CLOVIS, N.M. (ABP) — Perhaps more people attended the annual meeting of the Baptist Convention of New Mexico this year than any year since it was founded 94 years ago.
The 2006 convention was the first since New Mexico Baptists elected Joseph Bunce as new executive director, which happened during a statewide evangelism conference in February.
“It was a time of evangelism, encouragement, equipping and gratitude,” Bunce said of the Oct. 24-25 meeting. He also urged listeners to reach out to New Mexicans, because “if we don't win them, nobody will.”
In a move to accommodate more diversity within the ranks, members of two of the state's language cultures enjoyed for the first time simultaneous translations of convention proceedings into their native tongues.
Twenty people used receivers to hear the convention in Spanish, and five others utilized receivers tuned into a Navajo translation. Everyone heard the Tewa language of the state's pueblos when Edna Romero opened the Tuesday evening session with Scripture and prayer.
Guest preachers during the convention included Morris Chapman, president and chief executive officer of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee, and Richard Land, president of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
“It is time for Southern Baptists to decide if we're willing to let God empower us …” said Chapman, who also served two terms as BCNM president while he was pastor of First Baptist Church in Albuquerque from 1974-99.
Both Chapman and Land, like each of the convention's three preachers from New Mexico, reiterated the theme of the meeting “Embracing our Culture.”
“God is doing something extraordinary in America … under the radar,” Land said.
In business sessions, messengers approved nominees for BCNM boards and committees, as well as a convention budget for 2007, the largest in the convention's history and its first in excess of $4 million. The budget requires $4,112,565 in Cooperative Program receipts from churches next year and includes a salary increase of 4.5 percent for Baptist Building support staff members and a 3 percent raise for administrative staff members.
After the exception for exempt obligations is applied, 30.5 percent of the Cooperative Program receipts, an estimated $1,184,105, will be forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention for national and international missions and ministry. No increase in the percentage was proposed for next year.
The remainder of Cooperative Program receipts, along with $1,301,568 from various sources — Baptist New Mexican subscriptions and advertising, Baptist Building rental income, and the SBC's North American Mission Board and LifeWay Christian Resources — will support a total operating budget of $4,168,013 for mission work in New Mexico.
Attendees also approved an amendment to the BCNM bylaws that removes a requirement that all board meetings be held at the Baptist Building in Albuquerque. And they agreed to a recommendation by the BCNM executive board “that any overage in the 2006 budget approved at the 2005 state convention be split on a 50/50 basis with the SBC and the BCNM.”
Messengers passed resolutions opposing gambling and its expansion in the state; urging prayer “in Jesus Name;” expressing opposition to embryonic stem-cell research and in favor of adult stem-cell research; encouraging New Mexico Baptists to vote after seeking God's will; affirming the biblical view of marriage, supporting the passage of a marriage protection act in the state and opposing “any laws that would undermine marriage;” and commending the ministry of New Mexico Baptist Disaster Relief and encouraging its continued support by the state convention.
Attendance of the 411 messengers from 138 churches and 243 guests was the highest since 1995. Next year's annual meeting is scheduled to be held Oct. 23-24 at Sandia Baptist Church in Albuquerque.
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