RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — Virginia Baptists increased their support for a variety of state, national and international ministries – and for the second year in a row persuaded their budget committee to modify its proposal because of concerns about funding for educational institutions.
Meeting in Richmond Nov 13-14, messengers at the annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia also elected a slate of officers who ran unopposed – the 11th straight year that candidates endorsed by the advocacy group Virginia Baptists Committed have won the state association's top offices.
Joe Lewis, pastor of Second Baptist Church in Petersburg, was elected president in one of several brief – and discussion-free — business sessions which included the approval of a $14 million budget for 2008 and adoption of resolutions on the New Baptist Covenant, payday lenders and the April shootings at Virginia Tech.
The $14,360,000 budget for 2008 is $160,000 more than this year's. A new feature includes a reduction in direct allocations to the BGAV's affiliated academies and colleges but also new allocations to each of the institutions offering scholarships to students. In addition, a newly created student- and ministry-formation scholarship fund will assist students at any college or seminary.
The change was initiated by the Virginia Baptist Mission Board's emerging leaders subcommittee and was developed in conversations among key leaders of the state association's Mission Board and budget committee.
“The key question is: Do we want to continue to support institutional entities or do we want to support individual students as we look to the future?” according to a question-and-answer sheet distributed by the study committee. “Instead of answering this question with an either/or response, we want to answer it with a both/and response. The BGAV wants to remain strong partners with our schools and academies but also expand our support to students who choose to receive their education in other colleges or universities. We want to emphasize our support for the next generation of future leaders of Virginia Baptists.”
However, messengers balked at the reductions for the John Leland Center for Theological Studies, a BGAV-affiliated seminary near Washington, D.C., whose allocation would have been reduced from $165,000 to $100,000. After hearing concerns raised in a budget breakout session the day before the budget vote, the budget committee altered its proposal, giving both Leland and Bluefield College, another BGAV school which was slated for reductions, direct allocations of $140,000 each, with the planned reduction phased in over the next few years.
The resolution on the New Baptist Covenant encouraged BGAV leaders to continue the participation in the national meeting of Baptists in Atlanta, Jan 31-Feb. 1, while urging it to “honor its promise and pledge for a nonpartisan gathering.”
The other resolutions denounced “the payday lending industry and its practice of further impoverishing the poor” and expressed gratitude to the “brothers and sisters who have served so faithfully” in ministering to students and their families affected by the shootings at Virginia Tech.
In addition to Lewis, two vice presidents were elected: Jeff Bloomer of Culpeper, an education administrator and member of Culpeper Baptist Church, and Pat Bloxom of Mappsville, a retired public health nurse and former president of Woman's Missionary Union of Virginia and a member of Mappsville Baptist Church.
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