The Baptist World Alliance, Averett University and the Baptist campus center at Virginia Commonwealth University all captured the attention of messengers attending the 181st annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia.
By Robert Dilday
Virginia Baptists will seek membership in the Baptist World Alliance and significantly increase their financial support for the global organization, following a pair of votes taken Nov. 9-10.
Messengers attending the Baptist General Association of Virginia's annual meeting signaled strong support for the BWA, which lost its largest contributor when the Southern Baptist Convention ended its membership earlier this year
With the SBC's withdrawal, the BGAV contributes more to the BWA than any convention or union in the world.
Also at the annual BGAV meeting, held in Roanoke, messengers adopted a 2005 budget of $14.4 million, up $100,000 over the current budget, and elected the first African-American officer in the BGAV's 181-year history.
They also learned that the number of congregations ending their BGAV affiliation to join an alternative conservative state convention has dwindled.
This year, only two churches left the BGAV to join the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia, which now numbers about 250 congregations, said Eddie Stratton, the BGAV's treasurer.
The SBCV was formed in 1995 in opposition to what it claimed was the BGAV's theological liberalism and alleged attempts to distance itself from the Southern Baptist Convention.
Stratton also said that since 1995, eight churches which left the BGAV for the SBCV have renewed their original affiliation.
Without debate and with virtually no opposition, messengers authorized a committee to seek membership in the BWA. The panel includes newly-elected BGAV president Richard Smith, an attorney and member of Columbia Baptist Church in Falls Church; Darrell Foster, an attorney who chaired this year's BGAV budget committee and member of King's Grant Baptist Church in Virginia Beach; Stanley Hare, pastor of Victoria Baptist Church in Victoria and a member of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board; and John Upton, BGAV executive director.
Upton said that Virginia Baptists have historic and extensive ties to the BWA and that many serve as members of the BWA's committees and commissions. But traditionally the BGAV's churches have linked to the BWA through an affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC has made that impossible, he said, and a direct BGAV link is necessary.
Still unclear is whether Virginia will seek full membership-which includes representation on the BWA's governing General Council-or associate membership, a new category created this year to allow broader participation. Associate members will have only indirect representation on the council.
Upton said the BGAV membership committee will move quickly to contact BWA officials and begin the application process.
In adopting the 2005 budget-which drew no debate and little opposition during its consideration-the BGAV increased its annual support for the BWA from about $90,000 to about $150,000.
As in previous years, the 2005 budget offers churches three preset giving channels-World Mission 1, 2 and 3-each of which is divided between Virginia and world ministries. Churches also may craft their own giving plan while remaining supportive of the Virginia Baptist Cooperative Program.
Virginia ministries receive 72 percent of the funds in WM2 and WM3, and 66 percent of WM1.
Southern Baptist Convention ministries are funded in the world ministry portion of WM1, as determined by the SBC. Cooperative Baptist Fellowship ministries are funded in the world ministry portion of WM3, as determined by the CBF.
WM2's world ministry portion funds SBC, CBF and other national and international ministries, as determined by the BGAV.
Allocations in each world mission track are distributed by percentage and the dollar amounts are determined by the number of receipts channeled through each track. Last year, each percentage point was equal to about $15,000 and projections for the 2005 budget indicate the amount will be about the same.
The BWA's percentage, which is included in the WM2 track, was increased from 6 percent to 10 percent. The additional four percentage points were taken from two other line items. One point came from the 2 percent allocated to Gateway Ministries to Unreached People Groups, a Paris-based mission project whose partnership with the BGAV concluded this year and will no longer be funded in the budget.
Three points came from the WM2 allocation for the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board, which was reduced from 20.43 percent to 17.43 percent. The IMB's allocation in the other portions of the budget is unaffected by the change, as is the IMB's annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.
In response to a question during a breakout session on the budget, budget committee chair Darrell Foster said that reducing the IMB to fund the BWA was logical since it was the SBC's withdrawal that had caused a reduction in BWA contributions.
Averett University
A dispute between the BGAV and Averett University over homosexuality and biblical authority is reflected in the 2005 budget. The Virginia Baptist-affiliated school in Danville is allocated $150,000, down from the more than $350,000 allocated in 2004. However, those funds will remain in escrow until the dispute is resolved.
Last year, the BGAV withheld Averett's $350,000 when one of the school's religion professors endorsed the ordination of an openly gay man as an Episcopal bishop and when a chapel speaker disparaged a literal interpretation of Scripture. About $180,000 of that amount later was released to fund Virginia Baptist scholarship commitments at Averett. The rest of the 2004 allocation remains escrowed.
In an attempt to resolve the impasse, Averett offered to establish a program-separate from its religion department-to train bivocational ministers in exchange for the BGAV's allocation. Details of the program are expected to be presented to the Virginia Baptist Mission Board at its Nov. 30-Dec. 1 meeting.
If the Mission Board chooses not to release the escrowed money, the budget committee is authorized to recommend to the BGAV in 2005 how the funds should be distributed.
