CBF Texas will consider aid to former IMB missionaries

November 18, 2002

CBF Texas will consider aid to former IMB missionaries
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___WACO--Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Texas will consider sending former Southern Baptist International Mission Board missionaries back to the field and hiring a full-time staff leader in the coming year.
___CBF Texas, a state affiliate of the national Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, held its coordinating council meeting in Waco Nov. 10-11 on the eve of the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual session. The national CBF was formed in 1991 by so-called "moderate" Baptists who were disaffected by the increasingly rightward march of the Southern Baptist Convention.
___The CBF Texas council voted to consider helping Southern Baptist missionaries remain on the field if they are forced to resign rather than affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message document. Both the SBC's International Mission Board and North American Mission Board require their fully funded missionaries to affirm the current Baptist Faith & Message.
___Some missionaries have said they cannot affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message because it violates their consciences. For example, the Baptist General Convention of Texas has refused to affirm the document three times.
___Critics have contended it functions as a creed. They also have said it seeks to place the Bible in a stronger position than Jesus, denigrates the historic Baptist principle of the priesthood of the believer and seeks to supplant local-church autonomy.
___Citing these developments, Dick Hurst, a lay member of First Baptist Church in Tyler, noted, "CBF has been jump-started by opportunities." The requirement that missionaries affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message is such an opportunity, he added.
___CBF Texas should respond to that opportunity by considering ways to help a missionary couple return to the mission field if they resign or are terminated rather than affirm the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message.
___As an example, he cited Rick and Nancy Dill, missionaries to Germany, who have been told they cannot return to the mission field unless they affirm the SBC's faith statement. The Dills have said they will resign rather than sign.
___Hurst estimated the cost for keeping one missionary couple on the field will be "$80,000 or more," but that costs could be spread if CBF Texas were to partner in the venture with CBF affiliates from other states, such as Oklahoma, Arkansas or Louisiana.
___In discussion, participants noted the Dills might not want or need CBF Texas' help. Hurst said the identity of the recipients could be determined after study.
___Other participants urged the state organization to be careful lest it duplicate or compete with missionary-sending services of the national CBF. "This needs to fit into the larger strategy of CBF," noted Karen Gilbert, minister of missions at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas.
___Council members also cautioned against duplicating services of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, which has created a transitional financial fund to help resigned or terminated missionaries. Hurst noted the BGCT fund is designed to help the missionaries in-between mission service and their new employment. The CBF Texas proposal, if implemented, would send the missionaries back to the field.
___Council members also approved a recommendation to create a search committee to seek a full-time coordinator for CBF Texas. Judy Battles, a lay member of First Baptist Church in Arlington, currently serves as the state organization's part-time administrative coordinator.
___Phill Martin, a lay member of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas and the chair of the committee that proposed the coordinator-search committee, said CBF Texas ideally would like to implement the new position and retain Battle's position.
___The coordinator is comparable to a chief executive officer, and the administrative coordinator is comparable to a chief operating officer, he said.
___"We hope to retain both positions," Martin said. "The finances are the driver" and will determine staffing.
___CBF Texas Moderator Bob Newell of Houston will name the search committee. "We are making giant steps," he said. "This is one example." He plans to name the search committee in time for it to meet before the end of the year.
___In other business, the CBF Texas coordinating council:
___ Approved an eight-month budget of $63,098.
___The budget will cover the organization through June 2003. It includes $4,000 for missions, $3,856 for voice communications, $18,500 for print communications, $8,440 for outreach activities, $27,422 for staff, $480 for administration and $400 for miscellaneous.
___The $4,000 for missions will help fund some kind of missions "event," Newell said. "This is an attempt to say missions is a priority for us."
___ Spent time in discussion about and prayer for CBF Texas' future.
___ Heard a report from Keith Parks, chairman of the new initiatives subcommittee of the BGCT's Missions Review & Initiatives Committee.

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