CBF clarifies what it means to be a partner_71403

Posted 7/03/03

CBF clarifies what it means to be a partner

By Mark Wingfield

Managing Editor

CHARLOTTE, N.C.–What does it mean to be a “partner” ministry with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and how much financial dependency should go with that title?

Currently, the CBF devotes 28 percent of its budget to fund partners–including 13 theology schools, the Baptist Joint Committee, Associated Baptist Press, Baptist Center for Ethics, Baptists Today and the Baptist World Alliance. A budget priorities task force has recommended reducing partner funding to 20 percent of the CBF budget, presumably channeling more money to global missions and ministries run by CBF's Atlanta staff.

That means the total amount of money partners receive would be 30 percent less than before, on the heels of a mid-year budget cut in 2002-2003.

Funding for these partners has become a front-burner issue as the CBF faces the budget challenges confronting almost all non-profits in the current national economy.

The situation remains fluid as well because the CBF and its partners have much looser connections than most denominational bodies have with schools and publishing houses and missions agencies. None of the partner ministries are owned by the CBF, and the CBF has not asked for any authority to name members to the various ministries' boards of directors.

In his address to the CBF general assembly June 27, Coordinator Daniel Vestal called on the CBF to strengthen relations with its partners, but he also called for clarification on what it means to be a partner.

“For us, partnership is more than a word,” he said. “It represents one of our core values and defining characteristics. … Our mission statement says that 'we prefer to cooperate in mutually beneficial ways with other organizations rather than to establish, own and control our own institutions.'”

That doesn't mean the CBF doesn't believe in institutions, Vestal added. “Theologically, we believe in them. But many of us are afraid of them. Perhaps it's because of our past. We have seen how people can worship institutions more than God or be more committed to preserving them than being committed to the mission for which the institutions were created.”

The CBF was birthed as a dissident movement out of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant body–and one that has honed institutional life to a fine art. In fact, one of the foremost drivers in creating the CBF was the desire of moderate Southern Baptists to create alternative ways of funding missions and ministries they once had supported through the SBC.

But the CBF made an intentional decision not to structure itself like the SBC, due in part to leaders' observation that blind loyalty to institutions prevented some people from abandoning the SBC even though leadership of those institutions changed radically.

The main component the CBF offers internally is its global missions program, which draws about 56 percent of undesignated budget funds. The percentage going to global missions increases when designated gifts are factored in.

From that base, however, the CBF has developed a variety of support ministries within its Atlanta resource center and built relationships with other autonomous ministries for theological education, publishing, ethics, religious liberty and wordwide partnership.

The recent report of the budget priorities task force, while not officially adopted or binding, could help determine the allocation of future money among the causes competing for CBF dollars. The document has not been put to a vote at a general assembly.

In addition to proposing the cap on partner funding, the task force identified six areas for highest-priority funding–most-neglected and unevangelized people, church starting, developing partnership missions with local churches, supporting theological education, nurturing congregational health, and fostering congregational leadership. Except for theological education, all the top priority areas relate to the CBF's own Atlanta-based programs.

It also identified four areas least important and, presumably, the first suggested for budget cuts–collegiate ministries, marriage and family, chaplaincy and Baptist identity.

In the new budget, Baptist identity includes funding for ethnic and regional networks, interim pastor support and allocations to the Baptist Joint Committee, ABP, BCE, Baptists Today and the BWA.

Vestal hinted at the coming struggle over partner funding in his Charlotte address: “Who exactly is a partner, and how should they be funded? What are the reasonable expectations from partners, and what are the different kinds of partners? This next year, our Coordinating Council will be working hard to clarify and strengthen our institutional partnerships.”

Those words, combined with the sagging gifts to the CBF budget and the report of the task force, have generated concern among leaders of the CBF partner ministries.

“Baptists Today is grateful for a voluntary, mutually beneficial partnership with CBF,” said John Pierce, editor of Baptists Today. “However, I am concerned about the continual decline in financial support.

“There seems to be a disconnect between CBF's stated priorities and an appreciation for the role we play in fulfilling those priorities. In his report to the CBF Coordinating Council, Daniel Vestal stated that CBF's primary focus is on serving churches, developing leaders and supporting missions. Then partnerships were listed as a low priority. However, Baptists Today helps the Fellowship achieve their highest priorities. … Key church leaders routinely tell us that the information provided through Baptists Today enables them to make wise choices about supporting mission causes that are consistent with their values.”

Rebecca Wiggs, immediate past chairman of the board for ABP, echoed Pierce's concern that the value of CBF partner ministries might be understated.

“In a perfect world, we would get no money from CBF,” she said, citing the news service's desire to report objectively on all Baptist entities, including the CBF. However, she added, “I think CBF must see ABP as a vital part of its overall ministry by keeping Baptists informed.”

Wiggs, an attorney from Jackson, Miss., said she hopes CBF leadership “understand that the whole CBF constituency does desire for a partner like us to be funded. … I hope (CBF) continues to be an organization that exists to support its partners instead of the other way around.”

Ideally, CBF should be “more of a flow-through organization rather than one that starts needing more money to support its own infrastructure,” she added. “I don't like the trend toward supporting more internal CBF organizations as opposed to where the people want to go.”

Robert Parham, executive director of BCE, said the CBF's partner organizations “are the most visible and tangible evidence of the investment that churches and individuals make in CBF with their financial gifts.”

While grateful for those gifts, he said, BCE in turn “provides an excellent return on their investment by building constituency and providing resources to local churches. Imagine what we could do with more funding.”

Brent Walker, executive director of the BJC, also expressed appreciation for CBF financial support as one of the “primary avenues through which churches and individuals have supported the BJC's ministry.”

At the CBF Coordinating Council meeting prior to the general assembly, the partnership question drew comment from several council members.

“I operate on the philosophy that if you don't have money, you can't spend money,” Chuck Moates, chairman of the budget priorities task force, told the Coordinating Council. All the CBF priority areas are “significant and very important,” Moates said, “but when you are faced with a scenario of having limited dollars to spend, where do you want to spend the money?”

Added CBF Moderator Phill Martin of Dallas: “We want to be good partners, but we want to be fiscally responsible for CBF national.”

“We are paying partners at our detriment,” said Philip Wise, chairman of the budget committee and pastor of Second Baptist Church in Lubbock.

Tim Brendle, another member of the budget priorities task force, pushed the issue further, suggesting the partners need to be more proactive in raising money for all of the CBF.

Partners ought to be “promoting together our budget, rather than this being a cash cow,” Brendle said.