GREENSBORO, N.C. (ABP) — The Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee voted June 12 to tighten qualifications for trustees of SBC entities, but narrowly rejected a recommendation that would encourage those trustees to be drawn from churches that support the denomination generously.
The governing body, in session prior to the denomination's annual meeting in Greensboro, N.C., recommended rule changes designed to avoid conflicts of interest for potential trustees and stagnancy of the pool of potential leaders from which trustees are drawn. The measure, which still must be approved by messengers to the annual meeting, would preclude former employees from serving as trustees of the agency that employed them. Their spouses also would be barred from serving as trustees.
The measure would also require trustees to have been a member of an SBC church for three years before their service, and would increase the length of time between tenures of service from one year to two years.
Messengers would have to approve the changes by a two-thirds majority. Present trustees who are implicated by the new rules would be “grandfathered in” and would not have to relinquish their posts until the end of their present terms.
The SBC International Mission Board presently has at least three former employees serving as trustees, including two who were dismissed from their positions. The current chairman, John Floyd, is a former administrator for the IMB. Floyd, who is now administrative vice president at the independent Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Germantown, Tenn., defeated Wayne Marshall of Mississippi in a 39-34 vote for the position in May.
The Executive Committee approved the move with a few votes against.
A motion to amend a report the Executive Committee approved in February passed by a closer margin. The committee voted 35-28 to change the report as recommended by its officers. The changes remove a 10 percent target for churches to give to the Cooperative Program, the convention's unified budget.
The report, written by an ad hoc committee, recommended that churches be encouraged to forward at least 10 percent of undesignated receipts for Cooperative Program use. The report also encouraged the election of state and national convention officers whose churches give at least 10 percent to CP.
The changes made Monday remove the 10 percent figures and instead encourages churches to increase their giving and calls for officers who support CP giving.
Executive Committee chairman Rob Zinn said the specific amount was being perceived as a mandate to churches. Also, churches that give more than 10 percent were considering decreasing their gifts to that level, he said.
“We don't like either of those,” he said.
Southern Baptist leaders who worked on the report said the percentage of funds sent to state conventions by churches in the last 30 years has decreased from nearly 11 percent to less than 7 percent.
The report also encourages the election of state and national convention officers whose churches give at least 10 percent to CP. The committee that wrote the report was made up of state convention executive directors and Executive Committee leaders.
The report's recommendations have led to scrutiny of candidates running for SBC offices this year.
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