South Carolina Baptist Convention messengers on Tuesday afternoon approved changes to the convention’s bylaws that will allow the SCBC’s universities and other institutions to have a greater say in the election of trustees to their governing boards.
The bylaw changes codify recommendations adopted last year as part of the report of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force.
The revised bylaws will give the CEOs of the institutions greater input in the selection of trustees through a mutual-agreement process with the convention’s Nominations Committee. Another bylaw change allows for one-fifth of institutional trustees to live outside South Carolina, although all trustees still must be members of Southern Baptist churches and must endorse the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
All institutional trustees will still be elected by messengers attending the SCBC annual meeting.
The changes were proposed by the GCR task force as part of a report adopted overwhelmingly by messengers in Columbia in November 2011. The GCR guidelines significantly reduce funding to the institutions in order to help pay for global missions and church-planting initiatives.
Prior to Tuesday’s vote, former GCR task force chairman Ralph Carter, in a recorded video, urged messengers to support the bylaw revisions, as did North Greenville University president Jimmy Epting.
Messenger Alan Quigley, pastor of South Main Street Baptist Church, Greenwood, spoke against the motion to allow out-of-state trustees to serve at the SCBC’s institutions. “Allowing outside [board] members is unprecedented,” he said, adding that he opposed “unlocking the doors” of the institutions, some of which might choose to “depart the SCBC” under future leadership, he said.
Don Purvis, a retired pastor from Hartsville who served on the GCR task force, spoke from the floor in favor of the bylaw changes. “If anything will be accomplished to reach the world for Christ, we need to approve this recommendation,” he said.
Jim Stovall, a messenger from Taylors First Baptist Church, also spoke in favor of the motion, saying “we need to pass this” to help “institutions and mission boards.”
With no further discussion from the floor, SCBC president Brad Atkins asked messengers to vote on the motion by lifting their ballots. Atkins ruled that the motion carried by a two-thirds majority.
Messengers also approved other bylaw alterations or additions, including the adoption of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as the convention’s statement of faith; changes to membership guidelines for the Committee on Committees to allow for representation of churches across the spectrum of large and small congregations and to reflect “the ethnic diversity” of the SCBC; and adoption of a statement that similarly calls for ethnic diversity among those elected to serve on standing committees of the SCBC.