GREENSBORO, N.C. (ABP) — In a year when Southern Baptist Convention leaders are calling for the election of SBC officers “whose churches give at least 10 percent of their undesignated receipts to the Cooperative Program” — the SBC's ministry budget — the first two announced candidates are pastors of churches that give approximately 1 percent to the Cooperative Program.
When the SBC meets in Greensboro in June, North Carolina pastor J. D. Greear will be nominated for second vice president, according to Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C.
Greear, a graduate of Southeastern, has been senior pastor of the Summit Church in Durham, N.C., since 2001. Information from Southern Baptists' 2005 Annual Church Profile survey shows the Summit Church reports $16,500 in gifts through the SBC Cooperative Program, slightly less than 1 percent of the church's total undesignated receipts of $1.7 million.
The church listed another $478,000 in mission expenditures but only $87,591 for the SBC's offering for international missions. Greear previously served two years as a missionary in Southeast Asia. Since becoming a pastor in Durham, the Summit Church has relocated and grown in its Sunday morning worship attendance from 400 to 1,700.
Greear is the second announced nominee for SBC second vice president.
Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., will be nominated by Bill Dodson, pastor of Bell City Baptist Church near Farmington, Ky. Drake's church reported $1,000 given through the SBC Cooperative Program last year, just over 1 percent of the church's reported receipts of $96,450.
The Southern Baptist Convention has been working to revive sluggish Cooperative Program giving, which funds the denomination's mission boards and other agencies. A report of the Ad Hoc Cooperative Program Committee calls for the election of future convention officers on both the state and national levels from churches that give at least 10 percent through the Cooperative Program.
In announcing Greear's nomination, Akin said he “represents the best of the growing number of young leaders in the SBC. He believes in both the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. His is also on the cutting edge in terms of creative and dynamic ministry. … I will be delighted to place him in nomination before our convention.”
Although no official announcement has been made, Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., is expected to be nominated for SBC president. Cooperative Giving for his church was not immediately available.
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