The North Greenville University Board of Trustees, meeting April 15, appealed to Southern Baptist leaders at national and state levels to endorse the Cooperative Program as the “primary means of missions giving” in the denomination.
NGU trustees called on members of the SBC’s Great Commission Resurgence Task Force to revisit proposals unveiled in its Feb. 22 preliminary report and asked South Carolina denominational leaders to change funding formulas in light of an economic downturn that has hurt CP giving by churches and, subsequently, affected allocation of funds to institutions and ministries in the state.
SCBC budget concerns
An April 21 letter citing “concerns about the current direction of the South Carolina Baptist Convention” was sent to the following SCBC leaders: Jim Austin, executive director-treasurer; Ed Carney, chairman of the Executive Board; Fred Stone, president of the state convention; and Bill Gaines, chairman of the Executive Board’s budget, finance and audit committee.
NGU trustees asked leaders to take steps to revise a budget formula they say was never intended to address a situation where statewide CP giving might decline, as it did last year. Under current rules, if CP income exceeds budgeted goals, 80 percent of the surplus is forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention, and 20 percent is used for missions scholarships for South Carolina participants. NGU trustees asked that any surplus be used to restore funding to state ministries, including institutions, whose funding was cut by 6 percent at last November’s SCBC annual meeting.
The letter also requests that the Executive Board Contingent Reserve be used to fund 100 percent of any future budget shortfall for state ministries. In December 2009, state ministries and institutions were funded at 90 percent of the shortfall.
“It bothers me that we’re cutting our institutions,” NGU board chairman Bennie Durham told the Courier. Durham, pastor of Marietta First Baptist Church, said that after Furman University and the SCBC parted ways in 1992, “we basically made our institutions sign in blood that they would never leave us. Now, with these cuts, it’s almost as if the convention is trying to leave the institutions.”
“This is not just a North Greenville thing,” Durham said. “It’s all of our institutions. For us to start cutting back on supporting them – this is not the time, with millions of dollars sitting in a reserve fund.
“If we’re not using it now, when do we use that money? I think it’s time to let our voices be heard.”
In addition to North Greenville University, institutions affiliated with the South Carolina Baptist Convention include Anderson University, The Baptist Courier, Charleston Southern University, Connie Maxwell Children’s Home, South Carolina Baptist Ministries for the Aging, and the South Carolina Baptist Foundation.
The letter also “strongly recommend[s] that state Baptist leaders “continue to endorse the Cooperative Program as the primary means of missions giving – and make it clear that designated or special gifts should not be a substitute for the Cooperative Program.”
State leaders were asked to “challenge South Carolina Baptist churches to increase their support with sacrificial giving for all South Carolina Baptist ministries through the Cooperative Program.”
GCR proposals will ‘handicap’ work
In a second letter, addressed to Ronnie Floyd, chairman of the SBC’s Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) Task Force, North Greenville trustees described the university as “a practicing Great Commission University” and said current GCR proposals “will greatly handicap the work of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, North Greenville University and other state ministries.”
The letter was also sent to SBC president Johnny Hunt and Morris Chapman, SBC Executive Committee president.
NGU trustees called on the GCR task force to “reconsider” a proposal that would remove North American Mission Board funding of mission work in state conventions. More than $500,000 comes to South Carolina from NAMB each year, and it “plays a vital role in church planting and missions in our state,” the letter said.
The letter also requested that the GCR task force not recommend transferring the responsibility for CP promotion from the SBC Executive Board to state conventions, citing the recent economic strain on state convention funding.
Finally, “and most important of all,” NGU trustees disagreed with “proposed new terminology” for missions giving (the GCR task force has recommended a new giving designation called “Great Commission Giving” that will “celebrate” both Cooperative Program and designated giving) and called on SBC leaders to endorse the Cooperative Program as the primary vehicle for missions giving.
Trustee chairman Durham told the Courier he is concerned about “the danger of doing anything that would either dampen or hinder the Cooperative Program.”
“It’s unraveling who we are,” he said. “[The Cooperative Program] has been the strength of Southern Baptists. It’s not [in] showing what we can do on our own, but showing what we can do together,” he said.
Durham said he fears that changing the way that churches report giving could lead to “pride creeping in – when you start to say, well, we do this on our own.”
“That’s the big danger. That could be the downfall of our convention,” he said.
The GCR task force is scheduled to release its final report May 3, six weeks in advance of the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, when messengers will consider its adoption.