GREENSBORO, N.C. (ABP) — A tide of contracts, finances, logistics and security concerns swamped a sentimental appeal for the Southern Baptist Convention to change its 2008 meeting location to New Orleans.
David Crosby, pastor of First Baptist Church in New Orleans, asked his fellow SBC messengers June 13 to move the 2008 annual meeting to his city, which was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina last year. The convention usually sets the date and location of its annual meetings several years in advance. The '08 event is scheduled for Indianapolis.
Crosby presented his appeal without elaboration, but messengers poured Katrina-generated sympathy upon New Orleans throughout the opening day of this year's annual meeting, held in Greensboro, N.C.
A couple of hours after Crosby presented his motion, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary President Chuck Kelley described how Katrina's floodwaters inundated the school's campus when levees failed. He described how Southern Baptist volunteers converged upon New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in Katrina's wake, how SBC agencies sacrificially reached out to help the seminary, and how the seminary community has persevered.
Later, SBC President Bobby Welch choked up with emotion as he described flying over the floodwaters with Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans. Then, Luter preached to the crowd.
But reality overcame sentiment when messengers considered actually forcing the convention to change plans in order to meet in the Crescent City. The SBC order-of-business committee suggested referring Crosby's invitation to the SBC Executive Committee for review and a report in 2007.
Realizing a year-long delay would make a 2008 meeting in New Orleans impossible, Crosby asked the convention to overturn the referral and immediately vote to go to New Orleans.
Jack Wilkerson, the Executive Committee's business manager, countered Crosby's request.
The SBC already has an ethical commitment to Indianapolis, and backing out of legal contracts would cost the convention thousands of dollars, Wilkerson said. Also, much of New Orleans' infrastructure has not been restored and may not be even by the proposed meeting date, he added.
“We could not feed you, house you or properly protect you [in New Orleans] in 2008,” he noted.
Messengers affirmed the referral to the Executive Committee on a show-of-ballots vote.
A motion that received pre-convention media attention was slated for discussion later that evening.
Wade Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., and an International Mission Board trustee, asked the Executive Committee to appoint a committee to “determine the sources of the controversies” in the mission board and to present findings and recommendations so the board's trustees “might effect reconciliation.”
The order-of-business committee recommended referral to the International Mission Board, and Burleson requested a vote by messengers that would force the referral to go to the Executive Committee instead. Discussion and a vote on whether the motion would be sent to the Executive Committee or the IMB were slated for Tuesday night.
During the annual meeting's first afternoon, the convention referred six other motions to the Executive Committee. They included requests for the SBC to:
— Amend the SBC constitution to require convention officers “be chosen from churches which support the work of Southern Baptists by giving at least a tithe, 10 percent, [of their budgets] through the Cooperative Program and the local Baptist association.”
Bill Fowler of First Baptist Church in Pleasanton, Texas, made the motion.
Fowler's motion paralleled the original recommendation made this spring by a special committee created to study support for the Cooperative Program, the convention's unified budget. However, the study committee yielded to pressure and softened its recommendation, backing away from the 10 percent recommendation. An attempt to restore that specific figure to the committee's report failed when messengers voted it down.
— Study the “makeup and function” of SBC trustee boards. The motion asked the convention to examine the “size, purpose, scope of responsibility and frequency of meetings” of the boards, as well as the “specific minimum qualifications for trustees.”
Everett Anthony, a member of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., and former director of associational missions in Chicago, made that motion.
— Consider a new policy that would require the full convention to vote on “any doctrinal position or practical policy” of an SBC entity “which goes beyond or seeks to explain” the convention's Baptist Faith & Message statement. The policy would stipulate that any such statement approved by an SBC entity would be presented to messengers attending the convention's next annual meeting, and if not approved, it would be rescinded.
Boyd Luter of First Baptist Church in Fairfield, Texas, proposed the motion.
— Amend the SBC bylaws so that a simple majority of messengers at an annual meeting could force a vote on a motion that would deal with the internal operation or ministries of convention entities. Currently, bylaws require a two-thirds majority to force such a vote.
Rodney Albert of Hallsville Baptist Church in Hallsville, Mo., offered the motion.
— Revise SBC bylaws so that a simple majority of convention messengers can decide to consider a resolution that is not proposed by the SBC Resolutions Committee. The present policy requires a two-thirds majority vote to consider a resolution that does not receive committee endorsement.
Albert also proposed this motion.
— Change the rules governing the terms of SBC trustees so that each trustee would serve one seven-year term. Current policies stipulate trustees can serve two consecutive terms. Seminary terms are five years, and other trustee terms are four years.
Barrett Lampp of Thomasville Road Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Fla., proposed the change.
The convention also referred two motions to its mission boards. They:
— Called for an external comprehensive audit of all funds handled by the International Mission Board's Central Asia region from 1999 through 2005. Ron McGowin of First Baptist Church in Fairfield, Texas, claimed a 2002-03 IMB internal audit on work in the region “at best could only account for $372,831.62 of embezzled monies.”
The motion was referred to IMB trustees.
— Asked for a study committee to determine how the IMB and the North American Mission board can “work in greater partnership and harmony.” The request noted the mission boards share tasks in disaster-relief, and the differences between foreign and domestic missions are growing harder to discern.
Glynn Stone of West Rome Baptist Church in Rome, Ga., presented the motion, which was referred to both mission boards.