By Bob Allen
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Coordinating Council affirmed the 2012 Task Force report Feb. 24, pending adjustments from listening sessions the previous day that will be resubmitted for final approval by e-mail.
A timeline calls for more work on areas identified in 20 pages of feedback notes from a Feb. 23 gathering of past and current CBF leaders and partners, with revisions submitted to the Coordinating Council by April 15. Coordinating Council members will then have two weeks to consider the new wording in committees through conference calls or online discussions and vote electronically May 1. After that the final report would be made available for public consideration no later than 30 days prior to the CBF General Assembly June 20-23 in Fort Worth, Texas.
David Hull, chairman of the 2012 Task Force, said some of the concerns voiced Feb. 23 “can be addressed by clarifying our wording and expanding the rationale behind our recommendations.” Others, he said, called for “consideration of more substantive” changes to particular recommendations.
Hull said “a lot of questions” were about proposed changes in the way the CBF collects money from churches. Currently national CBF and state regional organizations make funding decisions independently. Under the new plan, division of funds would be made at the state level or by the local church.
“The intent behind the funding plan template is to represent the greater cooperation and mutual responsibility between national, state and regional, and partner organizations to work together in cooperation and freedom for funding the mission and ministries of the Fellowship community,” said a handout to council members addressing “continuing work areas” before the final report.
Appointed in 2010 in anticipation of the Fellowship’s 20th anniversary in 2011, the task force’s assignment is to chart the organization’s course for the next two decades.
In other business:
— The finance committee submitted a $12.4 million budget for 2012-2013 fiscal year, which was approved by the Coordinating Council. Another motion to develop and implement a conflict of interest questionnaire, to be signed annually by staff and council members, also won approval.
— Controller Larry Hurst reported that as of Jan. 31, four months into the fiscal year, revenues were at $4.32 million, 99 percent of the projected amount, and expenditures were at $3.96 million, 90 percent of projections.
— The full council approved a motion from the officers to hire an interim executive coordinator. With input from the personnel committee, the officers will move forward in selecting a candidate to begin no later than July 1, 2012.
— Moderator Colleen Burroughs, vice president of Birmingham-based Passport Inc., and moderator-elect Keith Herron, senior pastor of Holmeswood Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo., have been invited to attend a gathering of “goodwill Baptists” March 7 at the White House. As part of the Fellowship’s partnership with the Baptist Center for Ethics and District of Columbia Baptist Convention, Burroughs and Herron will represent CBF in dialogue with White House officials about issues relating to Baptists.
— Jack Glasgow, past-moderator and senior pastor of Zebulon Baptist Church, Zebulon, N.C., provided an update from the executive coordinator search committee. The committee seeking a successor to retiring Coordinator Daniel Vestal met in Dallas in January and will meet next in April in Atlanta.
The next meeting of the Coordinating Council is scheduled June 20 in Fort Worth, Texas, prior to the 2012 CBF General Assembly.