IMB trustees adopt challenge budget, appoint largest group of missionaries
___By Mark Kelly
___International Mission Board
___COLUMBIA, S.C. (BP)--Trustees of the Southern Baptist International Mission Board adopted a $279.9 million budget for 2002 during a Nov. 12-14 meeting in Columbia, S.C.
___They also appointed 118 career missionaries, the largest group of long-term Southern Baptist workers ever appointed in a single service.
___The 2002 basic budget of $262.9 million represented a $9.7 million (3.89 percent) increase over 2001 and focuses 84.8 percent of its resources on overseas work. The budget depends on Southern Baptists meeting the $120 million goal for the 2001 Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.
___The 2002 budget also incorporates a new Lottie Moon challenge budget category, a $17-million item that brings the total 2002 budget to $279.9 million.
___The new category is intended to challenge Southern Baptists to give in extraordinary ways to help missionaries take advantage of opportunities for witness they are finding all over the world, IMB leaders said.
___The highlight of the trustee meeting was the appointment of the largest group of Southern Baptist missionaries ever commissioned in a single service. Trustees voted to appoint a total of 124 new workers--including six missionary apprentices--during a Nov. 13 ceremony at First Baptist Church in Columbia.
___An overflow crowd packed the 3,400-seat sanctuary for the event, which was held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. The service brought the total number of long-term Southern Baptist missionaries worldwide to 5,128.
___The IMB has seen a significant increase in the number of Southern Baptists serving in short-term overseas assignments, but career missionaries remain the foundation of the board's work, said IMB President Jerry Rankin.
___"Seventy-five percent of our total missionary force is career missionaries," Rankin said. "We are the only major missions agency that has not experienced a recent decline in long-term missionaries."
___The number of career missionaries being appointed by the IMB was a concern listed earlier this year by a Baptist General Convention of Texas committee studying missions-sending agencies.
___According to the BGCT report issued May 22, "the number of career missionaries has not grown for some years." It said the number of career missionaries serving through the IMB dropped from 3,365 in 1990 to 3,323 in 1999.
___In his report to trustees, Rankin painted a different picture, however, saying the IMB is appointing more long-term missionaries each year than ever before.
___The IMB expects to approve 392 long-term missionaries in 2001, only the fourth time in its 156-year history that more than 300 have been appointed in a single year, he said.
___In its category of "long-term" missionaries, the IMB counts anyone serving two years or more, which includes career missionaries, associate missionaries, journeymen, some International Service Corps workers and other categories.
___With additional reporting by Managing Editor Mark Wingfield
The Baptist Standard
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