Churches affiliated with the District of Columbia Baptist Convention will see diminished representation on the governing boards of Southern Baptist Convention agencies and institutions, following a June 11 vote.
At its annual meeting in Houston, the SBC adopted a recommendation to designate D.C., Maryland and Delaware as a “defined territory” to determine eligibility for representation on SBC committees and entity boards.
When the proposal was announced earlier this year, the SBC’s top communications officer called the move largely administrative. Roger Oldham said only about 66 of the D.C. convention’s 150 churches contribute through the SBC’s unified giving plan, the Cooperative Program — a key metric of congregational affiliation for the SBC.
“There has been a concentration of trustees coming out of a handful of churches in the District of Columbia Baptist Convention,” a disproportionate amount compared to other states and regions around the country, Oldham said at the time. The proposal is a way to achieve “a more equitable distribution of trustees,” he said.
SBC bylaws require that the number of cooperating Baptists in a defined territory must meet certain thresholds before churches in that territory qualify for representation on SBC boards and committees. The SBC’s Executive Committee, which proposed the D.C. change, said a larger pool of churches would be created by combining the District, Maryland and Delaware.
The SBC will continue to relate directly to the D.C. Baptist Convention as a cooperating state convention, as it does with other state and regional conventions which are part of “defined territories.”
Robert Dilday ([email protected]) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.