November 11, 2002
Missouri messengers give green
light to litigation against agencies
___By Vicki Brown
___Missouri Word & Way
___SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (ABP)--Messengers to the Missouri Baptist Convention rejected by about a 2-to-1 majority a motion to drop legal action against five convention agencies.
___In other business at the Oct. 28-30 annual meeting in Springfield, a divided convention also voted to release for other use money initially earmarked for the five entities but held in escrow after they changed charters to obtain sole power to name their trustees.
___Brian Kaylor of Union Mound Baptist Church offered the motion to instruct convention leaders to drop their motion for declaratory judgment filed earlier this year against The Baptist Home, the Missouri Baptist Foundation, Missouri Baptist University, Windermere Baptist Conference Center and Word & Way.
___"It's time to focus on what really matters--the kingdom," Kaylor argued. "It's time to start loving them instead of suing them."
___Missouri Baptist leaders took the five agencies to court to ask a judge to resolve a dispute about whether the various trustee boards had the legal right to amend their charters without convention approval. Previously, the state convention had the power to elect the agencies' trustees.
___Kenny Qualls, newly elected president, said the convention is "heartbroken" about the dispute but must remain "steadfast" in efforts to restore the institutions to their former relationship.
Because attempts at bringing the five agencies back under control of the state convention have failed, the convention should "treat them as heathens," one messenger argued.
___Dropping the lawsuit, Qualls said, "would set a precedent not only for Missouri, but for the rest of the nation."
___Ron Bracy of Salem Baptist Church in Florissant, Mo., said Baptists ought to resolve their differences not "with the ways of the world," but by Scripture.
___Paul Callahan of First Baptist Church in Marshall, Mo., countered that he believed the convention already had followed biblical steps to restore fellowship without success. Callahan said when a believer refuses to turn from wrongdoing, the Bible directs the church "to treat them as though they are heathens."
___"I think that's the way they must be treated," he said.
___Convention President Bob Curtis told messengers a judge will hear motions to dismiss the legal action Nov. 19 in Jefferson City. He urged messengers to set aside that date as a day of prayer "for God's wisdom to be manifest."
___By all accounts, this year's convention was more harmonious than last year's meeting in Cape Girardeau, where messengers authorized leaders to sue the renegade agencies and unseated messengers from a historic church for voting to sever ties with the Southern Baptist Convention.
___This year's convention featured unanimous votes on elections for officers and little discussion on most business items.
___But messengers were divided on a recommendation to redirect more than $1.3 million escrowed last year from the five agencies to other ministries. Approving a motion from the convention's executive board, messengers voted to release $750,000 to fund the Rheubin South Missouri Missions Offering for 2003; $100,000 each for the Missouri Baptist Children's Home, Southwest Baptist University, Hannibal LaGrange College and William Jewell College; and $200,000 to be used for church starting.
___During discussion on the convention floor, Cardis Bryan of First Baptist Church in Steelville, Mo., said he understood the intent of last year's convention was to hold the money in escrow until the five institutions returned to their former relationship.
___Convention officials noted, however, that last year's motion to escrow funds stated "until (the institutions) come back or by further action of the convention."
___In other action, the Missouri convention voted to establish four positions for The Pathway, the convention's new official journal. Started earlier this year as an Internet-based publication, the news journal will be printed as a four-color biweekly beginning in January. Its staff will include an editor, managing editor, reporter and lead ministry assistant.
___In a related move, the convention dropped a reference in its bylaws to Word & Way, a 107-year-old newspaper and one of the five agencies to recently move to a self-perpetuating board of trustees. The amended bylaw refers instead to the "official news journal of the Missouri Baptist Convention."
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