Funding changed for two Texas Baptist Student Ministries

Due to changes in associational strategy and approach, two Texas Baptist associations are changing their funding structure for Baptist Student Ministries on local campuses.

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DALLAS—Due to changes in associational strategy and approach, two Texas Baptist associations are changing their funding structure for Baptist Student Ministries on local campuses.

Bluebonnet Baptist Association has supported the BSM at Texas State University in San Marcos, and Corpus Christi Baptist Association has supported the BSM at Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi/Del Mar College.

Both associations have notified the affected campus ministries they will reduce or eliminate direct program budget support in 2010.

“The shift has come both because of finances and philosophical shifts in the associations,” said Bruce McGowan, Texas Baptists’ director of collegiate ministries. “The association is an autonomous group, and we respect what they do with their money. We have been grateful for what they have given in the past or will give in the future.”

In both associations, leaders said the change comes from a desire to see more church involvement with collegiate ministries.

In an attempt to foster direct collegiate ministry partnerships and direct involvement in 2010, Bluebonnet Baptist Association no longer will provide program money through the associational budget but will encourage churches to fund the BSM program budget directly.

“It is an attempt to more directly include local churches in student ministry,” said J.K. Minton, director of missions for Bluebonnet Baptist Association in New Braunfels.

Traditionally, funding for salaries of BSM staff workers has been provided through the Baptist General Convention of Texas budget or through self-supported campus missionaries and interns. Meanwhile, Baptist associations, churches and alumni have provided program money, and the campus ministries have been accountable to them.

“Although that has perpetuated a BSM ministry, it has not incurred direct involvement in churches in college ministry. So, we have a disconnect between BSM ministry and churches,” Minton observed.


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The $15,000 Bluebonnet Baptist Association has given in the past to the Texas State University BSM for its program budget leaves a gap the BSM will have to fill from other funding sources.

“What we are attempting to do is transfer the support, involvement and ministry through the association to a direct funding through churches,” Minton said. “Our hope is to have more direct involvement with the local churches and students. I believe what has come through the association will be more than picked up by the local churches as they take more responsibility for the ministry.”

Corpus Christi Baptist Association will reduce its giving to BSM from $15,000 to $9,000 for 2010.

“We have gone back to ground zero and said why are we here and how can we help the churches,” said Ed Jump, director of missions for the association. “And we can’t do everything or help all the ministries here. It is basically us getting back to the very basics, which is to strengthen, support and grow churches.”

As the association developed its focus, leaders realized only five out of 70 associational churches have allocated money toward BSM ministry. Because of this, Jump and other leaders decided funding needed to be revised and a method to encourage more church involvement should be established.

“We decided that we didn’t want to cut off BSM funding in 2010, so we put it at a level that is more compatible with our budget,” he said.

“Along with that, we have these priority teams, and the BSM will be under the community impact team. We think in the long run that BSM will be coaxed into engaging with more churches. This will give them the opportunity out of necessity to work more closely with churches, increasing their funding base and creating a healthy partnership with the churches.”  

In the last few years, the BSM at the University of Texas in Austin had to make the same funding shift and has been able to raise more support through alumni and individual church involvement than the previously pledged amount by associational budgets, McGowan noted.

Lamar University in Beaumont  has been funded by more than 50 churches in the area for some time and is doing quite well with this system, he added.

McGowan is optimistic the Baptist Student Ministries will be able to raise adequate funding while strengthening bonds with local churches, stating they are not in “crisis mode” because some provision already has been provided through individual churches and donors, as well as the staff positions still being covered by the BGCT budget.

“We will be letting people know the need through churches, friends of BSM and alumni,” he said. “In BSM history, we have relied on local church and association program dollars. That isn’t new. There just has been a shift in the role of the association that has made us seek funds in some other areas and new ways.”

Another change caused by the funding change for these two BSMs will be the formation of a new accountability structure. In the past, when a Baptist Student Ministry received the majority of program money from the association, it then was held accountable by the associational director and its governing structure.

Since this will not be in place, a new advisory group of eight to 10 local church leaders and BSM alumni throughout the state will be established by the BSM directors and churches for each of the two BSMs and be used as the accountability source that will make budget and structural decisions for the organizations.

 


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