Messengers attending this month’s Baptist General Association of Virginia annual meeting are likely to find what was expected to be a fairly routine agenda enlivened by several weeks of wide-ranging discussions on a proposed budget and on the parameters of church affiliation with the 189-year-old denomination.
The BGAV will meet at the Roanoke Civic Center near downtown Roanoke.
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Attendance at the Nov. 13-14 meeting at the Roanoke Civic Center may be increased by heightened interest in the $12.1 million proposed budget for 2013 — revised since it was originally unveiled — and in a request from the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s executive committee that a Richmond church withdraw after ordaining an openly-gay man to the ministry.
Messenger registration at annual meetings has hovered at around 1,000 for several years, though it spiked the last two times the BGAV met in Roanoke — to about 1,250 in 2008 and about 1,350 in 2004. Last year in Richmond, about 850 messengers registered.
The meeting also will feature election of officers for 2013 and several worship experiences led by BGAV pastors in Virginia and Washington, D.C., the Annie Moses Band and the new Virginia Spirituality Institute, recently organized by four ministers in the state.
Highlights of business to be transacted at this year’s annual gathering include:
Budget
The $12.1 million proposed budget is $300,000 less than this year’s budget goal. When introduced by the BGAV budget committee on Oct. 9, allocations for most affiliated agencies and institutions were reduced anywhere from 3 percent to 77 percent from their 2012 levels. The exception was the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, which was given a 6.5 percent increase.
That prompted protests from the executives of some agencies and questions from some on the Mission Board’s governing board, which has authority to offer advice to the budget committee, though not to approve the document. In response the budget committee revised the proposal on Oct. 18, increasing allocations for some agencies closer to 2012 levels.
Complicating the debate are declining financial contributions from the BGAV’s 1,410 affiliated churches, which have dropped each year since 2008. Budget committee chair David Washburn said receipts in 2012 are predicted to be about $400,000 shy of the goal. The 2013 proposal is the third consecutive annual budget reduction.
BGAV leaders have cited a variety of reasons for the drop in contributions — the effects of a still struggling economy, an unnecessarily complicated system of funding ministries, a long-term decline in denominational loyalty among churches. Whatever the reason, without a financial turnaround BGAV budget debates likely will continue to be thorny.
The 2013 budget revision may have averted challenges in Roanoke to specific allocations. Some agency executives, however, have continued to question a budgeting process which they say gives disproportionate weight to Virginia Baptist Mission Board ministries and which can be erratic and unpredictable. Budget committee members have maintained the VBMB allocations are consistent with strongly-expressed BGAV commitments to evangelism, discipleship and starting new churches, and that the Mission Board, unlike many other BGAV agencies, has no other significant sources of revenue.
Church affiliation
In September Ginter Park Baptist Church in Richmond ordained an openly-gay man to the ministry, action which led the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s executive committee on Oct. 10 to ask the congregation to withdraw from BGAV membership by Dec. 31. If Ginter Park declines to act, the BGAV treasurer’s office will no longer accept its financial contributions, essentially ending the church’s affiliation with the state association.
The executive committee’s decision isn’t contingent on additional action by the BGAV, though the state association can overrule it. At this point, executive committee leaders say they don’t plan to bring a recommendation for BGAV consideration, but the Mission Board is required by bylaw to report at the BGAV annual meeting all action taken by it and its executive committee on the state association’s behalf in the previous year. Following each year’s report, messengers are always empowered to make a motion to modify, overturn or affirm any Mission Board or executive committee action. If adopted by a majority of BGAV messengers, that motion would supersede prior decisions.
Minimal church contributions
A proposed constitutional amendment will require a contribution of at least $500, or at least 2 percent of a congregation’s total annual receipts if that amount is less than $500, to the Virginia portion of the BGAV's Cooperative Missions budget for “participating” and “affiliate” churches to retain their status.
At present, those contribution levels are necessary for a congregation to qualify for two messengers at annual BGAV meetings. Additional messengers, up to the maximum 15, are available if the church contributes at levels stated in the constitution. That minimum financial requirement for messengers was adopted by the BGAV in 2008 and no change in that policy is being considered.
Currently, it is possible for a church to make a token financial contribution and become a “participating” church. If that amount is less than $500 or less than 2 percent of its total annual receipts, the church does not qualify for messengers at the annual meeting, but it is included in the BGAV’s blanket tax exemption under the Internal Revenue Service code, and is eligible to participate in the state association’s annuity benefits for church staff and to receive publications and services from the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.
That will change if the proposed constitutional amendment is adopted in Roanoke. The new policy will require a “participating” church to give at least $500 or at least 2 percent of its total annual receipts, if that amount is less than $500, to the Virginia portion of the BGAV budget.
