December 9, 2002

District of Columbia convention faces
financial challenges due to changes
___By Robert Marus
___ABP Washington Bureau
___FORT WASHINGTON, Md. (ABP)--The District of Columbia Baptist Convention faces significant financial challenges, messengers to the convention's 126th annual meeting were told last month.
___The D.C. convention--unique among Baptist conventions for its historic dual alignment with both the Southern Baptist Convention and the American Baptist Churches in the USA and a more recent affiliation with the predominantly African-American Progressive National Baptist Convention--may face a significant downsizing of its ministry staff due in part to a withdrawal of funding from a Southern Baptist agency.
___The convention's 195 registered messengers and about 100 guests heard Executive Director Jeffrey Haggray explain that year-to-date income lagged $265,190 behind expenditures for the same period. Haggray also lamented the fact D.C. Baptist churches had contributed only about $25,000 toward a total goal of $125,000 for the 2002 National Capital Area Missions Offering.
___In addition to falling revenues from contributions, in June the convention will lose nearly $500,000 in funding it had received annually from the SBC's North American Mission Board. NAMB officials made the decision to defund the convention last summer, citing theological differences with the two other national denominations affiliated with the D.C. convention.
___"Tonight, I come to you with candor and utmost concern to solicit your support for missions," Haggray told messengers in his executive director's report.
___Finance committee Chairman Leonard Pinkney, a member of Washington's Metropolitan Baptist Church, said that although most of the decrease in the convention's income was attributable to the sour national economy, part was due to the controversy regarding the NAMB defunding.
___"Some churches have withdrawn, and others have given considerably less since (NAMB's) decision was made," Pinkney told messengers.
___Messengers also heard a report but took no action on Vision 2010, a plan to re-structure the convention's ministry programs and staff to make them more efficient. The plan could result in several staff cuts.
___Despite the difficulties, Haggray said he is upbeat about the convention's future because of its importance to the cause of Christ in the U.S. "I know what it means to face financial challenges, but I also know what it means to say, 'God provides,'" he said. "We say that we serve in the most strategic region in all the world. God has placed our churches here for such a time as this."

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