JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Seven members of rival conservative groups in the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) will go to mediation in an effort to bring about peace within the battle-torn group.
The MBC executive board voted April 15 to create a "peace committee" that will submit to Christian mediation through Peacemaker Ministries. The Billings, Mont., organization focuses on Bible-based conflict resolution. The committee makeup and its methodology were proposed by executive board member Jody Shelenhamer, a layman from First Baptist Church, Bolivar, Mo., according to MBC president Gerald Davidson.
Shelenhamer proposed four members who have been associated with the Missouri Baptist Laymen’s Association (MBLA). Three others represented a group called Save Our Convention (SOC), which has criticized what it calls an inordinate amount of control in convention life by a small group of MBLA adherents.
MBLA led a successful effort in the late 1990s to wrest control of the convention from the moderates who had dominated its leadership. However, SOC supporters have taken issue with their former allies on a handful of issues in the past year.
SOC successfully swept officer elections during the fall 2007 MBC annual meeting. That is proof, they say, that rank-and-file Missouri Baptists have grown weary of intra-conservative dissension and of what they say is a tightening of trustee representation on boards and agencies.
All seven members of the committee are men.
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