RICHMOND, Va.—The Baptist General Association of Virginia’s budget has become an overly complex and unwieldy document that needs to be recast to more clearly articulate the BGAV’s mission priorities, three top BGAV leaders said April 17.
In addition, allocations for those priorities in the budget—which this year totals $12.4 million—need to be increased, the leaders suggested, acknowledging that would require difficult decisions to reduce funding for other ministries.
“It’s time for us to go to a missional budget,” BGAV executive director John Upton told members of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, which coordinates BGAV activities, at its spring meeting April 17-18. “It’s a great day and we’re addressing some good things. There’s more creativity in our budget than I’ve seen in a long time. I just want to say to the [BGAV] budget committee, go for it—we’ll back you.”
BGAV executive director John Upton discusses proposed budget changes with Virginia Baptist Mission Board members. (Photo by Thom Stanton)
|
Upton and BGAV treasurer Eddie Stratton both said the variety of giving options in the BGAV budget confuses churches and inhibits contributions.
“I hope the budget committee is attuned to the fact that we need to make changes to a system that no longer works,” said Stratton. “It’s my hope that this year’s budget committee will look at new ways of offering giving alternatives that make sense. We cannot keep doing business the same way and expect to do more.”
In later interviews Upton, Stratton and budget committee chair David Washburn emphasized they want to retain the right of local congregations to contribute to the budget in any way they choose while remaining full members of the BGAV. But too much focus is placed on giving options, which primarily fund national organizations like the Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, they said.
“We’ll retain the giving options,” said Upton. “But the budget doesn’t have to be organized around the giving options. It can be organized around a missional emphasis.”
Washburn said the budget committee, which is engaged in developing a budget proposal for 2013, is focused on “how we more clearly define our mission as Virginia Baptists.”
“The national giving tracks have for too long been our identity and the way churches understand the budget,” said Washburn, pastor of First Baptist Church in Waynesboro, Va. “We feel like there are emerging opportunities in Virginia Baptists’ mission—church planting, discipleship, a renewed emphasis on evangelism. If our budget can reflect these islands of strength, they will set the pace and help us accomplish what we need to do.
“Some mechanisms will still exist to allow churches to reflect those national identities,” he added. “We still want to provide that.”
In 1990, the BGAV began a process of modifying its budget to offer alternatives to affiliated churches dissatisfied with a conservative shift in the Southern Baptist Convention, which had been the BGAV’s sole national partner. Those options included channels for funding the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate organization that emerged out of the SBC, and a number of associated agencies and institutions.
Twenty-two years later, the budget includes three pre-set “World Mission” giving tracks which fund the SBC, the CBF and a combination of both, as well as BGAV ministries. It also offers a “customized” option which allows a church to craft its own plan to be distributed through the BGAV treasurer’s office.
“Essentially we have four different budgets,” said Stratton.
The three leaders said the result has been a confusion that inhibits church contributions—a confusion exacerbated by recent economic turmoil. The 2012 budget of $12.4 million is a 24 percent decrease from the $16.3 million 1990 budget.
But reigniting enthusiastic giving will require more than simplifying the budget and clearly identifying what the financial document funds, the leaders said. Increased financial support for the BGAV’s mission priorities are also necessary.
“It does require a change in allocations,” said Upton. “I’m sure the budget committee will look at the mission and be more strategic about where the dollars go.”
“What are the institutions, agencies and emerging opportunities that pull the BGAV forward?” Washburn asked. “That’s what the budget should reflect.”
The BGAV’s 2013 budget will be considered at its annual meeting this November. The budget committee is required by bylaws to unveil its proposal each year at the Mission Board’s October meeting.
In a separate but related issue, Upton said the budget also needs to be modified to reflect policy changes at the SBC’s North American Mission Board. Currently, a portion of the money state Baptist conventions contribute to NAMB, which supports mission activities in the United States and Canada, is returned to the states to fund shared projects. For the BGAV, that return is about $450,000 of the more than $1 million its churches contribute.
But NAMB is engaged in a multi-year transition to shift some of those returned funds to its own church planting efforts. And while it will continue to collaborate with state conventions in starting churches, it places restrictions on those projects, including prohibitions on ordained women, divorced people, speaking in tongues or CBF sympathies, and adherence to the Baptist Faith and Message, a confession of faith adopted by the SBC in 2000.
“We’ve enjoyed the partnership with NAMB,” said Upton. “But they’ve changed their focus.”
He said several state conventions already are redirecting some of the money they forward to NAMB, and that it’s time for the BGAV to explore that possibility as well.
Robert Dilday ([email protected]) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.