Mike Moody, pastor and former state convention president, is to be commended for his steadfast loyalty to, and his unyielding support of, the institutions of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.
Don KirklandIn his letter to the editor, “Cuts pose lasting impact,” Moody calls renewed attention to the decision by messengers to the 2009 annual meeting in Columbia to approve a 2010 convention budget with a 6 percent, across-the-board decrease.
It can hardly be argued that we as South Carolinians and as South Carolina Baptists live in trying times, and that every one of the fewer dollars now coming to denominational causes through the Cooperative Program must be spent wisely and frugally in the interest of good stewardship of our resources.
That being said, it also is true that we as a convention must not lose sight of the pressing needs of our institutions or place too little value on the ministries they carry out on our behalf in obedience to the call of Christ in good times and in bad.
Moody is correct in pointing out in his letter that even if the convention’s financial picture brightens significantly in the coming months, the money lost by the institutions would not be restored under terms of the SCBC’s formula for allocating excess funds at year’s end.
The Honea Path pastor, speaking as one whose church, First Baptist, earmarks 13 percent of its undesignated receipts to Cooperative Program causes, is rightfully concerned about the future of our institutions and their varied ministries.
In my late teens, not sure of my direction in life or the career I would pursue in response to my commitment to follow God’s leading as best I could, I entered Anderson College no more than five years after the convention gave serious thought to closing the school.
As a member of the editorial staff of The Baptist Courier since 1974, I watched with concern as The Baptist College at Charleston and North Greenville College endured economic downturns that threatened to bring to a close their work of providing Christian education. Today, Anderson, Charleston Southern and North Greenville are universities with graduate programs offering a Christian view of the world to the young men and women who will occupy our pulpits and other places of service at our churches. Their graduates will also become the teachers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, business leaders and other professionals in their selected fields who will make an impact on society with their Christian perspective. The funds that the universities receive through the Cooperative Program go primarily for student scholarships.
A founding principle in the establishment of the South Carolina Baptist Convention was the need for providing Christian education.
In my time at the Courier, and not many years ago at that, South Carolina Baptist Ministries for the Aging faced what some considered insurmountable financial problems, and talk of selling off at least the Bethea Home in Darlington was widespread. South Carolina Baptists rallied to the side of SCBMA, just as they had done when the schools were down on their luck, and the day was saved.
South Carolina Baptists have, through the ups and downs of denominational life, put high value on the institutions, certainly including the child care lovingly and professionally provided by Connie Maxwell Children’s Home, the ministry of information and inspiration offered by The Baptist Courier, and the investment ministry of The Baptist Foundation of South Carolina, whose success is felt by individuals as well as a variety of Baptist causes.
The 2010 budget represents prudent thinking on the part of its planners and they are to be praised for their diligent work in laying out a financial blueprint for this year that takes into consideration the overall work of the South Carolina Baptist Convention and an expected shortage of dollars turning up in convention coffers.
Still, South Carolina Baptists – many of whom define the convention itself in terms of its institutions – must be alert to trends that can in the present day cripple the ministries of the institutions, and in a future day may threaten our work in affiliation with the convention.
Not too many years ago, an effort was made to begin an incremental lessening of Cooperative Program dollars designated for the institutions in favor of making more CP funds available for SBC causes. South Carolina Baptists rejected that effort. By doing so, that vote placed proper importance on the work of our institutions through support from the churches.
A struggling, but recovering, economy has become the latest threat, not only to the institutions, but also to the overall ministries of the convention.