LYNCHBURG — The Virginia Baptist Mission Board has gotten its first look at a proposed budget that will reduce funding for Virginia Baptist ministries by more than half a million dollars in 2009.
Meeting at Eagle Eyrie Baptist Conference Center Oct. 14-15, board members also created a standing committee that will oversee operations at the 50-year-old conference center near Lynchburg. Previously oversight of the center was exercised by the full board, with day-to-day operations undertaken by board staff, a practice that will continue.
In addition the board adopted its own 2009 budget of about $7.5 million, down from the current budget of about $7.9 million, and recommended a series of constitution and bylaw amendments.
Photo by Jim White
BGAV president Joe Lewis receives appreciation for Virginia Baptist assistance on two Habitat for Humanity houses. Deborah Silverman, executive director of Lynchburg Habitat for Humanity, presents the plaque, while looking on are John Upton, executive director of the Mission Board, and Laura McDaniel, executive director-treasurer of Woman's Missionary Union of Virginia.
The proposed 2009 budget for the Baptist General Association of Virginia is $13,800,000, almost 4 percent less than the current budget of 14,360,000. The proposal will be considered by messengers to the BGAV annual meeting in Roanoke next month.
The Mission Board does not vote on the BGAV's budget, but the BGAV's budget committee is required to present its proposal to the board for “information and counsel” each October.
Tom McCann, chair of the budget committee, said the BGAV treasurer's office projects receipts of about $13.8 million toward the state association's budget this year.
Virginia ministries would receive $9,936,000, or 72 percent, of the proposed total, while national and inter-national causes would receive $3,864,000, or 28 percent. (See proposed budget breakdown on pages 25-26 of this issue.)
Most of the individual allocations for Virginia entities were reduced, with one significant exception: funding for retirement support would increase from $399,000 to $437,000. Support for retired Virginia Baptist ministers is supplemented by both the BGAV and by GuideStone Financial Services of the Southern Baptist Convention, the pension fund used by most Virginia Baptist ministers. Under an agreement signed several years ago, GuideStone is reducing its support, and the BGAV is increasing its. During a transition period, that line item in the BGAV budget will increase annually.
Overall allocations to the six educational institutions funded in the Virginia portion of the budget also were reduced, but the division within the allocations between scholarships and contributions to the school itself were changed.
Last year, Virginia Baptists voted to provide some of the schools' allocations in the form of direct scholarships to “emerging leaders,” who are expected to provide leadership to the BGAV's churches in the future. However, some of the schools expressed concern that their greatest need was funding for general operations, while funding for scholarships came from a variety of sources.
The proposed 2009 budget addresses those concerns by increasing the portion going directly to the school and decreasing its scholarship money.
While the overall amount funding national and international causes will be less in 2009, the allocations themselves remain unchanged. Those causes are funded through three world mission tracks — World Mission 1, 2 and 3 — and through a fourth option which gives congregations the opportunity to determine their own allocations.
Photo by Jim White
During an executive session, VBMB employees compose a report in song to be presented later that evening. From left are Thom Stanton, Leigh Anne Winston, Craig Waddell (with guitar), Greg Smith, Alice Rusher, Gwen Payne, Ron Hall (president of the Virginia Baptist Foundation), Leslie Straw, Jerry Jones and his wife, Jenny.
World Mission 1 funds ministries of the Southern Baptist Convention, while World Mission 3 supports ministries of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The division of allocations is determined by those entities themselves. World Mission 2 funds selected ministries of both the SBC and the CBF, as well as other national and international causes. The allocations are determined by the budget committee, with the approval of the BGAV.
The 2009 budget adopted by the Virginia Baptist Mission Board for its own ministries is reduced from the current budget of $7,900,966. While the majority of the Mission Board's revenue comes from the BGAV budget (which is reduced in the proposed budget), the board has other sources of revenue, including the Alma Hunt Missions Offering for Virginia Missions, contributions from national partnering agencies and investments.
Amendments in both the BGAV and the Mission Board constitution and bylaws were approved for recommendation to the BGAV next month. (See pages 21-23 of this issue.) In addition to some minor changes in language, the amendments also increase the amount of financial contributions necessary for affiliated churches to send messengers to the BGAV annual meeting, and modify the financial basis on which district associations are represented on the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.
The board also voted to use funds from the sale of one of the two buildings bought earlier this year for the Baptist campus ministry at Virginia Commonwealth University to bring the remaining building to “proper operating condition.”
Last spring the board sold the Baptist campus center at VCU and bought two 19th-century townhouses adjacent to the campus to replace it. Campus ministry officials have determined they do not need both buildings and begun the process of selling one of them. The Mission Board agreed that proceeds from the sale should be used on the remaining building “before using capital expense money on other campuses.”
In other action, the board:
• Approved a series of grants for four churches.
• Approved pastoral salary assistance for a number of BGAV churches and missions.
• Authorized three world mission initiative requests: $2,500 to reconstruct water supply for a hospital and village in Kikongo, Congo; $20,000 for disaster relief following hurricanes in the Turks and Caicos Islands; and $10,000 for support of the Ruth School for gypsy children in Romania.
• Allocated $10,000 in mission development funds to provide a van for the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic, a long-time Virginia Baptist partner.