HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. (ABP) — Directors of the North Carolina Baptist Retirement Home are seeking to “adjust certain aspects of their relationship” with the North Carolina Baptist State Convention “while reaffirming other traditional ties.”
The move comes after a convention nominating committee chose not to approve several nominees requested by a number of the agencies the convention supports for slots on their boards of directors.
Retirement home president Bill Stillerman met with the convention's executive committee Aug. 16 and asked approval of a proposal by which convention funding to the home would be phased out over four years. Under the agreement, the organization would begin appointing its own board members during the same period.
Though direct, budgeted funding from the convention would cease after four years, the home would continue to relate in a voluntary way, make annual reports to convention messengers, and promote the annual “North Carolina Offering for Older Adults” in local churches.
The current NCBSC budget calls for the home to receive $938,500 per year. The proposal calls for it to receive $703,875 in 2006, $469,250 in 2007, and $234,625 in 2008, then no budget funds in 2009 and afterward.
Both budgeted state convention funds and the annual offering funds sent to the agency are used exclusively to provide benevolent care, Stillerman said.
The executive committee approved the proposal with a strongly affirmative voice vote, with a few of the 21 members present voting against it.
Stillerman said the proposal “does not in any way terminate our relationship with the convention, but is “an attempt to adjust our relationship to move forward with confidence into the future together.”
The proposal grew from a desire for greater financial stability, Stillerman said, and “should in no way be interpreted as a challenge to any action taken by the convention or any of its committees.”
Stillerman said banks and financial institutions are increasingly unwilling to invest in organizations that do not have independent boards that ensure future stability.
Conflict within some Baptist conventions has spilled over and resulted in severe financial problems in other states, Stillerman said, citing South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Missouri.
Stillerman pointed to an example from South Carolina. In the wake of controversy over control of state convention agencies, the primary debt-holder for the South Carolina Baptist Ministries for the Aging withdrew. That forced the institution to seek other funding at significantly higher interest. Following an urgent appeal, South Carolina Baptist churches raised $1 million in emergency funding to pay additional interest and keep the agency afloat for another year.
Stillerman said he and the Baptist Retirement Home's directors are committed to offering quality care for seniors and to designating a significant amount of resources to care for poor and elderly members of the convention. About 40 percent of the home's 700 residents receive free care, he said.
The institution currently has $50 million in tax-exempt bond debt, and a $35 million per-year liability for promised benevolent care. The elderly don't want to commit their lives — and investors don't want to commit their resources — to an institution if they can't be confident about who's in charge, Stillerman said.
He said the home does not want to be caught up in denominational politics, but wants to serve all North Carolina Baptists, and does not pick clients or seek support from churches based on their theological perspective. The directors' main concern is that convention conflict could boil over and prove disastrous, as it has done in other states.
“We want to remain very much a Baptist organization,” Stillerman said. But, he said, the directors recognize that if they seek that measure of autonomy, they should willingly give up convention funding. By stepping the money down over four years, he said, the directors believe an equal amount can be raised from private sources, so the total funding for benevolent care will not decrease.
The proposal does not call for a change in the current requirement that members of the 20-member board must be members of a Baptist church.
Stillerman acknowledged that future generations might choose a different path, but emphasized a desire to remain related to the BSC, not breaking ties. “Our whole culture is related to Baptist life,” he said.
The convention's executive board president, John Butler, said if future directors of the home should seek to move away from its Baptist identity, they would need convention approval — and the convention would no longer be obliged to continue the special offering.
Butler, a former investment banker, said he understood the position of the BRH directors, and noted that, from the convention's perspective, nearly $1 million would become available for other ministries. BSC president David Horton said he believes Stillerman is seeking the best for his institution. “I commend him on what he is doing and his foresight, trying his best to maintain a relationship with Baptists,” he said.
After considerable discussion, the proposal was approved for recommendation to the NCBSC's board of directors. The proposal must also be approved by the convention in order to become effective.