Texas seminaries still waiting for
new funds as churches ponder choices
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___The flood of redirected offerings projected to flow into Texas Baptist seminaries and Hispanic ministries this year is starting out more like a trickle.
___By the end of the first quarter of the new budget year, only 22.4 percent of contributions from churches affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas were coming through the convention's "adopted" budget, which reduces funding for six Southern Baptist Convention seminaries and gives new funding to three Texas Baptist schools, Texas Baptist Hispanic ministries and Texas programs in Christian ethics.
___At the same point, 46 percent of Cooperative Program gifts from BGCT-affiliated churches were passing through the old option, with 67 percent allocated for BGCT ministries and 33 percent allocated for SBC ministries--including the six seminaries and two other SBC entities allegedly defunded by the BGCT.
___Nearly one-third of gifts were from BGCT churches that have created their own customized giving formulas. BGCT officials said there is no easily identified commonality among the 31.6 percent of funds given through customized plans.
___The percentage of money coming through the Texas adopted budget has increased steadily each month this year, rising from less than 10 percent in January to 22.4 percent in March. The average for the quarter is 16.3 percent.
___Denominational officials who are monitoring giving patterns from all sides agree the first three months of the new fiscal year may not be a solid indicator of how things will turn out in the end.
___Some Texas churches won't adopt new budget plans until this fall, meaning they have not yet considered their new giving options. Pastors of some churches have done their best to ignore the changes in BGCT giving options for fear of stirring controversy in their congregations. Still other churches have escrowed Cooperative Program funds until church study committees make recommendations on how to proceed.
___While Texas Baptist churches have been slow to embrace the BGCT's preferred budget changes, those disturbed by the changes also have been slower to break ties completely with the BGCT than some had predicted.
___As of March 31, only 93 churches had contacted the BGCT with a request to be removed from rolls of the state convention, according to Ken Camp, director of news and information for the BGCT. Additions of new churches and missions have outpaced the number of defecting churches, he added, for a net gain of 20 congregations over the same time last year. The current number of churches and missions thought to be affiliated with the BGCT is 5,995.
___Meanwhile, the rival Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, which has billed itself as an alternative for those churches desiring to be more loyal to the SBC, has reported continued growth in affiliated churches. As of the end of March, SBTC reported about 500 uniquely aligned churches and 200 dually aligned churches.
___What BGCT officials cannot say right now is how many churches have walked away from the BGCT but haven't notified the BGCT of that decision.
___The primary reason given by churches breaking ties with the BGCT has been objection to the funding changes overwhelmingly adopted by convention messengers last fall. The changes were driven by the report of a Seminary Study Committee, which presented research claiming the six SBC seminaries no longer are administered or teach in accordance with the beliefs of most Texas Baptists.
___The committee cited a pressing need to make it possible for students to attend three Texas Baptist seminaries at a cost comparable to the subsidized tuition offered at the six SBC seminaries. Thus, they proposed amending the BGCT's primary giving channel, the Cooperative Program, to place a $1 million cap on gifts to the six SBC schools and direct the remaining funds that would have gone to SBC schools to Truett Seminary at Baylor University, Logsdon School of Theology at Hardin-Simmons University and Hispanic Baptist Theological School.
___The BGCT's Administrative Committee and Executive Board also recommended taking funding away from the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and Executive Committee to fund increased Hispanic ministries and Christian ethics ministries in Texas. These proposals also were overwhelmingly adopted by convention messengers.
___In reality, though, the new dollars have been slow in coming.
___For example, Hispanic Baptist Theological School in San Antonio had anticipated getting an additional $50,000 a month this year. Trustees of the school made plans to use those funds to make upgrades necessary to receive further accreditation and to increase the number of Hispanic ministers trained there.
___Instead of the $150,000 anticipated in the first quarter of this year, Hispanic Theological School actually has received only $34,192 in new funds.
___Likewise, Truett Seminary and Logsdon School of Theology have split additional funds of $102,575 in the first quarter.
___The total of new funding allocated to the three BGCT schools so far is only $136,767. That compares to $979,659 sent to the six SBC seminaries by the BGCT during the same quarter.
___The equation will shift somewhat sometime this month, however, when the $1 million cap in the Texas "approved" budget funds for the SBC seminaries is met. After that point, the only additional funding the SBC schools will get through the BGCT will be from designated gifts and from the percentage of churches using the old 67/33 split.
