the BWA, something he said he tried to express at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting this summer.
“I was standing at a microphone at the Southern Baptist Convention to ask us to reconsider (stopping support to BWA) when debate was cut off. We were not even allowed to discuss the issue,” Murphy claimed.
Carlisle spoke on behalf of the SBOM 2005 budget as presented, saying it was thoughtfully planned and based on proven methods.
He added that “to amend the budget at this time would do tremendous harm to the SBOM and our entities who rely on us and whom it is our responsibility to take care of.”
No other discussion came from the floor about the motion.
Murphy asked for a written ballot vote on his motion, but that request failed because it did not earn a two-thirds simple majority vote of the messengers.
Messengers voted on Murphy’s motion by holding their ballots up, but the motion failed. The messengers then approved, also with a show-of-ballot vote, the 2005 budget that Carlisle originally presented.
In other business messengers approved the auditor’s report of the SBOM, which was for the year that ended Dec. 31, 2003.
Another business concern of the SBOM is the rising cost of insurance.
So the insurance study committee, appointed by the SBOM, reported that it is studying ways to improve health insurance coverage and lower its cost for Alabama Baptist ministers and church staffs, according to Henry Cox, who chairs the committee.
Cox, pastor of First Baptist Church, Bay Minette, and the new Alabama Baptist State Convention president, noted that “double-digit increases” have occurred not just for churches, but also in all sectors of the marketplace.
“We met three times this past year and the main principle we tried to keep in mind was the autonomy of the local church,” he said.
Adequate care
“We also had a major concern for the adequacy and affordability of health care coverage for church employees. We wanted to make sure that if you move from Alabama to a sister state that your insurance could move with you,” Cox explained.
Cox noted that the committee has been granted a one-year extension by the SBOM to continue its dialogues with GuideStone Financial Services and Blue Cross, Blue Shield of Alabama.
On the international front Reggie Quimby, director of the SBOM’s global partnerships/volunteers in missions, highlighted the Alabama Baptist-Venezuela Baptist partnership.
Joining him on stage was Jesus Pinto, the general director for administration for the National Baptist Convention of Venezuela and Jacobo Garcia, director of evangelism and discipleship of the same organization.
They expressed their love and respect for the Alabama Baptist State Convention and its ongoing assistance with ministry in Venezuela.
Also joining them were Gary and Donna Clayton, International Mission Board missionaries to Venezuela, who thanked Alabama Baptists for their CP giving.
Quimby noted that approximately 500 volunteers have helped in Venezuela in 2004 and about 4,200 decisions for Christ have resulted this year from the work.
The partnership will continue though December 2005.
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