GuideStone Financial Resources president O.S. Hawkins told members of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee that changing the entity’s ministry assignment to make its investment and insurance products available to church members would benefit Southern Baptists, the denomination’s news service has reported.
Baptist Press reported that Hawkins made his pitch during a PowerPoint presentation to the Executive Committee’s Cooperative Program committee, which was only gathering information and did not take a vote. A vote could take place during the EC’s February 2013 meeting.
As part of the proposal, GuideStone would be allowed to offer its products to members of Southern Baptist and other evangelical churches.
Hawkins listed several primary reasons for the move, saying it would:
• Undergird GuideStone’s long-term strength and stability, allowing it to, for instance, maintain “competitive products, services and fees.”
• Create additional revenue to support its Mission:Dignity ministry, which provides financial assistance to retired Southern Baptist ministers, workers and their widows. More revenue is needed, Hawkins said, because 63 percent of GuideStone’s current participants likely will retire in the next 15 years.
• Provide revenue allowing future financial support of Southern Baptist mission causes on the state and national levels.
The timing is right for the move, Hawkins said, because research has indicated there are “thousands” of Southern Baptist church members who are interested in GuideStone’s products.
GuideStone would remain a non-profit, Hawkins added.
GuideStone’s hope is for the recommendation to be presented to messengers at the SBC annual meeting next June in Houston. GuideStone does not receive funds from the Cooperative Program, the convention’s unified giving plan.
GuideStone’s trustees endorsed the plan during a meeting last August.
“We have been studying this for the better part of the last decade,” Hawkins said at that meeting. “What we have found is that the research indicates there are thousands of individual investors who belong to Southern Baptist and other evangelical churches who would welcome the opportunity to invest in the investment program made available through GuideStone Funds.”