Last week’s annual meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention ranks as one of our largest. The messenger count reached 1,528 by Tuesday evening when the entire session was devoted to the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report.
KirklandThe 2011 SCBC meeting in Columbia was defined by, and will be remembered for, what it did at that evening session.
With more ease than was expected and with less contention than was feared, messengers voted overwhelmingly to approve the GCR report.
There had been talk of an attempt to amend the document, taking aim mainly at recommendations 8 and 9, which altered the process by which trustees are selected and opened the door for the election of board members for the institutions who do not live in South Carolina.
A motion to amend was offered and soundly defeated. No move was made to divide the document into its 11 parts for votes on each.
In his opening remarks before any votes were taken, task force chairman Ralph Carter explained to the messengers the process of producing the document. A consensus, he said to no one’s surprise, was hard to come by with such a diverse group. He also pointed to the critical need of writing a report that most South Carolina Baptists could embrace.
The GCR task force report, he said, should be viewed and voted on as “a single recommendation with 11 separate components.” And by their vote, it was clear that messengers at the meeting agreed.
The approved report is now the blueprint for South Carolina’s involvement in the national GCR initiative adopted by the SBC at its Orlando gathering in 2010.
We are on the morn of the GCR in South Carolina and have awakened to some eye-opening realities.
It was much easier to approve the report of the task force than it will be to achieve the aim of the Great Commission Resurgence. It will be much easier to start the flow of more dollars to the international missions field to dispel spiritual darkness than it will be to sustain that flow.
In short, we have our work cut out for us.
The institutions and other SCBC ministries will open the channel of financial blessings to the IMB by reductions in their 2012 budgets. This achieves the quick fix. The IMB will receive as much money from South Carolina as it would if we really divided our CP dollars, keeping half and sending half to the SBC.
Quick fixes rarely produce results that are long-lasting, however. That is why the GCR report calls for increased giving by the churches to make possible a true 50-50 split of CP funds, really sending half of all CP contributions to the SBC. Five years from now — that is the target date for achieving this.
Churches of the South Carolina Baptist Convention who contribute less than 10 percent of their undesignated offerings to the Cooperative Program are encouraged to increase their contributions by 1 percent for next year. Now the average for CP contributions among SCBC churches is 6 percent.
Decreases in Cooperative Program contributions forced the convention to adopt a 2012 budget nearly $1 million below the 2011 figure. Mendel Stewart, chairman of the convention’s budget, finance and audit committee, said to messengers last week, “The last three years have been very difficult for our budget.”
Not every question raised by our involvement in the Great Commission Resurgence can be answered now. As a denomination, we are taking a big step by faith, but with a plan in hand.
The institutions especially are to be commended for the spirit of cooperation that made possible the GCR report. None preferred to give up budget dollars, but each did. The work of the task force was completed, offering a workable plan. The messengers to the 2011 annual convention approved that plan.
Will the resurgence be a success in South Carolina? The answer lies with our churches and their members. Will they, can they give more and keep less?