LYNCHBURG, Va. — The Baptist General Association of Virginia will undertake what may be the most significant change in its governing structure in at least 75 years, if a proposal is adopted next month at the annual meeting of the 1,400-church denomination.
The proposal, endorsed Oct. 9 by the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, would shift policy-making authority from that 100-member body to a new 20-member Executive Board, while creating a Mission Council of up to 120 members to function primarily in a consultative role.
Jim Baucom presented a proposal from a study committee recommending a significant change in BGAV governance. (VBMB photo by Nathan White)
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In addition, the Executive Board would develop annual budgets to be recommended to the BGAV, replacing the existing budget committee, which has functioned separately from the Mission Board.
If the proposal is adopted by the BGAV at its Nov. 12-13 meeting in Fredericksburg, required constitutional and bylaw changes will be recommended at the 2014 annual meeting. The new structure would be in place by the beginning of 2015.
“We were looking for a nimble organization which meets more often and has longer tenures,” Jim Baucom, who chaired a 14-member study committee authorized last year, told the Mission Board at its Oct. 8-9 meeting. “Over time that organization can tackle the issues that come Virginia Baptists’ way.”
Baucom, pastor of Columbia Baptist Church in Falls Church, Va., said every suggestion in the committee’s nine-page report emerged out of meetings with key constituencies across Virginia over the past year. He added that participants at those meetings consistently expressed support for two values — efficiency and effectiveness, on the one hand, and broad and fair representation, on the other.
“Accordingly, we envision a two-body system that would divide the informational/promotional and oversight functions of the current board,” the report says. “Structured correctly so that a smaller, oversight body would be nominated mostly by and consult with a larger broader representative body, such a system should ensure both effectiveness and full representation.”
The report identifies five issues in BGAV governance which the organization “must address” — issues first expressed last April in a white paper:
- The current Mission Board is too large to function effectively and efficiently.
- The current structure does not ensure the diversity or skills necessary for the Mission Board to act on the BGAV’s behalf between annual meetings.
- The current structure scatters strategic functions for managing mission resources across several bodies.
- The current structure leads to a divided view of the BGAV’s work by separating Mission Board members into committees which mirror the board’s staff.
- The current nominating process does not ensure that churches which strongly support the BGAV participate in its governance.
“We’re staking the same values Virginia Baptists have attempted to embody in their governing structures in the past and this is just the latest iteration,” Baucom told the Mission Board. “This proposal takes those values and suggests how that should look in the 21st century.”
The proposed Virginia Baptist Executive Board would consist of 15 rotating members along with the BGAV president and two vice presidents, the executive director and the treasurer. The rotating members would be drawn from up to 15 nominees, as needed, offered by the Virginia Baptist Mission Council. The Executive Board would select at least four of those nominees each year, and could, if it chose, select a fifth nominee apart from the 15. All Executive Board nominees would be presented to the BGAV for election.
The Mission Council, in addition to nominating Executive Board members, would serve as “the sounding board of the Virginia Baptist family.”
“Mission Council members would … serve as liaisons who communicate from churches and associations, and ambassadors who communicate to churches and association,” the report says. “The Executive Board, the BGAV executive director and appropriate … staff would consult with the Mission Council regularly and intentionally. The Mission Council leaders would also perform the key task of helping to identify potential Virginia Baptist servant leaders.”
Nominees to the council will be made by clusters of churches in the seven regions in Virginia currently identified by the Mission Board to carry out its work, as well as a new eighth cluster of churches which don’t fall into those regions — essentially those outside of Virginia.
The Mission Council will meet once a year in a meeting chaired by the BGAV president. The Executive Board will meet at least six times a year, electing a chair who may not necessarily be the BGAV president — a change from current practice.
All existing members of the Mission Board will serve out their terms as the first Mission Council members, who ultimately will have three-year terms. The council’s first meeting likely would occur in the spring of 2015.
The initial Executive Board would include 10 persons nominated by the former BGAV presidents, none of whom could be a nominee. Nominations for the remaining five would come from the Mission Council. A system of rotation will eventually result in three-year terms, with the possibility of reelection to two additional terms.
Giving the Executive Board budget-making authority will combine strategy and funding for strategic priorities in a way that doesn’t currently exist, the report suggests.
“Some might express concern that this would put too much power in the hands of the smaller body,” it says. “However, we think its connection to the larger body would ensure appropriate accountability and help unite strategic oversight functions to facilitate the entire system’s focus on all of the mission efforts to which God calls us.”
Mission Board members endorsed the governance proposal with one dissenting vote.
In addition to Baucom and BGAV president Carl Johnson, who named the study committee, other members are Don Davidson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Alexnadria, Va., vice chair; Steve Allsbrook, executive director of missions of the Dover Baptist Association; Pat Bloxom, a former president of Woman’s Missionary Union of Virginia; Ann Brown, immediate past WMUV president; Dan Carlton, pastor of Downtown Baptist Church in Alexandria; Mark Croston, pastor of East End Baptist Church in Suffolk, Va., and immediate past president of the BGAV; Darrell Foster, a former BGAV president; and Tommy McDearis, pastor of Blacksburg (Va.) Baptist Church and current BGAV first vice president.
Four others serve in a non-voting capacity: John Upton, BGAV executive director; Eddie Stratton, BGAV treasurer; Dick Bidwell, BGAV parliamentarian; and Glenn Akins, BGAV assistant executive director.
Robert Dilday ([email protected]) is managing editor of the Religious Herald.