April 10, 2000
Fellowship changing funding
formula to launch new initiatives
___By Bob Allen
___Associated Baptist Press
___ATLANTA (ABP)--The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship will launch new initiatives in leadership training, starting churches and missions partnerships next year, according to a proposed budget based on a new set of organizational priorities.
___In addition to adopting the $16.9 million budget in a meeting March 30-31 in Atlanta, the Fellowship's Coordinating Council took steps to establish a retirement program for churches, elected a staff member for chaplaincy and pastoral-care ministries and voted to apply for membership in the Baptist World Alliance.
___The proposed spending plan is the first step in implementing a still-developing strategic plan for the 9-year-old moderate group. The budget is based on four strategic initiatives and 14 priority areas adopted by the council in February. The entire plan--which includes a restructuring of the organization's Atlanta staff--awaits approval by the CBF General Assembly June 29-July 1 in Orlando, Fla.
___A second phase of long-range planning to reorganize the Coordinating Council and resolve issues such as how CBF relates to state and regional networks is planned for next year.
___The process is aimed at moving the Southern Baptist Convention splinter group, which formed to protest conservative leadership of the nation's largest Protestant denomination, into its second generation.
___The 1,500-church Fellowship, which has appointed 125 missionaries and endorsed about 70 chaplains and pastoral counselors, voted in 1996 not to become a separate convention.
___However, a now-deceased Fellowship supporter who unsuccessfully advocated that step would be pleased with the organization's progress, his longtime pastor said.
___Bill Montgomery, a retired military chaplain from Austin, wanted the Fellowship to declare itself a denomination separate from the SBC for two reasons, recalled Guy Sayles, who now is pastor of Kirkwood Baptist Church in St. Louis. Montgomery wanted the Fellowship to be able to appoint chaplains and to have a benefits board, Sayles said.
___"He's dead now. I hope he can rest easy," Sayles quipped.
___The Fellowship's growing chaplaincy program prompted in part the hiring of a new associate coordinator. Milton Womack, a 60-year-old psychologist and former missionary from Houston, will work as associate coordinator for pastoral care and chaplaincy. Womack has been working as a consultant in developing and improving pastoral care for CBF missionaries on the field, said Gary Baldridge, co-coordinator of the ministry group.
___The Global Missions group also recently named Phil Hester, a 59-year-old pastor in San Diego, as the first associate coordinator for new church starts. Next year's proposed budget earmarks $187,000 for developing new initiatives in church planting.
___Hester, a former advertising executive in Houston, entered vocational ministry later in life. After graduating from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, he and his family moved to California, where they built from scratch a successful, innovative church that reaches an affluent segment of the San Diego population.
___Tamara Tillman, a five-year missionary in the Middle East, will join the Atlanta staff July 1 as associate coordinator for missions education, Baldridge said. An Alabama native, she is a graduate of Samford University and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
___The Coordinating Council authorized officers in 1998 to adopt and implement a retirement-benefits plan for ministers and employees of "member churches and other affiliated organizations."
___Two years later, the council now is authorizing an expenditure of up to $175,000 for start-up costs for a CBF Benefits Board within the next year, even if it means taking money from reserves. Funds from any budget surplus at the end of the current year could be used to cover part of the cost.
___Gary Skeen, a former Texan who serves as the Fellowship's coordinator of finance and administration, has been named president of new board. Skeen said it is uncertain if the benefits board will work alone or in partnership with the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.
___Many Fellowship-affiliated churches have continued to use the retirement investment services of the SBC Annuity Board. While no displeasure has been expressed with the Annuity Board's performance, questions have lingered in the minds of many moderate ministers about how long SBC leaders will allow them to participate in Annuity Board programs.
___Council member Raymond Bailey, pastor of Seventh & James Baptist Church in Waco, predicted it "will soon be an absolute imperative that we have our own benefits board."
___While the Fellowship has been contributing to the Baptist World Alliance on an annual basis, it has not until now sought membership in the worldwide organization with offices in McLean, Va.
___"Though we may not be a convention or denomination by the definition of Baptist World Alliance, we feel like we qualify to be a member of the world Baptist family," CBF Coordinator Daniel Vestal said.
___Randy Hyde, pastor of Pulaski Heights Baptist Church in Little Rock, Ark., commented that it "would be a courageous act" for the BWA to grant membership to CBF. The SBC, which opposes the moderate-led Fellowship, currently provides $425,000 a year to the BWA, while the Fellowship has earmarked $20,000 to BWA in the 2000-2001 budget.
___While some BWA leaders oppose CBF membership "for obvious reasons," Baldridge explained, other leaders of national Baptist organizations around the world believe the Fellowship should be included.
___The Fellowship's $16.9 million 2000-2001 budget includes new dollars for new programs to resource local churches, while providing status-quo funding for 20 autonomous CBF "partners" --including seminaries and divinity schools, ethics agencies, press services and an independent moderate-Baptist newspaper.
___All available new dollars were needed for priorities identified in the strategic plan, Vestal said. "We did not decrease any partner organization, but we did not increase any partner organization."
___The budget projects a 7 percent increase in undesignated gifts and 5 percent increase in the global missions offering.
___
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