CBF announces layoffs

ATLANTA (ABP) — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship announced deep staff cuts Jan. 28, citing lingering financial woes.

According to a news release, 13 positions have been eliminated and one reclassified. Two of the jobs will move to contract positions.

The layoffs will reduce the size of the Atlanta-based Fellowship's staff to 42 full-time positions. That includes three field coordinators in Virginia, Tennessee and Texas that are shared with state CBF organizations and one job shared with the CBF Foundation.

Daniel Vestal

"These have been among the most difficult decisions I've had to make during my tenure at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship," said Daniel Vestal, the Fellowship's executive coordinator since 1996. "In spite of our previous efforts, with the downturn in the economy and the ongoing financial challenges of the churches and individuals that make up this Fellowship, we had to address the shortfall by reducing the size of our staff."

Vestal declined to discuss specifics of the staff cuts until after he reports the details to the CBF Coordinating Council at the group's next scheduled meeting Feb. 24-25.

The downsizing follows two straight years of contingency spending to cope with budget shortfalls. In 2009 the Fellowship averted layoffs by cutting staff salaries by 1 percent, reducing contributions to employee retirement plans and scaling back funding for CBF partner organizations by 30 percent.

Last summer the CBF adopted a budget of $14.5 million for 2010-2011, down from $16.1 million the previous year. Four months into the current fiscal year, revenue was running 20 percent below that budget.

None of the lost jobs involved CBF missionaries, although field personnel are operating with reduced budgets. Last June Vestal said that unless giving increases to the Fellowship's Global Missions Offering, sooner or later missionaries would have to be recalled.

The Fellowship has not had funds to employ new missionaries since 2008, but has continued to commission field personnel through the AsYouGo affiliate program, in which missionaries are self-supporting but work alongside paid missionaries.

"My heart goes out to the faithful servants of this Fellowship who are now faced with difficult transitions," said CBF Moderator Christy McMillin-Goodwin "They will be in our prayers as they follow God's call to their next phase of ministry."

Christie McMillan-Goodwin

"All of the CBF staff will need our prayers in the days ahead as we work even more diligently to serve as the presence of Christ around the world," said Goodwin, associate minister for education and missions at Oakland Baptist Church in Rock Hill, S.C. "I am confident we will emerge from these difficult days a stronger Fellowship."

Vestal said staff in the Fellowship's Atlanta Resource Center would reorganize in order to continue to function effectively. "Despite these developments, I remain hopeful about CBF's future," Vestal said.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the CBF, a group of individuals and churches that formed out of the Southern Baptist Convention inerrancy controversy in the 1980s and 1990s. Today about 1,900 churches are affiliated with the group, according to the Fellowship's website.

A 14-member task force appointed last year is currently involved in a two-year study of CBF staffing and funding.

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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

Previous ABP stories:

CBF cuts spending by 20 percent (2/20/2009)

CBF adjusts to budget shortfall (7/1/2009)

CBF adopts $16.1 million budget, but continues reduced spending (7/3/2009)

CBF Coordinating Council recommends reduced budget (2/19/2010)

CBF leader seeks to rally churches to make up mission offering shortfall (5/28/2010)

Vestal says CBF will have to recall missionaries unless funding improves (6/23/2010)

CBF to evaluate structure, funding in two-year study (6/25/2010)

Vestal says CBF will have to recall missionaries unless funding improves (6/23/2010)