Who is my neighbor?

ROANOKE — The Baptist General Association of Virginia, acknowledging an uncertain economic environment, approved a reduced budget for 2009 during a quiet annual meeting that drew about 1,250 people.

At the Nov. 11-12 meeting, messengers also elected a retired public school administrator as president and adopted constitutional amendments that increase the amount of contributions necessary for churches to affiliate with the BGAV.

They also heard impassioned addresses from popular author and speaker Tony Campolo, who interpreted the meeting's theme of “Who Is My Neighbor?” with appeals to demonstrate true compassion to the poor, Muslims, illegal immigrants and gays.

The 2009 budget of $13.8 million is $560,000 less than this year's $14,360,000 total. Tom McCann, who chairs the state association's budget committee, said officials project 2008 receipts will be about $13.8 million.

“It's not rational to propose a budget that is more than we're actually receiving right now,” McCann said.

McCann said the 19-member budget committee worked hard to craft a budget commensurate with limited financial resources and expressed confidence that Virginia Baptist institutions, agencies and other ministries will find ways to work within it.

While $560,000 is a “big loss,” he said, “these agencies are staffed by people of great creativity and capacity. I think they will do with $13.8 million as much as they could have done with $14.3 million by honing, re-evaluating staff needs, re-evaluating costs and trying to accomplish as much as we can with the funds available. …

“Ultimately, this $13.8 million is going to be applied in such a careful way that the needs and aspirations you have will be met as best as we possibly can.”

Virginia ministries will receive $9,936,000, or 72 percent, of the total budget, while national and inter-national causes will receive $3,864,000, or 28 percent.

Most of the individual allocations for Virginia entities are reduced, with one significant exception: funding for retirement support increases 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 are less, and the division within the allocations between scholarships and contributions to the school itself are 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 2009 budget addresses those concerns by increasing the portion going directly to the school and decreasing its scholarship money.

The budget continues to offer BGAV churches three pre-set giving tracks that divide funds between Virginia ministries and national and international causes:

• The World Missions 1 track retains 66 percent for Virginia ministries and sends 34 percent to Southern Baptist Convention ministries.

• World Missions 2 supports Virginia ministries at 72 percent, while 28 percent funds a combination of Virginia, SBC and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship ministries.

• World Missions 3 funds Virginia ministries at 72 percent and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship at 28 percent.

While the overall amount funding national and international causes will be less in 2009, the allocations in each of the pre-set tracks remain unchanged.

BGAV churches also may adopt a customized plan that allows them to select or delete any item in WM 1, 2 or 3, and adjust percentages to reflect their own priorities.

The budget was adopted unanimously without discussion.

In his report to messengers, BGAV executive director John Upton addressed the economic situation, thanking the churches for being “extremely generous in all this.”

“This is not an easy time,” he said. “It's been a devastating year economically. … Our churches have not been removed from the crisis and neither has the BGAV.

“But you have been extemely generous in all this,” he added. “It has been overwhelming. In the middle of the worst economic situation in our lifetime, you've been writing a different history — a history of generosity and giving that has impacted lives. … The world is going to be changed and the Kingdom will be advanced because of what you've done.”

Officers

Jeff Bloomer, a member of Culpeper Baptist Church in Culpeper was elected president without opposition. Bloomer, who had been serving as first vice president, has been an administrator for more than 40 years in Virginia's public schools and colleges.

Tim Madison, pastor of Madison Heights Baptist Church in Madison Heights, was elected first vice president and Richard Childress, pastor of Franklin Baptist Church in Franklin, second vice president.

Fred Anderson, executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society, was elected to a 28th term as clerk.

The popular Anderson, a regular speaker at churches across the state, was nominated by pastor Kevin Moen of Bowling Green Baptist Church in Bowling Green, who, in an allusion to the recent U.S. political campaign, said, “We need change and change we can believe in, and I nominate one who has seen many changes in his 27 years as clerk.”

The unanimous vote was punctuated by laughter as one messenger shouted, “Four more years!”

All four officers were elected without opposition, and the president and vice presidents were endorsed by Virginia Baptists Committed, an advocacy group whose nominees have been elected by the BGAV for over two decades.

The election follows Virginia Baptists' decades-old precedent of alternating the presidency — which the BGAV constitution restricts to one non-renewable term — between clergy and laity.

It also follows a more recent pattern of elevating the first vice president to the presidency, a practice designed to give the one-term president the benefit of observing the demands of the office during the preceding year.

Constitutional amendments

The constitutional changes establish new financial criteria for affiliation, requiring a minimum contribution of $500 from every church. Previously a contribution of any amount would qualify a church for membership and allow it two representatives, or messengers, at the annual meeting. The changes also increase the amounts necessary to receive additional messengers — for three messengers, the total now is $750 instead of $300 and for four, $1,000 instead of $900. The amount necessary to get additional messengers (up to 15) remains the same, at $600 for each additional messenger.

