MACON, Ga. (ABP) — At the conclusion of morning worship Sunday, April 17, pastor Jim Dant asked the congregation of Highland Hills Baptist Church in Macon, Ga., to pray for two long-time members who were considering leaving the church.
Neither is unhappy with the congregation or moving out of the area. In fact, both hold significant leadership roles and have family members deeply involved. But the two are among about a dozen Georgia Baptist collegiate ministry personnel that are being urged to align with churches more clearly supportive of the fundamentalist-controlled Southern and Georgia Baptist conventions.
Neither Chris Fuller, campus minister at Mercer University in Macon, nor Neil Heath, campus minister at Middle Georgia and Macon State colleges would speak to Baptists Today about their church membership situations. Both cited a directive from the Georgia Baptist Convention that employees are not permitted to speak with media on any subject and should refer all inquiries to the convention's communications office.
Nearly one third of the state convention's collegiate ministry staff has changed church memberships recently, including two leaving First Baptist Church in Rome, Ga., and two leaving Milledge Avenue Baptist Church in Athens, Ga.
Rhonda Abbott was one of three campus ministers at the University of Georgia whose membership in Milledge Avenue was brought into question last year. Milledge Avenue minimally supports the Southern Baptist Convention and designates most state-level funding to the university's Baptist Student Union.
Abbott, who resigned last fall and currently serves as associate coordinator for missions for the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship, said her supervisor, Joe Graham, told the three Athens campus ministers they needed to change churches.
“The insinuation was 'or else,'” said Abbott. Although Graham would not confirm that refusing to change churches would result in dismissal, Abbott added, “I don't know how else to read it.”
Graham, Georgia Baptist Convention executive Bob White, and the convention's communications office did not respond to requests from Baptists Today to explain the convention's efforts or to clarify criteria used to determine acceptable churches in which staffers can be members. The convention's personnel manual only states: “All employees (sic) shall be filled with individuals who are active Southern Baptists….”
The pastor of Highland Hills Baptist said the church has “vehemently defended our members' rights to support SBC and GBC causes. The church has consistently promoted GBC and SBC offerings and has had our members who are convention workers to speak in support of state missions,” Dant said.
Highland Hills members are free to determine whether their individual offerings support the causes of the SBC and GBC or the mission efforts of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Dant said the $2,400 earmarked for the GBC this year is an increase over the previous year's contributions.
Dant said he thought the church had maintained a good relationship with the GBC despite strong disagreements many members had with some recent convention actions, such as the firing of Bill Neal as editor of the Christian Index and the affirmation of the controversial 2000 “Baptist Faith and Message.”
However, church members were shocked and angry to learn that Fuller and Heath, two long-time members, were being pressured to leave their church family, Dant said. “Even those members who are most supportive of SBC and GBC causes are very upset and feel betrayed,” he said.
Now the church is appointing a denominational relations committee to bring a recommendation to the congregation in early August as a possible response to the convention's actions, he said. “But no one, I've heard, is pleased with what has taken place.”
GBC leaders have taken a more heavy-handed approach to supervising staff in recent years, which some former employees describe as intimidating. The first page of the GBC personnel manual that went into effect in 1999 advises that “[E]mployment relationships … can be terminated at any time 'for good cause, for bad cause, or for no cause at all.'”
This employment-at-will statement precedes the convention's purpose statement on the second page of the personnel manual, which affirms: “The Georgia Baptist Convention is a living partnership of churches growing in grace, strengthening one another in faith, and working together in obedience to the Great Commandment and Great Commission of Jesus Christ.” The manual was part of a major reorganization that took authority to hire and fire staff away from the GBC executive committee and gave it solely to the executive director.
— John Pierce is executive editor of Baptists Today and a member of Highland Hills Baptist Church. He was an employee of the Georgia Baptist Convention for 18 years, including 13 years as a campus minister, before leaving in 2000 to go to Baptists Today.