FLORENCE, S.C. (ABP) — South Carolina Baptists have approved budget projections that will gradually result in the state convention forwarding 50 percent of all undesignated receipts to the Southern Baptist Convention.
Messengers at the South Carolina Baptist Convention meeting, held in Florence, S.C., Nov. 13-14, also elected an Aiken, S.C., pastor president and passed resolutions addressing predatory lending, homosexuality and gambling.
According to the Baptist Courier, the convention's newspaper, the budget move came in response to a motion made at last year's convention meeting by Hans Wunch, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Ware Shoals, S.C. Wunch had asked that the convention move toward a 50-50 allocation of funds between state and national causes.
Convention officials studied the convention's longtime 40-60 percent distribution of funds between SBC and in-state causes and ended up recommending the gradual move to an even allocation.
In the first step, messengers approved increasing the 2008 percentage forwarded to the SBC to 40.35 percent. They approved an overall 2008 budget of $33,950,000. For any funds beyond the budget goal, 55 percent will go to the SBC's International Mission Board, 25 percent will be sent to the SBC North American Mission Board, and 20 percent will help fund scholarships to send South Carolina Baptists on mission trips.
Dennis Wilkins, chairman of the executive board's budget committee, said the panel conducted extensive research and compared South Carolina Baptist giving to that of other large SBC-related state conventions.
“We are very pleased with the work done by our state convention ministries and realize that it is important to continue this work and make it even better,” he told messengers when recommending the budget change. “All of our research and meeting with leadership of our state convention led us to one very important conclusion: Whatever changes we make in the percentage given to the Southern Baptist Convention must not damage the excellent work being done in our state.”
The South Carolina plan distributes all budget increases over the 2007 level on a 50-50 basis between the state convention and the SBC. For example, the 2008 budget represents a $1.2 million increase over the 2007 figure. Of that, $600,000 will go to SBC causes and $600,000 will remain in South Carolina.
“As we studied this plan, we began to get excited about the potential that it offered,” Wilkins said, noting that increasing the SBC allocation will mean that in-state ministries continue to be funded at the same level each year.
In other business, messengers elected as president Eddie Leopard, pastor of Millbrook Baptist Church in Aiken, over Richard Porter, pastor of Branchville Baptist Church in Branchville, S.C., by a vote of 326-223. For first vice president, David Little, director of missions for Lakelands Baptist Association in Greenwood, S.C., beat Jim Oliver, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Roebuck, S.C., by a vote of 242-182 in a runoff election. Brian Harris, pastor of Rock Springs Baptist Church in Blacksburg, S.C., was elected second vice president in a 363-181 vote over Wunch.
Messengers also passed a resolution opposing the expansion of gambling in the state, specifically denouncing a decision by the Catawba Indian tribe of York County, S.C., to start a bingo operation. Other resolutions denounced predatory lending practices as “unscrupulous, unethical, and un-Christian” because of excessive fees and interest rates; encouraged South Carolina Baptists to participate in anti-abortion events in January; and encouraged pastors, when discussing human sexuality, to “deal honestly and forthrightly with the word of God, teaching the subject of homosexuality in its intended context of sin.”
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