Dick Bidwell, the BGAV parliamentarian who presented the constitutional changes, said the increases are necessary because of the growing costs of providing services to affiliated churches. He noted the BGAV supplements churches' ministerial pension plans at about $300 annually per minister. In addition, the Virginia Baptist Mission Board each year distributes about $360 in resources and other information to every church, he said.

Bidwell said that 200 of the BGAV's 1,400 churches contributed less than $500 in 2007, and another 199 churches gave nothing.

“That's the rationale for this amendment,” he said.

The changes also include what Bidwell called a “hardship clause” for churches unable to meet the minimum financial requirement. Under the change a church will be given two messengers for a contribution of less than $500 provided that amount is more than 2 percent of its total annual receipts, and provided it contributes at least 2 percent of its total annual receipts to the Virginia portion of the BGAV budget.

Another constitutional amendment offers a similar “hardship clause” to district associations, whose churches must contribute at least $35,000 to the Virginia portion of the BGAV budget for it to have one member on the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. Under the change, the association will receive one Mission Board member for less than $35,000 if that amount is more than 2 percent of the total annual receipts of the congregations in the association and as long as the contributions to the BGAV budget are at least 2 percent of the total annual receipts of all the churches in the association.

Apart from minor changes in language, the only other constitutional modifications were to authorize the BGAV treasurer to ensure the duties of stewardship education be performed, and to make the Virginia Baptist Mission Board's committee on empowering leaders the liaison with the Ministering to Ministers Foundation.

Tony Campolo

In his thematic addresses, Campolo said Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan changed “the whole concept of neighbor.”

“The Samaritans were those who were considered spiritually unclean, abominations in the eyes of God,” he said.

Some of today's “Samaritans,” said Campolo, are the poor, Muslims, illegal immigrants and gays.

“The only description that's given [in Scripture] of Judgment Day is how we respond to the needs of the poor and the oppressed,” he said, referring to chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew. “Jesus said you can't have a personal transforming relationship with me unless you have a personal relationship with the poor and oppressed.”

Muslims, he added, also have not been treated like neighbors in the United States.

“And of course the big one right now – are gays and lesbians our neighbors?” he asked.

Campolo said that, while he is “a conservative on the issue” of homosexuality, he opposed California's recently adopted Proposition 8, which restricts marriage to a man and a woman.

“I believe that same gender erotic behavior is contrary to the teaching of God,” he said. “You might ask, if you believe that way, didn't people like you and me win [with Proposition 8]? What did we win? … I'll tell you what we won. We won tens of thousands of gays and lesbians parading up and down the streets of San Francisco and New York and L.A. screaming against the church, seeing the church as enemy.”

“I don't know how we're going to reach these brothers and sisters,” he said, “but I'm an evangelical and I'm going to win them to Christ …. And we're not going to win them to Christ if we keep sending them bad messages, and we've sent them a bad message. I think the decision in California was in agreement with how I believe, but sometimes you've got to consider the person before you bang them over the head with your principles.” (See separate story on this site.)

Other actions

In a other business, messengers:

• Accepted a BGAV program committee recommendation to change the dates of the 2009 annual meeting to Nov. 17-18 at the Fredericksburg Expo and Conference Center. They also agreed to hold the 2010 meeting on Nov. 9-10 in the Virginia Beach or Hampton area.

• Elected 97 women and men recommended by the BGAV committee on boards and committees to serve on BGAV standing committees and on the boards of partnering agencies, schools and institutions. They also approved three persons, nominated by the BGAV officers, to serve on the committee on boards and committees: Robert Hall, a member of Glen Allen Baptist Church in Glen Allen; Steve Pollard, pastor of Abingdon Baptist Church in Abingdon; and Barbara Skinner, a member of First Baptist Church in Hopewell.

• Asked for further study of a Mission Board recommendation that future BGAV annual meetings be held whenever possible in a Virginia Baptist church. Messenger Reggie Warren of Newport News, who said he wasn't opposed to the recommendation, asked if a study had been made to see how many churches could accommodate the necessary number of participants and if adequate exhibit space was available. Outgoing president Joe Lewis said the recommendation, which was adopted at the board's October meeting, had been discussed but that no study had yet been undertaken. Messenger Troy Palmer of Newport News moved for referral back to the board and the motion was approved.

• Adopted expressions of appreciation for two retiring Mission Board staffers — Rod Hale, who for more than 30 years has specialized in church architecture, Sunday school growth and discipleship promotion; and John Tadlock, who directed Virginia Baptists' campus ministry for most of his more than 30 years on the staff.

• Authorized allocations for the 2008 Alma Hunt Offering for Virginia Missions, which has been collected in Virginia Baptist churches this fall. The total goal of $1,167,500 will be distributed to a variety of ministries of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board and of Woman's Missionary Union of Virginia.

• Approved the traditional special observances and offerings to be promoted in Virginia Baptist churches in 2010.

• Adopted four resolutions. (See text of resolutions in a separate story on this site.)