Among other items in the 2005 budget:
• Allocations to the three academies affiliated with the BGAV were reduced by about $54,000 each. Fork Union Military Academy, Hargrave Military Academy and Oak Hill Academy each are allotted $100,000 in the proposed 2005 budget. Their 2004 allocations are $154,629.
• Funds for the Children's Home of Virginia Baptists were cut from $54,985 to $5,000. The Home, located in Ettrick, is supported by the BGAV and two predominantly African-American Baptist state conventions.
In the past year, financial and personnel issues at the Home have cost it its state license. Foster said the budget committee initially considered recommending an end to all financial support for the institution. But he said Upton and Stratton met with the Home's administrators and that they believe the Home may recover, and the small allocation is a gesture of support. He added that if the Home's difficulties are not resolved, he “would not be surprised” if the allocation was eliminated in future budgets.
• The Virginia Baptist Mission Board receives $6,130,072 in the proposed budget, a 6.47 percent increase over the current $5,757,600. Part of the increase includes a 3 percent cost of living salary increase for Mission Board staff.
• Woman's Missionary Union of Virginia received an increase of $36,644, while the Baptist Extension Board's allocation was reduced from $32,024 to $16,000.
Slight increases are given to Bluefield College ($12,818), the John Leland Center for Theological Studies ($6,797), Virginia Intermont College ($642) and the Virginia Baptist Historical Society ($461).
Allocations for the Religious Herald, the Virginia Baptist Foundation, the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies, the Virginia Baptist Children's Home and Family Services, Virginia Baptist Homes and the Chaplain Services of the Churches of Virginia remain the same.
No changes were recommended in the world mission portions of tracks WM1 or WM3, since allocations in both tracks are determined by other organizations. One change in the WM2 track, in addition to the increase in the BWA's allocation and the IMB's decrease, is the allocation to Ministering to Ministers, an advocacy and fellowship group for ministers who have been terminated, which is increased from 1 to 2 percent. The additional percentage point comes from the Gateway Ministries project which concluded this year.
Properties study committee
Also adopted by messengers at the annual meeting was an extensive report from a properties study committee commissioned by the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.
By approving the report, messengers agreed to:
• Make significant changes in the operation of Eagle Eyrie Baptist Conference Center and Camp Piankatank.
• Sell Peaks of Otter, a wilderness camping facility near Bedford which has been leased to Rivermont Avenue Baptist Church in Lynchburg. The church operates Christian camping experiences there.
• Sell the Baptist campus ministry centers at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
• Make modifications in the maintenance of the Virginia Baptist Resource Center and in the Mission Board's fleet of vehicles.
Changes at Eagle Eyrie, Camp Piankatank and the Virginia Baptist Resource Center drew no debate during consideration of the report.
At an earlier breakout session, the sale of Peaks of Otter attracted a number of questions, and during the business session, David Breckenridge, pastor of Rivermont Avenue Baptist Church, urged messengers to help the church “seek partners” to find ways to continue a camping ministry at the Peaks.
But the sale of the Baptist campus center at VCU drew extended and at times emotional debate. Michael Martin, a former VCU student and member of Bruington Baptist Church in Bruington, said the center was a “haven for Christian students” and offered an amendment that the facility not be sold.
“The BSU building as it stands today is in a space that cannot be replaced,” Martin said. “If [the BSU is] confined to a room on campus or a building off campus, Baptists will have lost a powerful beacon of hope.”
Eleanor Hartman, associate pastor at Branch's Baptist Church in Richmond, said campus centers provide “a place where students can have fun, feel safe and fellowship with other Christians.”
Other messengers expressed concern that selling the building would signal a diminishing of campus ministry at VCU and that the building's strategic location would be impossible to replace.
But David Shelton, who chaired the subcommittee that recommended the sale, said Virginia Baptists “are not diminishing campus ministry at VCU.”
“The key to college ministry is not facilities but relationships,” he said.
Shelton, pastor of Centerville Baptist Church in Chesapeake, said that 95 percent of the Mission Board's campus ministry budget goes toward building maintenance and staff salaries-leaving only 5 percent for ministry programs. He noted that other denominational and non-denominational campus ministries are reaching far more students without owning buildings.
The motion to sell the building ultimately passed, though an amendment modified it to “allow” the sale, not “mandate” it.
In other business at the annual meeting, messengers:
• Adopted a series of special observances, emphases and offerings for 2006.
• Approved a bylaw change that would give the BGAV's program committee more time to reserve speakers for the annual meeting.
• Passed resolutions of appreciation for three Virginia Baptist leaders: Michael Clingenpeel, who resigned as editor of the Religious Herald to become pastor of River Road Church, Baptist, in Richmond; Timothy Norman, who retired as president of the Virginia Baptist Foundation; and Archie Turner, who retired as a campus ministry leader for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board.
• Learned that the 2005 goal for the Alma Hunt Offering for Virginia Missions will be $1,455,000.
• Participated in worship sessions led by Steve McVey, president of Grace Walk Ministries in Atlanta, and the Hoppers, a Southern gospel music quartet.
Robert Dilday is interim editor of the Herald.