During its Sept. 18-19 sessions in Nashville, Tenn., the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution of appreciation for Carlisle Driggers, who will retire as executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention at the end of next February after 15 years in the position.
Carlisle DriggersThe resolution recounted that Driggers “cast a vision for and led the South Carolina Baptist Convention to embrace Empowering Kingdom Growth, an intense emphasis and focus on the priorities of the Kingdom of God and how such priorities shape the spiritual development and health in individuals and churches.”
The EKG vision now “has been recognized and strategically employed by the Southern Baptist Convention,” the resolution stated, noting, “Churches across the convention have embraced this emphasis and are experiencing significant and substantial spiritual growth as a result.” The resolution also expressed appreciation for Driggers’ service as a chairman of the SBC Empowering Kingdom Growth Task Force.
Commending Driggers for “outstanding and exemplary leadership,” the resolution noted that missions giving by churches in the South Carolina convention has increased 90 percent during his tenure, with Cooperative Program giving in particular rising by 45 percent.
A range of items addressing how the Southern Baptist Convention operates were also on the Executive Committee’s agenda.
Executive Committee members approved a recommendation for messengers’ deliberations during the 2007 annual meeting in San Antonio to revise SBC Bylaw 15(I) to state: “No person who has served on the board of an entity or on the Executive Committee shall be eligible to serve on the board of any entity or on the Executive Committee until two years after the conclusion of his or her term of office, except that a person may be re-elected to an authorized successive term or serve by virtue of a separate office.” The proposed bylaw would reflect changes to the SBC constitution approved by messengers last June in the first of two votes required in successive SBC annual meetings. The previous wording had stipulated a one-year wait for new eligibility.
In responding to motions referred from June’s SBC annual meeting in Greensboro, N.C., the Executive Committee acted on two that also involved trustee service.
In addition to declining a proposed seven-year trustee term instead of the current four-year term, the committee declined to recommend a motion calling for at least one pastor or layman under the age of 40 to be appointed to each SBC board and committee. The Executive Committee response noted that “trustees under the age of 40 are regularly appointed and elected to virtually all Convention committees and entity boards.” The Executive Committee said trustees are named via a “long-established and well-accepted selection process for service by Southern Baptists who are well qualified, without regard to their age, gender, or ethnicity.”
Concerning a motion for SBC officers to be members of churches that give at least 10 percent of the undesignated receipts they receive through the SBC’s Cooperative Program and local Baptist associations, the Executive Committee declined to take action. The committee noted that “the matter was resolved to the satisfaction of the Convention by its adopting of the Final Report of the Ad Hoc Cooperative Program Committee.” The report included a number of initiatives to heighten Cooperative Program giving by Southern Baptists, but a recommendation similar to the motion was deleted prior to the convention.
Another Cooperative Program-related motion, which called for the Executive Committee to provide information on churches’ gifts “to legitimate SBC causes” within their missions budgets, also was declined. The Executive Committee stated that “the motion is already satisfied by the current definition of total mission expenditures in the 2006 Annual Church Profile.”
Three motions addressed the operations of SBC entities.
One motion called for “an administrative expense analysis” of all SBC entities, including specific expenses of the entities’ presidents. The Executive Committee declined to recommend the motion to messengers at next year’s annual meeting by noting that such actions would “tend to usurp the role or invade the province of trustees. However, the Executive Committee does appreciate the spirit and intent of the motion, and therefore recommends [t]hat the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in San Antonio, Tex., June 12-13, 2007, respectfully request the trustees of the SBC entities to continue to be mindful of their duty of fiscal responsibility and good stewardship to the Lord and to Southern Baptists.” The Executive Committee response included a number of proposed revisions to strengthen the SBC Business and Financial Plan relating to audits, administrative expenses and business procedures, also to be acted on during next year’s annual meeting.
The Executive Committee declined to act on two related motions. Concerning a call for the EC to undertake “a comprehensive study of the makeup and function” of the SBC’s entities, the committee noted that “the information requested is published in the 2006 SBC Annual and in the Convention’s governing documents which are posted on SBC.net.” During the Bylaws Workgroup meeting, EC staff reported they would compile the information and publish it as a chart in the SBC Book of Reports.
The other motion called for SBC Bylaw 26 to be changed to require only a majority vote by messengers, instead of the current two-thirds vote, for a matter involving an SBC entity’s internal operations to be taken up during an annual meeting. The Executive Committee responded that such issues “should be sufficiently compelling to sustain the two-thirds vote required to preempt the referrals normally made to the entities involved.”
Two referrals addressed the procedures of the annual meeting’s Resolutions Committee; both were declined by the Executive Committee.
Among other actions concerning the annual meeting, the Executive Committee:
– declined to recommend a change to New Orleans for the 2008 annual meeting, citing “existing contractual obligations, insufficient planning time and an unpredictable infrastructure … at this time.”
– agreed to add “a subcommittee to the local arrangements committee with the specific intent to focus on disability accommodations at the annual meeting,” beginning with next year’s sessions in San Antonio.