By Bob Allen
Leaders of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship chose a fast track for implementation of a re-visioning of the 21-year-old movement adopted last summer, approving a timeline Oct. 25 to propose a new constitution and bylaws, nominees for a new governance model and transition plan, all in time for next year’s General Assembly in Greensboro, N.C.
“We feel that we need to kick-start this transition of our organization,” Pat Anderson, interim executive coordinator of the Atlanta-based Fellowship, reported to the CBF Coordinating Council meeting Oct. 25-26 at First Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga. “We don’t need to take three years, seven years, whatever it is, to effect this.”
Working with Dave Odom, executive director for leadership education at Duke University, Anderson said the 2012 Task Force implementation team has “worked out a way, we think, to move the transition to the completion of a reorganization up to the General Assembly in 2013.”
The first order of business is choosing a nominating committee to select individuals to replace the current 60-member Coordinating Council with a leaner 16-member governing board and transitional leaders for two new councils focused on missions and ministries and less involved in day-to-day oversight of the entire organization.
“Nothing happens in this new plan without the nominating committee,” Anderson said. “It all starts there.”
Currently the nominating committee is comprised of one Coordinating Council member selected by each state, region and racial/ethnic network. During this transition year, council members OK’d a plan to allow the officers to receive names from states, regions and the Fellowship at large and submit a nominating committee slate for approval by the Coordinating Council at a virtual meeting in January. Nominations can be made by e-mailing [email protected].
That group will recommend nominations for the governing board, moderator-elect and transition leaders for missions and ministry councils to the General Assembly scheduled June 26-28.
Meanwhile, a legal committee will draft a new constitution and bylaws for Coordinating Council consideration. In accordance with the current constitution, proposed amendments will be made available with 30 days public notice to Fellowship members June 24, prior to vote at a second business session June 25. The bulk of the transition plan is scheduled to be finalized by April 8, printing deadline for the resource guide distributed at the General Assembly.
Since assuming office in June, CBF moderator Keith Herron said he has worked closely with officers and staff about how to implement sweeping changes recommended by a study committee that held more than 100 listening sessions over a period of two years.
“There are a great many things that I don’t know about how to do this,” admitted Herron, pastor of Holmeswood Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo. “But I get great relief out of knowing that we have a group of really smart, energized people who are going to work together to make that happen.”
“We adopted the program last summer,” Herron said. “We’re going to put the wheels on it this year.”
In other business, Larry Hurst, the Fellowship’s controller, reported the Fellowship ended its fiscal year Sept. 30 with revenues of $11.6 million, 95 percent of the original budget. Expected expenditures, which are still being processed, were at $11.4 million, 96 percent of the original budget.
Bo Prosser, the Fellowship’s coordinator of missional congregations, reported on the upcoming CBF General Assembly. The theme of this year’s event is “With great boldness,” based on 2 Corinthians 3:12. The Assembly will include a Wednesday evening service led by Baptist Women in Ministry that will celebrate the organization’s 30th anniversary. On Thursday evening, new field personnel and church starters will be commissioned. And on Friday, the Assembly will hear from the new CBF executive coordinator, if that person is elected, as expected, in February.
Patricia Heys of CBF communications contributed to this story.