SBC authorizes committee to study funding issues

February 25, 2002

SBC authorizes committee to study funding issues
___By Bob Allen
___Associated Baptist Press
___NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP)--Citing "financial challenges" to seminaries, the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee has authorized a committee to study funding issues.
___On recommendation of a seminaries workgroup, the Executive Committee voted without discussion Feb. 19 to authorize Chairman Bruce Coe of Chandler, Ariz., to appoint an SBC Funding Study Committee to report to the Executive Committee in September.
___At its Feb. 18-19 meeting in Nashville, Tenn., the Executive Committee also voted to recommend changes in the method for introducing resolutions at the SBC annual meeting. If adopted, all resolutions would have to be introduced at least 15 days prior to the convention and could be initiated by any Southern Baptist, whether or not he or she is elected a messenger at the convention.
___The change would require the SBC president to appoint a resolutions committee 75 days in advance of the convention, rather than the 45 days now required. Baptists could submit proposed resolutions as early as April 15. Messengers no longer would be able to introduce resolutions while the convention is in session.
___An Executive Committee leader said the change is intended to provide more time for the resolutions committee to deliberate, to give Southern Baptists more time to submit resolutions and to allow church members that don't have the time or money to attend the annual meeting to have a voice.
___In other business, the Executive Committee:
___ Heard a report from Tom Elliff, chairman of a standing Council on the Family, announcing a first-ever "conventionwide rally to save the family" in conjunction with the SBC annual meeting in Phoenix in 2003.
___ Received as information a report that giving through the SBC's unified budget, the Cooperative Program, declined 0.75 percent, or about $1.3 million, in 2000-2001. Designated giving, however--excluding the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong mission offerings--grew by $6.8 million, netting an increase in total giving of about $7.5 million.
___ Recommended future convention sites for 2005 and 2006. Messengers to this year's SBC will vote on meeting in Nashville, Tenn., June 21-22, 2005, and Greensboro, N.C., June 13-14, 2006.

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