The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship elected a Missouri lay woman as moderator-elect at the organization’s annual General Assembly June 27–29 in Fort Worth, Texas.
Cynthia Holmes of Clayton, Mo., is a St. Louis-area attorney and a member of Overland Baptist Church.
She has served several years on the CBF’s Coordinating Council, currently as an at-large member and chairperson of the council’s legal committee.
Holmes will serve next year as moderator-elect before becoming the Fellowship’s top elected leader in 2003—2004.
Phill Martin of Richardson, Texas, who was elected last year as moderator-elect, takes over as moderator this year from Virginia pastor Jim Baucom.
Holmes will be the sixth woman to assume leadership in the CBF since it was organized in 1991.
The 1,800-church Fellowship formed out of a split with the 16 million-member Southern Baptist Convention, which in recent years has sparked controversy with stances against the ordination of women in Baptist churches and that wives should submit to their husbands in the home.
New budget
Baucom completed his one-year term as CBF moderator, a non-paid leadership position, at the close of the General Assembly.
He will stay another year on the Coordinating Council and leadership team in his capacity as past moderator.
Martin, a clergyman who directs the National Association of Church Business Administrators, will preside over next year’s General Assembly, as well as at meetings of the Coordinating Council during the next year.
Paul Kenley, pastor of First Baptist Church of Lampasas, Texas, was elected to a third term as recorder.
In a business session, CBF registrants approved a $19.2 million budget for 2002–2003.
Fifty-eight percent of that amount, $11.2 million, is earmarked for global missions.
The budget anticipates $10.1 million in undesignated gifts and a $6.1 million goal for the CBF’s global-missions offering.
Other expenditures include $1.2 million in institutional support for 11 theology schools and partial support for several other “partner” organizations.
These include the Baptist Joint Committee, Associated Baptist Press, Baptists Today, the Baptist Center for Ethics, the Center for Christian Ethics and Passport, a youth camping ministry.
Strategic initiatives
About $7 million in the budget supports CBF strategic initiatives.
The initiatives are broad program categories of faith formation, building community and networking and leadership development, plus communications and marketing, General Assembly expenses and administration.
Prior to the General Assembly, the Coordinating Council filled two key positions for the CBF’s Resource Center staff in Atlanta.
North Carolina educator Bruce “Bo” Prosser becomes coordinator for congregational life.
Priority areas for the job include evangelism and outreach, spiritual growth, congregational health, marriage and family, interfaith and ecumenical dialogue and reconciliation and justice.
Veteran Baptist communicator Ben McDade becomes the director for communications and marketing. He succeeds David Wilkinson, a long-time CBF employee who recently resigned. (Alabama Baptist Press)
Share with others: