By Robert Dilday and Norman Jameson
Transformation — especially congregational transformation — topped the agenda of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina March 19-20 as affiliated churches and their members gathered for the group’s General Assembly in Charlotte, N.C.
The theme was fleshed out by a panel of representatives from five of the state’s churches, whose leaders described their efforts to be “agents of transformation” in their communities.
Participants at the two-day meeting at Providence Baptist Church also took care of several business items, including adoption of a budget and approval of leadership for the coming year.
“We hope and pray we can be agents of God’s transforming work in the world,” said CBFNC executive coordinator Larry Hovis. “But churches also need to be involved in transformation. So we’re hearing stories of ways some of our congregations are becoming transforming congregations.”
The five featured congregations ranged from small churches to large, from rural to urban, but each had a story of transformation. Most credited leadership coaching offered through CBFNC for the guidance and encouragement they needed to take transformative steps.
First Baptist Church in Waynesville, N.C., went from “being an institutional church to an incarnational church focused on meeting the 70 percent of people who aren’t like us,” said pastor Robert Prince. “We are transforming the community by reaching into the community and sharing the gospel.”
That came after hearing “a fairly ugly litany of our own reputation in our own home town,” said associate pastor John Daniels. CBFNC congregational coach Eddie Hammett had simply walked around town and asked residents what they thought of the church.
Greg Rogers, pastor of Oakmont Baptist Church in Greenville, N.C., indicated transformation took root in his congregation when it realized it had to “plow the ground spiritually” before discerning its Kingdom direction.
After the church had passed on an opportunity to buy an adjoining apartment complex two years earlier, it was prepared spiritually to move forward when the complex unexpectedly became available again. Now that complex is a center of community ministry for the church.
Bill Slater, pastor of Wake Forest (N.C.) Baptist Church, said the transformation in his congregation means it is “now a can-do church instead of a can’t-do church.”
Both Niell’s Creek Baptist Church in Angier, N.C., and Grace Crossing, a Baptist congregation in Charlotte, described similar experiences.
Funding ministry
In other action, the CBFNC adopted a ministry budget of $1,409,365 for 2015-2016. Combined with estimated distributions of $2,299,500 in the organization’s Mission Resource Plan — a channel for affiliated churches to fund a variety of ministry organizations in North Carolina and elsewhere — the total 2015-2016 budget is $3,708,865.
The coming year’s ministry budget is about 5 percent lower than the current year’s budget, the fourth year in which allocations have been decreased.
CBFNC treasurer Mike Eddinger, who presented the budget, said 97 percent of the group’s income is from churches. Since that most often represents a percentage of a church budget and since giving to congregations has decreased, “giving to the CBFNC has paralleled that.”
He said the current budget likely would be about $100,000 short of full funding.
“This proposed [2015-2016] budget is a sensitive and realistic approach to our current situation,” Eddinger said.
During the business session, Doug Murray, pastor of First Baptist Church in Wilson, N.C., was elected moderator-elect, as Lisa Rust, a member of First Baptist Church in Lumberton, N.C., assumed the post of moderator. Outgoing moderator Ray Ammons, pastor of First Baptist Church in Gastonia, N.C., remains on the Coordinating Council for the next year.
Also elected were additional members of the Coordinating Council, three ministry councils and the endowment management board.
Norman Jameson is a writer in Winston-Salem, N.C.