A Facebook group page created to “encourage discussion” among South Carolina Baptists about the GCR report’s recommendations has attracted nearly 200 members and sparked a series of discussion threads centered mostly around the issue of trustee selection for the state’s three SCBC-affiliated universities.
Also, a spinoff Facebook group page has been created where members can commit to pray daily for for the Great Commission Resurgence and for the upcoming annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, to be held Nov. 15-16 at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center.
The “SCBC GCR Forum” on Facebook was created by GCR task force member Jamie Duncan on Aug. 10. Two weeks later, the site had garnered 114 posts and spawned multiple discussion threads.
The Facebook group page triggered a bigger response than did the GCR task force’s official website, where South Carolina Baptists were encouraged to submit comments and questions, and task force chairman Ralph Carter posted answers.
At both sites, however, some pastors have expressed opposition to recommendation 9 in the GCR report, which calls for allowing the SCBC’s seven “ministry partners” (including Anderson, Charleston Southern and North Greenville universities) to seat up to one-fifth of their trustees from outside South Carolina.
In response to concerns expressed about proposed changes to the trustee selection process, SCBC president Sonny Holmes, who is a member of the GCR task force, told the Courier that strict guidelines for permitting Baptists from out of state to serve as trustees at SCBC institutions “will permit participation of only strongly committed Baptists.”
“The operative word in our trustee system is trust,” Holmes said. “The charters of our agencies and institutions reflect this trust to the point they cannot leave the auspices of the South Carolina Baptist Convention by a mere vote of the trustees. Convention action would be required in that event.
“However, members of the GCR task force do not anticipate such an occasion,” he said. “It remains a trust issue.”
Holmes said the GCR task force “examined the trustee issues from many different angles” before deciding to suggest bylaw changes to permit out-of-state trustees.
As the Courier went to press, the GCR task force was preparing to post a video at the SCBC website in which James Guenther, a Nashville attorney who has provided legal counsel to the SCBC in the past, addressed questions about the relationships between the convention and its affiliated institutions/ministry partners.
The GCR recommendations, if adopted by SCBC messengers in November, would increase South Carolina Baptists’ contribution to the International Mission Board by nearly 22 percent over the next three years and move the SCBC toward a true 50/50 split of Cooperative Program receipts with the Southern Baptist Convention over the next five years.
To fund the initiatives, the report calls for cuts to the SCBC’s seven ministry partners (Anderson University, The Baptist Courier, Charleston Southern University, Connie Maxwell Children’s Home, North Greenville University, South Carolina Baptist Foundation, and South Carolina Baptist Ministries for the Aging) and urges pastors to lead their churches to increase CP giving.
The GCR report challenges churches that don’t contribute at least 10 percent of undesignated gifts to the Cooperative Program to increase their CP giving by at least 1 percent.
To that end, Carter told the Courier he hopes pastors will have collectively pledged at least $1 million more in CP giving from their churches by November, when SCBC messengers will gather to consider adoption of the GCR report.
As of Aug. 25, more than $221,000 toward the $1 million goal had been pledged by 14 churches, according to information available at the GCR website.
GCR Q&A forums set
Leaders of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force of the South Carolina Baptist Convention will host a series of six “Q&A Forums” around the state in the coming weeks.
Each forum will begin at 10:30 a.m., and lunch will be provided at a cost of $10.
GCR task force chairman Ralph Carter will host three of the sessions; vice chairman Steve Hogg will host the other three.
The first session was to be held Aug. 30 at Charleston Southern University.
Other sessions will be as follows:
Sept. 6: Millbrook Church, Aiken
Sept. 8: Brushy Creek Church, Taylors
Sept. 8: First Church, Rock Hill
Sept. 15: Florence Association office
Oct. 4: Lexington Association office
To register online: http://www.scbaptist.org/qanda-forum. To register by phone: 1-800-723-7242.