VIENNA, Va. (ABP) — After a lengthy discussion, messengers to the District of Columbia Baptist Convention overwhelmingly adopted a budget that the convention's executive board had considered too ambitious only weeks before.
On the final day of an otherwise harmonious two-day meeting, messengers passed the budget Oct. 26 by a 72-3 vote. The $1,225,842 figure was higher than an earlier $1,050,000 cap that the executive board had set on the 2005 budget.
The cap was necessary, board members said in June, because of a decrease in giving from DCBC-affiliated churches and a failure to reach the group's $125,000 goal for its annual National Capital Area Missions Offering.
However, when executive board members became aware at a Sept. 27 meeting that the budget would mean the elimination of three staff positions — cutting an already bare-bones staff nearly in half — they reversed themselves and asked the convention's finance committee to come up with a new budget.
“We have 43 [member] churches that are not giving anything to this convention, so we are deeply concerned about that,” said DCBC president Fred Herring, in describing the budget vote to messengers.
The convention has about 125 churches total, but many are small, low-income African-American and immigrant congregations.
The DCBC is the only Southern Baptist Convention-related regional body that relates to more than one national denomination. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches U.S.A and the Progressive National Baptist Convention as well as the SBC.
The convention used to receive about $475,000 a year in supplemental funding from the SBC's North American Mission Board. But that agency's officials decided in 2002 to discontinue the funding after a dispute with DCBC leaders over whether the regional body was too open to liberalism through its congregations and affiliations. The last year DCBC received Southern Baptist funding was in 2003.
Herring said the convention has been operating with spending deficits — and borrowing money from other funds to make up the difference — for several years. Through September, he said, this year's deficit topped $39,000.
Several messengers expressed concern that churches be aware of the commitment required to fund the higher budget. “I do believe it's the right thing to do, but it shouldn't be done without thoughtful consideration on all of our parts and a commitment to live up to what we're voting for,” said Ken Ellison, a messenger from Washington's First Baptist Church.
Joe Hairston, from Takoma Park Baptist Church in Washington, reminded messengers that if they voted for the budget, they had a responsibility to make their churches aware of the extra funding needed to sustain it. “You are here representing your churches. It's not 'those people.' It's us,” he said.
In other business, the messengers approved a set of bylaw changes designed to make it easier to reorganize the convention's staff in the future, and elected new officers by acclamation. Annette James, a member of First Baptist Church of Hyattsville, Md., was elected president; David Freshour, pastor of Chevy Chase Baptist Church in Washington, was elected vice president; and LaTricia Jones, a convention employee and member of Georgetown Baptist Church in Washington, was re-elected as recording secretary.
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