May 5, 1999
Fifth giving option
recommended for Texas Baptists
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___A fifth option in Texas Baptists' Cooperative Program unified budget has been approved by the Baptist General Convention of Texas' Administrative Committee.
___The proposal would enable churches to channel about 73 percent of their cooperative-giving dollars to BGCT ministries. The remainder would be allocated to the Southern Baptist Convention's International and North American mission boards, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and Annuity Board in Dallas, along with the Baptist World Alliance.
___The option would not allocate funds to the other traditional SBC recipients of the Cooperative Program--five SBC seminaries, the Executive Committee and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
___The proposal was recommended by the BGCT Effectiveness/Efficiency Funding Committee. The BGCT Executive Board will consider it May 18 in Dallas.
___For about seven decades, Texas Baptists had only one ministry-support option. Contributions to the Cooperative Program were divided, with the greater portion staying in Texas to support BGCT causes and the remainder allocated to the SBC.
___In 1994, the BGCT broadened the Cooperative Program, offering churches four options.
___One allows churches to earmark funds solely for Texas Baptist ministries. Another follows the traditional pattern, with Texas receiving 67 percent of these receipts and theSBC getting 33 percent. The third is similar to the 67/33 split, except that churches are allowed to exclude up to five BGCT or SBC entities. The fourth enables churches to define the percentage of the BGCT/SBC division and also include other Texas ministries and up to eight other "worldwide" ministries.
___Several factors led to the new option.
___First, adoption of the Effectiveness/Efficiency Committee's 19 recommendations in 1997 created a wave of Texas Baptist ministry projects, noted Leroy Fenton, chairman of the E/E Funding Committee and pastor of First Baptist Church in Waxahachie.
___They include items for which traditional funding is inadequate, Fenton said. "The E/E Funding Committee feels strongly that long-term there will be additional needs for theological education, family issues, missions and new-church starts, and human welfare needs that have not been addressed completely," he explained.
___In 1998, the convention made $800,000 available for E/E initiatives, and that figure grew to more then $3 million this year, Fenton noted.
___A funding option that gives the BGCT a larger share of a church's Cooperative Program contributions would enable churches to choose to fund these expanded ministries without cutting support for other BGCT ministries, members of the Funding Committee noted when discussing the new option.
___Second, some Texas Baptists have expressed disapproval of the recent direction of some SBC organizations, Fenton said.
___Among examples most often cited during the E/E Funding Committee's deliberations were the increasing influence of Calvinism at Southern and Midwestern Baptist seminaries, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission's close connection with Republican Party politics and the ostracism from meaningful participation in the SBC felt by many Texas Baptists.
___The proposed funding option--which continues to support Southwestern Seminary, SBC missions and the Annuity Board's benevolence to retired ministers--would enable some churches to support the parts of the national convention they can endorse while not forcing them to fund organizations they find objectionable.
___In fact, the new option provides a 4.6 percent increase for the two Southern Baptist mission boards, reflecting Texas Baptists' ongoing commitment to supporting missionaries, said Administrative Committee Chairman Mateo Rendon, pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Corpus Christi.
___Although the SBC's recent reorganization purported to channel more funds to missions, "the largest percentage increases appear to have been for seminaries and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission," he pointed out.
___Third, formation of a competing Baptist convention in the state, Southern Baptists of Texas, has created "concern on our part regarding the impact that will have long-term," Fenton said. "The political climate has changed somewhat, and some funds are being diverted from (BGCT) causes."
___In light of these factors, a possible change in the BGCT Cooperative Program has been rumored for several months.
___Those rumors surfaced statewide in January, when BGCT President Russell Dilday told the Abilene Reporter-News he expected motions for change to be presented to messengers to the 1999 BGCT annual session next November in El Paso.
___Adversaries accused Dilday of promoting the issue, but he told the Baptist Standard he only predicted what he believed to be a likely scenario.
___"It is inevitable that in El Paso there will be some votes on the way Texas Baptists share resources," he said. Such a recommendation could come from the convention floor if not put forward by a BGCT committee, he noted.
___Ironically, the E/E Funding Committee's proposal does not need to go to convention messengers to be implemented, according to Roger Hall, the convention's treasurer and chief financial officer.
___The 1994 recommendation that expanded the Cooperative Program's giving options from one to four authorizes the Executive Board to present a broader range of options to the churches, he explained.
___The proposed option merely simplifies a process already available to Texas Baptist churches, added BGCT Executive Director Bill Pinson.
___"This can be done with the present form and is being done," Pinson said of the current process. "This simply makes the process simpler."
___And it does not go as far as some Texas Baptists feared. The rumor mill spun a scenario in which the BGCT would adopt a "default" Cooperative Program option, which would leave the SBC out entirely. According to that rumor, churches would have to go to extraordinary lengths to send funds to the SBC through the state apparatus.
___But the proposal does not change the status quo for any church. Congregations that want to continue the 67/33 split betweeen BGCT/SBC may continue to do so. Even churches that have flip-flopped that percentage and give the majority to the SBC still will be free to do so, just as before.
___"It will not be imposed on any church," Dilday said of the proposed fifth option. "No church is required to use this track. It is not a 'default' channel of giving which will be used if a church does not indicate how it wants its Cooperative Program funds to be directed.
___"Each church chooses its channel of giving. No one channel is forced on any church."
___While an additional option will add to the workload of his office, Hall said the giving option is an important expression of the BGCT commitment to being responsive to churches.
___"The new giving option provides churches that have requested it a more simplified approach to directing funds toward missions causes they most support," Hall said.
___The Administrative Committee voted down an additional proposal that arose from the floor during its meeting last week. Committee members discussed then discarded a sixth option. It would have channeled 73 percent of a church's gifts to the BGCT and the remaining 27 percent between the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's Global Missions program, the Baptist World Alliance, Baylor University's Truett Theological Seminary and Hardin-Simmons University's Logsdon School of Theology.
___Committee members who opposed the sixth option noted churches already can choose to support those four organizations through existing options.
___Last year, Texas Baptist churches forwarded $47.6 million, both in Cooperative Program and special offerings, to worldwide ministries through the BGCT, including almost $23 million of Cooperative Program funds through the SBC.
___Ken Camp of Texas Baptist Communications contributed to this article
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