WASHINGTON (ABP) — The Alliance of Baptists has restructured its staff to cut costs and adjust to a leadership change.
The Alliance's April 17-19 convocation in Charlotte, N.C., will feature a farewell banquet for Stan Hastey, who retires June 30 after 20 years at the progressive Baptist group's helm.
Hastey was hired as the Alliance's first full-time executive director in 1989. Two years ago he was named minister of ecumenical relations and missions partnership in a restructuring when Jeanette Holt retired after 18 years as associate director.
The original plan was to hire three co-equal positions. Chris Copeland was hired as minister for congregational life, but a third position for minister of stewardship and development was put on hold due to lack of funding.
Last year the Alliance projected a budget deficit of $71,000. Alliance President Brooks Wicker said in a blog the organization ended 2008 spending $91,390 more than it took in, prompting the board of directors to develop a plan to reduce the budget in 2009 to bring it more in line with the $400,000 typical annual Alliance income.
"This requires creative staffing, less travel and less money available for our institutional partners," Wicker said. "It means that the initiatives we identify will be implemented more slowly than we would like."
In March the Alliance announced that Paula Clayton Dempsey would join the staff as minister for partnership relations, beginning part time April 1 and transitioning to full time in July.
Copeland becomes part-time minister for leadership formation, with duties including endorsement of chaplains, placement of ministers and planning and implementing the annual meeting.
Carole Collins, a board member who assumed many financial duties as chair of the finance committee, is resigning from the board to work as a part-time director of finance.
Rounding out the staff are Mary Andreolli, a member of Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, who works part time as the Alliance's minister for outreach and communication, and Susan Burgess Parrish of Oak Ridge, Tenn., who joins the Alliance staff as part-time minister for development.
Kristy Arnesen Pullen, chair of the board's personnel committee, said the staff would function with a team-ministry concept "based on the theological principle that all ministries and all persons are of equal value and importance in the eyes of God."
"This is a team with strong skills, high energy, creative vision and an impressive commitment to the history of the Alliance and its continuing story," Pullen said. "They are equipped and determined to take the Alliance into the future, building on the foundation and accomplishments of all those who have brought us this far."
Dempsey has been an active member of the Alliance since the organization's beginning and served as president for two years in 2000-2002.
Mars Hill College fired her in 2002 after 11 years as campus minister in what officials called a budget-cutting move, but it came after frequent criticism that she was too liberal for the North Carolina Baptist school.
She was a driving force behind establishing the Advent Spirituality Center in Mars Hill, N.C., in 1999, and works as its coordinating director. She said she plans to work half-time in that job until the group's annual gathering in June, and after that would help out as a volunteer if asked.
In her new role with the Alliance of Baptists, Dempsey's duties include mission partnerships, ecumenical and interfaith relations, team facilitation and leading a student mission-learning experience scheduled in 2010.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.