Baptist Briefs

Posted: 10/19/07

Baptist Briefs

Baptist Joint Committee looks for new property. Directors of the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty voted recently to engage a real-estate agent to identify property for the agency to purchase and renovate. The planned Center for Religious Liberty will provide offices, research space for visiting scholars, meeting space for legislative coalition partners and a training center. For decades, the Baptist Joint Committee has used a rented office suite on Capitol Hill in the Veterans of Foreign Wars building. Rent for the space has comprised more than 10 percent of the group’s annual budget in recent years.

Missouri Baptists join BJC. Directors of the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty voted to accept the Baptist General Convention of Missouri as a member organization. The statewide body—formed in 2001 as an alternative to the fundamentalist-controlled Missouri Baptist Convention—joins 14 other national and regional Baptist groups that support the BJC, including the Baptist General Convention of Texas. BJC directors also approved a $1.2 million budget for 2008, a slight increase over the 2007 budget of $1.15 million.

Missouri Baptist Convention may move. The Missouri Baptist Convention Executive Board will evaluate the sale of its downtown Jefferson City, Mo., offices and may accept a gift of property in a neighboring town. The board plans to consider the issue when it meets during the convention’s annual gathering Oct. 29 in Osage Beach, Mo. If the board approves the motion to accept six acres in nearby California, Mo., the convention will build its new offices on the land, regardless whether the motion to sell the current headquarters is approved. The recommendations came from a convention relocation committee and have been endorsed by the Executive Board’s administrative committee. In recent years, the convention has been trying to sell the Baptist Building—the former Missouri Hotel, which it acquired and renovated in 1969—because it has become too difficult to maintain.

Seminary honors veteran evangelism professor. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary designated Oct. 10 as Roy Fish Day and devoted both a chapel service and reception to honoring Fish, distinguished professor emeritus of evangelism. Fish served the seminary more than 40 years and held the L.R. Scarborough Chair of Evangelism prior to his retirement. Two years ago, Southwestern Seminary’s division of evangelism and missions in the School of Theology was reorganized as the Roy Fish School of Evangelism and Missions. In addition to serving the seminary, Fish has held several prominent leadership positions in the Southern Baptist Convention, including interim president of the North American Mission Board and SBC second vice president.

Veteran Baptist communicator to retire from NCC. Wesley “Pat” Pattillo, who served 29 years in Southern Baptist higher education, will retire from his current post with the National Council of Churches at the end of the year.  Pattillo, 67, has been associate general secretary of the ecumenical council and director of its communication commission seven years. Previously, he served from 1986 to 1994 as vice president for university relations at Samford University, and he had a 21-year career as vice president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., from 1965 to 1986.