After seven months of work, the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s 35-member Great Commission Resurgence Task Force has released its report, which will be considered for adoption by messengers to the SCBC annual meeting Nov. 15-16 in Columbia.
The full report, released Aug. 1, can be viewed at the SCBC website.
Titled “The Harvest Is Plentiful,” the task force’s report cites six billion lost people across the earth “desperately needing the light of Jesus Christ” and calls for a 22 percent increase in SCBC contributions to the International Mission Board over the next three years; a renewed focus within the state convention on church revitalization, missions mobilization/evangelism and church planting; and a goal of moving within five years toward a true 50/50 split of Cooperative Program receipts between the SCBC and the Southern Baptist Convention.
To pay for the initiatives, the report recommends budget cuts of varying degrees to the SCBC’s seven affiliated institutions (also called ministry partners) and to Baptist building ministries. (The presidents of the institutions were included on the GCR task force and were part of its deliberations.)
The report also recommends that the state convention’s ministry partners have more input during the process of recommending trustees for their institutions and that the institutions be allowed to have some trustees from out-of-state.
In addition to cuts to state ministries and ministry partners, the report requests that the SCBC Executive Committee consider “adjusting” the amounts budgeted for SBC seminaries and other entities “as a means of increasing funding to the IMB.”
Finally, the GCR document also calls for developing a plan to “personally approach” pastors to lead their churches to increase Cooperative Program giving.
“I doubt there will be a single South Carolina Baptist who will be completely satisfied with the report,” said task force chairman Ralph Carter in a written message included at the end of the report. “For some, it goes too far in one direction; and for others, not far enough.
“It is a beginning. It does accomplish the task of immediately making more money available to impact spiritual darkness.”
The report includes videotaped endorsements of the task force’s 11 recommendations and is available for viewing at http://www.scbaptist.org/gcr-report. DVD copies of the video were mailed to SCBC pastors across the state.
SCBC messengers will consider adoption of the report during a special session on Tuesday night of the annual meeting at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.