___Leaders of the Texas schools said they have been disappointed more money hasn't flowed their way more quickly.
___None of the new projects planned at Logsdon have been implemented yet, because the new funds have not been sufficient to begin them, said Dean Vernon Davis. "While the trend is upward from what it was in January, it's still unclear where it's going to go. That means we cannot expend those funds as if they were going to get here this year or even the next."
___In addition to student scholarships, new money at Logsdon had been slated for hiring a recruiter, beefing up development efforts and expanding the school's library.
___At Hispanic Theological School, administrators are adjusting plans adopted by trustees based on projected increases in income, said President Albert Reyes.
___"Our projected growth really is closely tied to the cooperative budget that was adopted," he said. "We are having to adjust our plans accordingly.
___"Our ability to excel, and the pace at which we do so, is connected to the decision every Texas Baptist church makes regarding giving," he said.
___Also disappointed by the first-quarter giving report was Bob Campbell, chairman of the BGCT Seminary Study Committee that recommended the funding changes.
___"Naturally, I'm disappointed to hear that the Texas seminaries will not be supported at the level we had hoped," said Campbell, pastor of Westbury Baptist Church in Houston. "However, I do feel we have made all Texas Baptist churches aware of the need for supporting not only the schools but other programs in Texas. ... I think over the years we'll see more churches switching, because they'll understand how the changes are being made at the SBC level."
___Other BGCT officials echoed Campbell's prediction that more churches will embrace the Texas adopted budget in the months and years ahead. Many churches are simply slow to embrace change, they contend.
___"We all knew what we were recommending was going to take time," said Stephen Hatfield, chairman of the BGCT Administrative Committee and pastor of First Baptist Church of Lewisville. "Churches that have given a certain way for a long time are slow to change."
___Nevertheless, some believe the change could have happened faster if the BGCT had presented the budget plan to the churches in a different format. They were disappointed when the "gift remittance form" prepared by the BGCT for churches to submit Cooperative Program contributions explicitly listed the former 67/33 percentage split as an alternative to the approved Texas budget.
___"The problem is that Texas Baptists adopted a budget in Corpus Christi, and the way it's been interpreted is that Texas Baptists adopted a new option," Davis explained. "That's the heart of this thing."
___Campbell agreed.
___In earlier years, when the BGCT changed its percentage split with the SBC, churches were not presented the old option and the new option together, he noted. Churches desiring to give the old way "had to write that out" as a designation, he added.
___"Apparently the Administrative Committee and other leadership personnel felt you had to put two options on there, but I thought we adopted only one plan," Campbell asserted. The way the remittance form turned out "really was not in the spirit of the convention," he added.
___In his view, the remittance form should have presented only the approved Texas budget, along with an opportunity for churches to write in any other variation they desired. And although he cannot speak for every member of his committee, he feels certain they, too, thought the convention had voted on just one giving plan, not two.
___Hatfield defended the remittance form approved by the Administrative Committee, which in reality was a compromise between at least two understandings of what messengers meant by their vote in Corpus Christi. He was not chairman of the committee at that time, but was a member.
___"We were as clear as we could be," he said. "It gives the first choice as the adopted budget."
___The issue of how the remittance form is designed probably is not completely resolved yet, Campbell said. He predicted it could become an issue at this year's BGCT annual session, with an attempt likely to be made through a motion to dictate that only one Cooperative Program option be listed.
___In the meantime, most of the SBC seminaries that were expressing fear of funding cuts from Texas last fall have laid those fears aside and are moving ahead with major projects.
___Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., for example, just announced plans to get back on track with a conference center construction project that had been put on hold due to funding uncertainties. And trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth recently approved an increased budget for the coming year that assumes little if any funding will be lost due to the BGCT's vote last fall.
___Leaders of the Texas schools, however, feel the clock is ticking on special project funds they had hoped to get this year. The recommendation approved last fall divided the redirected theological education funds into two piles, one for student tuition equalization and one for special projects.
___The recommendation as approved stated that after the first year, the Administrative Committee and Theological Education Committee would have authority to shuffle the distribution of those funds.
___Hatfield acknowledged there is a chance the distribution of theological education funds in the Texas adopted budget could be altered, although formal discussions on any changes won't begin until the committee's May meeting.
___Any changes would not take money away from Truett, Logsdon and Hispanic Theological School, he said, but could affect what the money is designated to do. "Some on the committee wanted all the money to go toward student scholarships, not equipment," he explained.
The Baptist Standard
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist
churches, in the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!