A decade ago, the Southern Baptist Convention received $190,468,781 in Cooperative Program gifts from its churches nationwide. For the new year beginning Oct. 1, 2024, the proposed Cooperative Program budget is about the same: $190,250,000.
By one measure, giving to SBC causes has held relatively stable. But by another measure, considering the inflation rate over 10 years, giving to SBC causes has declined up to 30%. That $190.5 million given in 2015 would be valued today at between $235 million and $247 million.
Thus, the SBC Executive Committee’s recommended Cooperative Program Allocation Budget for the coming year is not just a rare dollar-amount decrease, it further erodes the buying power of SBC missions boards and seminaries in fulfilling their work.
The proposed new budget of $190,250,000 is exactly $5 million less than the current year’s budget of $195,250,000. That’s a 2.5% decrease in dollars but a larger decrease in spending power.
First quarter giving to the Cooperative Program, which began Oct. 1, is down 1.41% compared to the prior year.
Vague report on latest audit
Meanwhile, a leader of the Executive Committee told fellow trustees Feb. 20 that auditors will give the central organizing entity of the convention a clean audit, although that document is not yet finalized and no details were made public. The prior year, auditors had flagged the Executive Committee’s $6 million in expenditures on battling sexual abuse allegation as “unsustainable.”
Executive Committee Chairman Philip Robertson told trustees the situation had not gotten any worse: “We’re very grateful to the work of the staff to maintain that financial status. There’s been a lot of work and intentionality to help bring that to pass.”
“We’re not worse off, and that’s a good thing because it means we’ve held steady.”
Adam Wyatt, chairman of the Convention Finances and Stewardship Development Committee, added: “There was a lot of concern last year. We’re where we were from the official audit perspective, which means we’re not worse off, and that’s a good thing because it means we’ve held steady.”
Adam Wyatt
Although the plenary sessions of this week’s meetings were both open to the public and livestreamed, Executive Committee trustees worked off several hundred pages of documents — including financial reports — that were not made available to observers or the media.
BNG made multiple requests for clarification on the financial documents and received no response from the convention’s designated media spokesman. Based on comments made in open session, it appears the Executive Committee has incurred at least another $780,000 in expenses related to the work of Guidepost Solutions addressing sexual abuse issues. The previous year’s audit showed legal expenses of $6 million in an array of legal matters related to sexual abuse, including Guidepost.
The total of any new expenses on this matter incurred in the past year and a half is not yet clear.
Faced with these mounting legal expenses and decreased giving to the Cooperative Program, the Executive Committee last year laid off staff and cut expenditures. For the new budget year, remaining Executive Committee staff will be given 3.4% salary increases.
Motions to require more financial reporting
In recent years, some Southern Baptist pastors and lay leaders have made efforts to get all SBC entities to make public more of their financial information. This has been driven in part by suspicions and allegations against the SBC North American Mission Board.
At last summer’s SBC annual meeting, two motions were made to require SBC entities to file the equivalent of an IRS Form 990 — which they are not required by the IRS to do because they are classified as “churches.” Such reporting would give more detail on income sources, investments, where money is spent and how top staff are compensated.
At this week’s meeting both those motions — which had been referred by the convention to the Executive Committee — were tabled and are scheduled to be discussed when trustees meet June 10, just prior to the SBC annual meeting.
Financial woes could increase
Meanwhile, the most controversial thing currently on the agenda for the June annual meeting is a second reading of the Law Amendment, which would amend the SBC Constitution to exclude from membership any church that employs female pastors or even publicly supports the concept of female pastors.
Last year, the SBC expelled its largest church, Saddleback Church in Southern California, for allowing women to be ordained as pastors and to preach. Dozens if not hundreds more churches could be forced out if the Law Amendment is ratified this June.
Most likely, those churches to be disfellowshipped are not top-dollar givers to the SBC Cooperative Program, but the cumulative effect could be significant.
At this week’s meeting, the Executive Committee took additional actions in line with the proposed amendment by expelling two more churches that support women in ministry, as well as two others with questionable track records on responding to sexual abuse.
Female pastors and sexual abusers are treated the same way by the SBC now.
Immanuel Baptist Church in Paducah, Ky., was expelled because it has a female senior pastor. And New Hope Baptist Church in Gastonia, N.C., was expelled because it has posted an “egalitarian view of women in ministry” on its website.
West Hendersonville Baptist Church in Hendersonville, N.C., and Grove Road Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C., were expelled due to concerns about handling sexual abuse cases.
The most prominent SBC church that has been in national headlines for two months over multiple allegations of mishandling sexual abuse allegations was not discussed. Immanuel Baptist Church of Little Rock, Ark., remains in good standing with the SBC, despite appeals by some of its own deacons for the SBC to investigate.
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