March 3, 2003
CBF council addresses economic downturn
___By Greg Warner
___Associated Baptist Press
___ATLANTA (ABP)--The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, facing a shortfall in contributions, will reduce spending 10 percent this fiscal year and use up to $1 million from reserves to stave off deeper cuts.
___Members of the CBF Coordinating Council, meeting in Atlanta Feb. 20-22, dealt with those budget cuts and adopted a less ambitious budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
___Texas pastor Philip Wise, chair of the group's finance committee, told the council $1.8 million has been cut from the organization's $18 million budget for 2002-03. Most of those reductions were from within the organization--including $888,000 from its missions program--with another $638,000 coming from CBF's ministry partners.
___Wise, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Lubbock, blamed the slow economy and its effect on CBF's donors, primarily churches. "We can't control how the money comes in," he explained.
___Wise detailed several measures to relieve the budget pressure and adjust to shifting giving patterns. "We can't continue to operate the way we've been operating and hope it all works out in the end," he said.
___Two staff-led task forces are looking for ways to generate more revenue and reduce expenses. And spending, including funding for ministry partners, will be adjusted in line with actual monthly receipts and monitored closely.
___At the request of the CBF staff, a task force of council members will advise the staff before other cuts are made in the CBF's 14 "priority" areas. "If we cut any more, we are going to change those priorities," explained Phill Martin of Dallas, CBF moderator and chair of the council.
___Task force members include Nelson Rodriguez of Texas, Candice McKibben of Florida, Tim Brendle of Virginia, Charles Cantrell of Missouri and moderator-elect Cynthia Holmes of Missouri as an ex officio member. Chuck Moates of Georgia will serve as chair.
___The budget to be recommended for next fiscal year is $17.9 million--9 percent less than the original 2002-03 budget but still 7 percent more than the reduced budget.
___Wise explained the finance committee felt comfortable projecting the increase for next year despite the recent experience. "We believe we can grow out of this," he said.
___The proposed budget must be approved by the CBF general assembly in June. It will retain many of the spending reductions imposed this year. Total funding for CBF's ministry partners, such as divinity schools, is projected to remain about the same--$1,686,915 in 2002-03 and $1,712,100 in 2003-04.
___In other business, Bob Setzer, pastor of First Baptist Church in Macon, Ga., was chosen as the next moderator-elect to succeed Holmes, who will become moderator after this summer's general assembly.
___Council members were told CBF has endorsed 295 chaplains since it began its chaplaincy program five years ago. The organization is on pace to endorse 100 to 150 new chaplains a year, with more than 600 currently in the process of application. The Coordinating Council adopted a new policy for electing the eight-member Council on Endorsement, which handles applications.
___The CBF has been surprised by the success of the program, and the potential impact "is awesome," said Daniel Vestal, CBF coordinator. "We didn't put this in the strategic plan. We didn't think this up. ... God continues to surprise us."
___In a related action, George Pickle, associate coordinator for chaplaincy and pastoral counseling at CBF, will shift from a contract employee to permanent status. Pickle was originally hired in the fall of 2001 on a two-year contract.
___Pickle previously served nine years as director of health-care chaplaincy and pastoral counseling for the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board. His credentials include work as a campus minister, pastor and ultimately as a chaplain.
___A native of Tyler, Pickle is a graduate of Baylor University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was ordained to the ministry at First Baptist Church of Tyler.
___In his address to the council, Vestal said he is coming to terms with the likelihood he "will live out the rest of my life as a moderate Baptist in a minority setting."
___Many CBF members were accustomed to being part of the largest religious group in the South before their estrangement from with the Southern Baptist Convention.
___"We were the establishment. We are not now the establishment. And I don't think we ever will be again," Vestal said. Many moderate Baptists "are having a problem with that," he added.
___Vestal also predicted moderates will "live a long time in the context of fundamentalism" and will continue to be "maligned." But the Bible says those falsely accused should rejoice, Vestal said. "So let's get over it."
___"We need to learn what it means to be the presence of Christ when you are the minority and when you are a labeled--and sometimes libeled--group."
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