June 17, 2002

Southern Baptist initiative seeks to strengthen 'kingdom families'
___By Trennis Henderson
___Kentucky Baptist Western Recorder
___ST. LOUIS--Pledging to strengthen "kingdom families," the Southern Baptist Convention's Council on Family Life highlighted plans for a Kingdom Families Rally in conjunction with next year's SBC annual meeting in Phoenix.
___ The council, chaired by former SBC President Tom Elliff, was created during the 2000 SBC annual meeting. The nine-member group has spent the past two years developing a strategy to address moral and spiritual issues facing today's families.
___ "Something terrible is happening to families in America," said Elliff, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Del City, Okla.
___ Citing a number of examples of family crises, Elliff said statistics indicate 88 percent of the children who grow up in evangelical churches leave the church by age 18. He listed pornography, financial struggles and lack of meaningful conversation between parents and children as other problems plaguing the family.
___ A divorce rate among church members similar to that of unchurched people is another sign of family crisis, Elliff noted. He said the number of divorces in the nation impacts an estimated 1 million children a year.
___ Emphasizing the need for effective premarital counseling, Elliff warned pastors against performing weddings for couples who "don't meet the biblical requirements for marriage."
___ Pastors who do so, he added, "have forfeited not only your conscience but your calling, and you've forfeited your privilege to minister to them at all."
___ "It's time for us to save the family," Elliff told messengers. "It's time to build kingdom families. Let's come home to the heart of God."
___ That can be accomplished, he said, through a strategy to be unveiled next year. He described it as "a simple and time-honored ministry for virtually divorce-proofing the families in your church."
___ In addition to an emphasis on premarital counseling, he said the strategy will call for Southern Baptists "to set aside at least one night every week where families listen to one another and to God."
___ The Kingdom Families Rally will be a two-hour event June 19, 2003. Scheduled speakers include Elliff; Gary Chapman, author of "The Five Love Languages"; and Dennis and Barbara Rainey of FamilyLife Today. James and Shirley Dobson of Focus on the Family and author Beth Moore, president of Living Proof Ministries, will address the rally via satellite.
___ In addition to the Council on Family Life report, other Executive Committee proposals approved by messengers include:
___ A 2002-03 CP allocation budget of $176.9 million, a decrease of more than $1.3 million from the current year. The decrease mirrors a $1.3 million drop in CP giving during the 2000-01 fiscal year. Designated giving, however, grew by $6.8 million last year.
___ A 2002-03 SBC operating budget of $7,305,652, including $5.87 million from the Cooperative Program. The budget is an increase of more than $200,000 from the current year but a decrease of nearly $45,000 from CP gifts.
___ An SBC bylaw revision specifying that proposed resolutions be submitted for consideration at least 15 days prior to the SBC annual meeting.
___ Future sites for the SBC annual meeting, including Nashville, Tenn., in 2005 and Greensboro, N.C., in 2006.


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