“Together We Are Doing More” was the stated theme, but healing from financial scandal was the subtext that dominated the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
Messengers to the Nov. 13-14 meeting elected officers, adopted a $50.6 million budget and went on record speaking out in favor of environmental stewardship and against human trafficking.
But some of the most significant business occurred prior to the general sessions at a closed-door meeting of the BGCT Executive Board—scheduled in response to an investigation that discovered mismanagement and misuse of church-starting funds in the Rio Grande Valley.
Two weeks earlier, an investigative team reported Texas Baptists gave more than $1.3 million in start-up funding and monthly support to three pastors in the Rio Grande Valley who reported 258 church starts between 1999 and 2005. Investigators presented evidence that up to 98 percent of those churches no longer exist—and some never existed except on paper.
Meeting in executive session immediately before the opening session of the BGCT, the board voted to implement all of the investigative team's recommendations. The board instructed BGCT executive director Charles Wade to explore with legal counsel “the full range of methods for recovery of funds” and determine whether to refer the reports' findings to law enforcement.
But at least one messenger to the BGCT annual meeting wanted the convention itself to ask legal authorities to investigate criminal actions that may have occurred in the Rio Grande Valley. That motion was ruled out of order by BGCT president Michael Bell.
At the board meeting—a rare executive session closed to everyone except directors—Kenneth Jordan of Abilene reportedly made a motion instructing BGCT staff leaders to implement the investigative reports' recommendations “expeditiously and in full,” chairman Bob Fowler of Houston said.
The motion called on Fowler to appoint an ad hoc committee from among the board's directors to monitor implementation and report to the February 2007 Executive Board meeting “with the board's expectation that they will have been fully implemented.”
The board approved a motion by Dan Griffith of Haskell directing Wade—in consultation with attorneys, the BGCT president and the board's chairman—to consider all avenues deemed “appropriate, practical, cost-effective and in the best interests of the convention” to recover misappropriated church-starting funds.
The board also approved a motion by Doug Evans of Laguna Park directing Wade, in consultation with the BGCT's legal counsel, to evaluate whether to refer the findings of the report to “any appropriate government investigatory agency.”
David Montoya, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Mineral Wells, questioned the wisdom of giving Wade authority to decide whether to pursue any criminal investigation, saying “he still has questions to answer” about his handling of the Valley church-starting fund scandal.
Montoya—who had written extensively on his blog about what he termed “Valleygate”—made a motion that the convention itself ask for a criminal investigation.
According to the original investigation, the FBI explored fraud allegations in connection with church-starting in the Rio Grande Valley in 2000, but the agency dropped its investigation because the aggrieved party—the BGCT—did not pursue it.
Montoya accused Wade of being “a possible accessory to an attempted cover-up” and “a personal friend of the main player in this scandal,” Otto Arango.
President Bell cut Montoya off, saying, “We do not engage in personal attacks.”
Bell ruled Montoya's motion out of order because the Executive Board has sole authority to act in the interim between annual meetings of the convention. Board action at the executive session prior to the convention's annual meeting “pre-empted any action by the convention,” he said.
Montoya later told reporters he would work directly with some pastors in the Rio Grande Valley who indicated they would initiate legal action themselves.
Montoya also sought to amend the constitution to allow the convention to supercede action by the Executive Board regarding the hiring and firing of an executive director. The motion to amend failed to receive the necessary two-thirds majority vote.
In its preconvention meeting, the Executive Board installed other safeguards on the BGCT's church-starting efforts, including elevating church-starting guidelines to “policy” status, which will give the Executive Board a permanent role in approving and reviewing them.
In his report to the annual meeting, Wade underscored his commitment “to right wrongs” and “clean up this mess.” He stressed his desire to restore broken relationships with pastors and church leaders in the Valley, emphasized the overall good work done by church-starting staff and pledged to rebuild trust.
At a news conference, Fowler noted a director called for a vote of confidence for Wade during the Executive Board meeting. But before it came to a vote, Wade asked the maker of the motion to withdraw it. Wade reportedly indicated any evaluation prior to the board's February meeting would be premature.
In his president's message to the convention, Bell, pastor of Greater St. Stephen First Baptist Church in Fort Worth, urged Texas Baptists to rest in God's care during turbulent times.
He compared the BGCT's current upheaval to airplane turbulence—unpleasant but necessary to reach a destination. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have experienced turbulence. We'll just have to have to ride it out. But there is calmer air ahead. Be not dismayed; God will take care of you.”
In other business, convention messengers:
• Elected as president Steve Vernon, pastor of First Baptist Church in Levelland; first vice president, Joy Fenner of Garland, executive director emeritus of Woman's Missionary Union of Texas; and second vice president, Roberto Rodriguez, pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Harlingen.
A Texas Baptist tradition of electing the first vice president to the presidency the next paves the way for Fenner to become the BGCT's first female president in 2007—a possibility she said she would welcome.