Thanks Alabama

I wanted to write to you as members of the Alabama Baptist family to  thank you personally for your support of our work through the Cooperative Program this past year.  We received $38,675,161 through the Cooperative Program budget.  This compared to $37,973,686 given in 2000. Our base budget this year was $38,295,000.

Our Convention is in a “very healthy” condition and we are all working to keep it that way!  We can do more together than any of us can do by ourselves.  You, as the family of Alabama Baptists are to be commended for a job well done. Your collective support makes it possible for us to have a global impact in ministry.

Thank you pastors, staff members, and directors of associational missions for your leadership in our local churches and associations.  Thank you, dear laypeople for your faithfulness in bringing the tithes and offerings into the storehouse (your local church).

I especially want to commend Dr. Rick Lance, Dr. Bobby Dubois, and the entire State Board of Missions staff in Montgomery for their management of these funds.  I can tell you firsthand that these leaders take their stewardship very seriously. 

Also, a big thank you to the men and women who make up the State Board of Missions who have the responsibility of presenting the budget to the Convention. Gary Hollingsworth, pastor of First Baptist Church in Trussville, is our esteemed chairman of this board.  All of them are to be commended for a job well done.

To my fellow officers of the Convention, to the heads of our entities, and to all the Alabama Baptists family-at-large, may the Lord bless you all for your leadership, stewardship, and faithfulness.  It is a joy to be an Alabama Baptist!  To God be the glory!

Mike McLemore, president Alabama State Convention