That new policy also would apply to “affiliate” churches, those which have contributed financially in only one of the preceding three fiscal years.
It would not change the status of “watch care” churches, those unable to contribute financially, primarily because they are “new starts” or experiencing “hardship.”
Several years ago the BGAV constitution was amended to create those three categories of membership.
Other relatively minor constitutional and bylaw amendments also will be recommended in Roanoke.
NAMB
Included in the proposed 2013 budget is a provision to engage in what the Southern Baptist Convention calls “shared ministries,” allowing the BGAV to fund projects which are affected by a change in strategy by the SBC’s North American Mission Board.
For decades NAMB (and its predecessor, the Home Mission Board) funded a variety of “cooperative agreements” with Baptist state conventions — essentially a “rebate” of a portion of contributions conventions made to the agency, which ministers in the United States and Canada. The BGAV primarily used those NAMB funds to support selected missionaries in Virginia — typically covering costs associated with health benefits.
Last year, NAMB adopted a “Send North America” strategy, which shifts almost all of its focus — and funding — to starting new churches and ends or significantly alters its participation in “cooperative agreements.” Several state Baptist conventions have moved to retain some of their NAMB contributions to continue support for existing ministries. The BGAV will adopt a similar practice, no longer requesting those funds from NAMB and retaining an equal amount from the BGAV’s Cooperative Ministries contributions to the SBC agency. That amount — $480,000, or about 5 percent of the BGAV’s total NAMB contributions — is less than amounts retained by other state conventions, say BGAV leaders.
BGAV churches contribute to NAMB through several channels in the state association’s budget — the World Mission 1 giving track, which forwards 34 percent to Southern Baptist Convention causes; the World Mission 2 track, which includes a line item for NAMB; and the customized track, through which some congregations support NAMB directly. Gifts to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, an annual collection in churches, will be unaffected by the change in BGAV strategy.
A separate recommendation to adopt the NAMB proposal won’t be presented in Roanoke; approval of the 2013 budget will trigger the new policy.
Officers
Last year, Suffolk, Va., pastor Mark Croston broke a racial glass ceiling when he became the BGAV’s first African-American president. In Roanoke, he concludes his term, which is restricted to one year and is non-renewable. At this point, only one nominee has been announced for president — Carl Johnson, current first vice president and a member of First Baptist Church in Richmond.
Johnson
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Ellison
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McDearis
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Meadows
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Nominees for other office include Lee Ellison, pastor of Mount Hermon Baptist Church in Moseley, Va., and Tommy McDearis, pastor of Blacksburg (Va.) Baptist Church, both for first vice president; and Kevin Meadows, pastor of Grandin Court Baptist Church in Roanoke, for second vice president.
If elected, Johnson himself will break new ground, as he would be the first person since 1944 to serve more than one term in the BGAV’s presidency. Johnson, who retired in 2000 as chief financial officer of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board, was the state association’s president in 1987. That isn’t at odds with bylaws, which only restrict incumbents from immediately succeeding themselves.
His election would be consistent with a more than 50-year-old practice of rotating the BGAV presidency between ministers and laypersons — a well-established tradition that isn’t required by bylaws. Though a long-time denominational employee, Johnson is not ordained to the ministry. Before joining the staff of the International Mission Board in 1979, he was an executive with a Richmond real estate firm for 11 years.
Since 2000, serving BGAV first vice presidents have been nominated — and invariably elected — to serve as the state association’s president — another tradition that isn’t mandated by bylaws. The practice was established to enhance the experience of BGAV presidents, which can be limited by the one-year term restriction.
Since the mid-1990s, nominees for BGAV president and first vice president have largely run unopposed. Some observers expected that to change last year when Virginia Baptists Committed, a moderate advocacy group, ended its three-decade practice of endorsing candidates for the three state association offices. Some of those expectations may be materializing with the nomination of two candidates for first vice president this year.
VBC was formed in 1983 to counter attempts to shift the Southern Baptist Convention and the BGAV to the theological right. Though conservatives eventually prevailed in the SBC, they never gained traction among Virginia Baptists, largely due to VBC’s efforts. For nearly three decades every VBC-endorsed candidate for BGAV president won election.
In 1996 conservatives ended their attempts in Virginia and formed an alternative convention, the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia. Subsequently participation in VBC dwindled and its membership’s interest in endorsing candidates diminished. Though the group continues to be active, it hasn’t supported a slate of nominees in the past two election cycles.
All the rest
The BGAV will elect about 40 people nominated by its committee on boards and committees to serve on the state association’s standing committees and on the Virginia Baptist Mission Board’s governing board. Another 30 will be nominated to serve on the boards of other agencies and institutions, which will consider the nominees for election.
Also to be adopted are the standard list of special observances and offerings, as well as four resolutions of appreciation.
Robert Dilday ([email protected]) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.