March 10, 2003
Executive Board OKs new cooperative
agreement with NAMB with notation
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___DALLAS--Contested language in a cooperative agreement between the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the North American Mission Board may have been resolved.
___Five months after questioning a line in the proposed cooperative agreement, the BGCT's Executive Board gave approval to slightly revised language. The revised document now will be sent back to NAMB officials for consideration.
___The agreement outlines the way the BGCT and the Southern Baptist Convention mission agency will work together on jointly funded mission work in Texas.
___At the September Executive Board meeting, the document was rejected because of a line asserting NAMB's requirement that missionaries it funds must affirm the Baptist Faith & Message 2000. Several board members expressed concern that approving the document would imply the BGCT condones the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, which it has decline to do.
___The BGCT asked NAMB to remove a line that said, "These personnel shall c
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| GEORGE McCain addresses the Executive Board with a comment on the proposed cooperative agreement with NAMB. (Ferrell Foster/BGCT Photo) |
omply with the Baptist Faith & Message 2000."
___In response, NAMB replaced that line with a statement about jointly funded personnel offset by parentheses: "This includes NAMB's requirement for these
personnel to conform to the Baptist Faith & Message 2000."
___BGCT leaders presented that revision to the Executive Board, along with an addition of their own. Above the lines where the document is to be signed by Executive Board Chairman Brian Harbour and BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade, one sentence was inserted: "Approved with the understanding that this indicates neither affirmation nor endorsement of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000."
___The revisions were approved by Executive Board members with only eight dissenting votes. No board members spoke against the document, but several expressed reluctant affirmation of it.
___"I will vote for the motion, but I do want to remind us that this problem we have faced reminds us we're in the midst of conflicting visions of what it means to be a Baptist," said Wesley Shotwell, pastor of Ash Creek Baptist Church in Azle. Shotwell had been critical of the earlier language in September.
___The vision of Baptist life held by the SBC and supporters of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 is one of distrust of people, Shotwell said, while the BGCT's vision is built on trust. He further contrasted visions based on coercion versus "joyful cooperation" and of "priesthood of the convention" versus priesthood of the believer.
___George McCain, pastor of First Baptist Church in Royse City, said he doesn't like NAMB's insistence on affirming the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 for its jointly funded employees, but he commended the BGCT's willingness to let churches decide who they want to work through.
___"What we're doing is appreciating the autonomy of the local church," he said. "We're giving churches choices. ... (This) permits choices at the level the church determines."
___James Hill, pastor of First Baptist Church in Graham, asked how the title of the document, "Cooperative Agreement," could be reconciled with the exclusions included in the two amended sections of the document.
___Stephen Hatfield, chairman of the BGCT Administrative Committee, acknowledged the possibility of seeing a conflict there: "Sir, I feel your pain. This is a way for our convention to maintain a reason to work with the North American Mission Board."
___BGCT missions administrator E.B. Brooks explained to the board several times that the contested language about the Baptist Faith & Message applies only to personnel jointly funded by the BGCT and NAMB. Other missions personnel working in Texas who do not wish to be appointed through NAMB or who will not sign the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 can be supported by the BGCT without NAMB, he said.
___The relatively brief debate over the NAMB cooperative agreement was the most substantive piece of business conducted by the Executive Board in an otherwise routine meeting.
___The board heard reports from BGCT President Bob Campbell and Executive Director Charles Wade, as well as Justice Anderson, chairman of the newly formed board to create a BGCT world missions network.
___Anderson said the missions network might become a "broker of relationships and resources for missional churches," although a definite vision statement has not yet been drafted.
___It is possible that the network, a free-standing BGCT affiliate, could be operational by the end of the year, Anderson said.
___Campbell spoke of his love for the local church, a theme he hopes to project at the BGCT annual session in November.
___Wade spoke of the importance of discipling people after converting them.
___In other business and reports:
___ BGCT Treasurer David Nabors reported that receipts for January exceeded gifts for January of the previous year but still fell short of the new year's budget.
___ Keith Bruce, coordinator of BGCT institutional ministries, reported that the sale of Baptist Health System in San Antonio was completed Dec. 31. Details of how proceeds from the sale to a for-profit corporation will be channeled into other Bexar County ministries have not been finalized, he said.
___ Phil Strickland, director of the BGCT Christian Life Commission, reported on current concerns before the Texas Legislature. He highlighted proposed cuts to social welfare programs in order to balance the state's massive budget deficit.
___"We are on the brink of adopting policies that are more insensitive to families and children than I have ever seen," he warned.
___Some legislators, he added, are launching "an attack on poverty itself, ... an attack on the concept that there are poor people in this state."
___Strickland also briefly addressed the report on capital punishment recently released by the Texas CLC. He acknowledged the report, which calls for a moratorium on death-penalty sentences, has generated intense reaction. Communication to the CLC has run 2-to-1 in favor of the report, he added.
___Two Executive Board members questioned Strickland about the wisdom of releasing such a report, which one labeled as divisive and contrary to the views of many Texas Baptists.
___Strickland responded that the CLC conducted its study and produced a report at the mandate of convention messengers. The CLC, he said, does not claim to speak for Texas Baptists but rather to Texas Baptists. In this case, he added, the CLC has felt an imperative to speak a prophetic word even though it may run contrary to popular opinion.
___ Board members approved redrawing zone boundaries for BGCT committee representation to account for changes in Jack Association and Kauf-Van Association.
___ Five individuals were elected to replace committee or board members who have resigned. On Executive Board, Debbie Chisolm of Dallas was replaced by Ly Klassen of Garland, who becomes the first Vietnamese to serve on the board; Emilio Rodriguez of Dallas was replaced by Rusty Hill of Dallas; Diana Ligon of Collin County was replaced by Carolyn Corbin of McKinney; and Mary Mayfield of Lubbock was replaced by Manuel Longoria of Lubbock. On the board of Valley Baptist Missions/Education Center, Ed Barrera was replaced by Jose Valle of Harlingen.
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