Last month, The Courier published the first of this two-part series explaining the South Carolina Baptist kind of confessional cooperation. The thesis is that Baptists came confessing and Baptists came cooperating; we are a confessionally cooperative people. However, part of historic Baptist doctrine and practice emphasizes the autonomy of both local congregations and Baptist organizations. As the churches are autonomous from but joyfully cooperative with one another, so are local associations, state and national conventions, and other Baptist auxiliaries and ministry partners. All Baptist bodies are free to set their parameters for cooperation, including the role of the confession in that cooperation. In this way, the South Carolina Baptist Convention is distinct from, while joyfully cooperative with, the Southern Baptist Convention.
Technically, a “convention” is simply a convening, in existence only between its opening and closing gavels. The SCBC is not a membership of perpetually affiliated congregations, a concept with which the SBC presently seems to be wrestling. Article III of our Articles of Incorporation articulates our position succinctly: “The corporation has no members.” Rather than a body of affiliated/member churches, the SCBC is a two-day annual gathering of messengers from cooperating S.C. Baptist churches. Here’s what that looks like.
According to our governing documents, cooperating S.C. Baptist churches deemed in “friendly cooperation” are allowed to seat messengers. “Friendly cooperation” simply describes a church that is “sympathetic with our work and purposes” and contributing through the Cooperative Program. An Enrollment and Credentials Committee, appointed by the Committee on Committees, is tasked with deciding which cooperating churches meet the qualifications to seat messengers. If the messenger body does not like the decision of the Enrollment and Credentials Committee regarding the seating of messengers from a certain church, they have the power to overturn that decision in session and unseat those messengers. In the worst-case scenario, a cooperating church that is not as closely identified with our Baptist faith and practice as we may hope could slip through the process and seat messengers one year. The way our messenger allocation is constructed, this church could seat a maximum of 25 messengers — 25 messengers out of a thousand (by the way, if all S.C. Baptist churches in “friendly cooperation” would seat a full slate of messengers every year, that would be more like 25 messengers out of 10,000).
Any church can financially invest in our cooperative mission, but only churches deemed in “friendly cooperation” can seat messengers. In annual conventions, these messengers make general decisions about their Great Commission cooperation. They approve a budget, adopt resolutions, elect officers, and employ an executive director-treasurer (ED-T). They also vote on nominations for committees and boards that supervise their missional cooperation over the course of the next year. According to our governing documents, for an S.C. Baptist to be nominated for a committee or board, he or she must personally affirm the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and be a member of a church that both affirms the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 and gives “sacrificially” through the Cooperative Program.
So, while big decisions are made by the messenger body in annual conventions, regular operations are supervised by these smaller groups of committees and boards populated from confessionally aligned and financially invested S.C. Baptists. The ED-T builds and leads a team of called and qualified employees to carry out the mission of the churches as decided by the convention and supervised by their committees and boards. He assures that convention employees, church planters, missionaries, and other cooperatively funded leaders agree with and operate within the parameters of the confession.
In SCBC organization the confession plays a narrowing role as churches/individuals move from simple cooperation to active supervision and funded participation. This is the mechanism of our S.C. Baptist Great Commission cooperation. We are not a perpetual membership of affiliated churches. Instead, we are a family of convictionally and confessionally cooperating churches made up of convictionally and confessionally cooperative S.C. Baptists. The SCBC cooperative mechanism has not changed in hundreds of years, and it is as healthy and effective today as it has ever been.
I would be slow to speak to the health or effectiveness of the SBC’s current organizational model. However, as I’ve travelled South Carolina the past several months meeting with pastors, associational missionaries and ministry partner leaders, it has become increasingly clear that the way Baptists cooperate in the Palmetto State is the way we like it. Joyful. Convictional. Strategic. Sacrificial. Patient. Respectful. Hopeful in all things. We’re not perfect. But honestly, I love the South Carolina Baptist kind of confessional cooperation, and I long to see it catch wind between the states again.