Baptist Briefs: Baugh Foundation benefits CBF; S.C. Baptists benefit IMB

Baugh Foundation gift benefits CBF ministries. The Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation granted $1 million to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to support its ministries to nurture young Baptists, help form healthy congregations and sustain long-term field personnel presence in global missions. The gift supports the long-term presence of field personnel ministering in 30 countries and will make an impact on the poorest counties in the United States through CBF’s rural poverty initiative, Together for Hope. It will fund ministries to nurture young Baptists, including theological education and practical ministry experience through Student.Go and Student.Church. The gift also will support an intentional congregational renewal process, advocacy work and a church-starting initiative. CBF also plans to use the grant to develop and deliver financial literacy programs for congregations and pastoral leaders.

South Carolina Baptists tap reserves to send gift to IMB. The South Carolina Baptist Convention has pledged to send a $1 million year-end gift to the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention at a time when the missions entity has announced a reduction in its worldwide force due to budget shortfalls. The IMB announced this year it would need to reduce its total number of missionaries and staff by 600 to 800 due to expenditures that exceeded revenues by $210 million over the past six years. Although the South Carolina Baptist Convention did not meet its budget in 2013 and 2014, the convention’s Executive Board pulled $550,000 from the state’s fund balance—after agreeing to send $450,000 from the budget—to provide the $1 million gift to IMB. “This extremely generous gift will go a long way in helping the IMB get to a healthy financial place in the present so that we can move forward into a future marked by more missionaries sent, more disciples made, and more churches planted among unreached peoples than ever before,” IMB President David Platt said. “I praise God for the generosity of South Carolina Baptists and trust God will use these resources for gospel advance to the ends of the earth.”