Tennessee Baptists serving on the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee are, from left, Ted Murphy, Forest Hills Baptist Church, Nashville; Dani Bryson, First Baptist Church, Dixon, Corey Cain, First Baptist Church, Seymour; Stacy Bramlett, First Baptist Church, Collierville; and Tim Frank, First Baptist Church, Carthage. — Photo by Morris Aberbnthy / The Baptist Paper
NASHVILLE — Meeting Feb. 19-20 in Nashville, Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee trustees approved a recommended $190,250,000 Cooperative Program allocation budget for the upcoming 2024–25 fiscal year. The proposed budget is down $5 million from the current 2023–24 budget year.
Budget recommendations will go to messengers for approval at the SBC Annual Meeting in Indianapolis in June.
Trustees also approved the Credentials Committee’s four recommendations to disaffiliate with churches for faith and practice concerns.
Regarding requests from messengers to the 2023 annual meeting in New Orleans, the EC approved one, declined three (read more below) and postponed a decision on two until the EC’s meeting in June prior to the annual meeting. The two items postponed deal with increased financial transparency from SBC entities (read the full story here).
Proposed CP allocation budget
The CP allocation budget includes an initial $200,000 special priority allocation for the SBC Vision 2025 initiative and the CP 100 celebration.
The budget allocation breakdown remains the same as recent years:
International Mission Board — 50.41%
North American Mission Board — 22.79%
Theological education through the six SBC seminaries — 21.92%
Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives — .24%
Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission — 1.65%
EC and SBC operations — 2.99%
EC and SBC operations budget
The proposed SBC EC and SBC operations budget also was approved at $10,235,000 and will go to messengers in June for final approval. This is an increase of nearly $2 million over the initial budget approved for the current budget year and is an acknowledged deficit budget due to current financial realities.
Louisiana pastor Philip Robertson leads the Feb. 19-20 SBC Executive Committee board of trustees meeting in his role as chair.
— Photo by Morris Abernathy / The Baptist Paper
EC trustee leaders applauded the EC staff for continued efforts to live within the current financial restraints and noted the budget is working related to the EC’s ministry assignments. It’s the uncontrollable expenses, especially legal expenses related to the Guidepost indemnifications and the DOJ investigation, that are creating the difficulties, leaders explained.
The EC had a negative change in net assets of $2,877,942 following the 2022–23 budget year, according to Mike Bianchi, interim EC CFO, reporting during the EC meeting. But the first quarter of the 2023–24 fiscal year (October through December 2023) shows a positive change in total assets $407,736,000, he noted.
The full details of the financial report were not made public.
Churches recommended for disaffiliation
The four churches approved for a recommendation of disaffiliation are:
- New Hope Baptist Church in Gastonia, North Carolina — lack of reported financial participation for at least the last five years and its lack of intent to cooperate to resolve a question of faith and practice.
- West Hendersonville Baptist Church in Hendersonville, North Carolina — church is believed to be acting in a manner inconsistent with the Convention’s beliefs regarding sexual abuse as demonstrated by their retaining as pastor an individual who is biblically disqualified.
- Grove Road Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina — for a lack of intent to cooperate in resolving a concern regarding the pastor’s mishandling of an allegation of sexual abuse.
- Immanuel Baptist Church in Paducah, Kentucky — for having a faith and practice that does not closely identify with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith, as demonstrated by the church having a female lead pastor functioning in the office of pastor.
Discussions about the churches and updates on legal matters, personnel and additional financial items took place in a nearly three-hour executive session.
The churches have until 30 days prior to the SBC Annual Meeting to appeal the recommendation, which would allow them to address convention messengers and would leave the decision up to messengers. Churches choosing not to appeal are automatically removed from the SBC database.
While these four churches were the ones reported out, it’s not clear how many inquiries could have been reviewed by the Credentials Committee. The group has a policy not to share when churches voluntarily leave the SBC when confronted with concerns, and EC staff said the goal is to serve and assist churches. Restoration is the goal, but sometimes the conversations land at an impasse, staff noted.
EC staff don’t report the number of inquiries currently pending at any given time but did confirm that 80% are related to sexual abuse concerns. Fewer than 20 churches have been disaffiliated since the Credentials Committee was established at the approval of messengers in 2019, EC staff noted.
In other business, the EC:
• Approved the referral from SBC messengers to form a work group to study the missional impact of the 2027 SBC Annual Meeting to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah. The SBC EC will report to messengers in Indianapolis that it intends to consider the recommendations of the work group.
• Declined a referral requesting SBC entities and the EC to adjust policies and practices related to selecting presidential executive leaders. The request specifically asked the SBC bylaws to say no sitting trustee of an entity can serve as president of that organization and would not be eligible until six months following their tenure. The SBC EC declined to give instruction to entities on hiring practices.
• Declined a referral requesting to amend Article III of the SBC Constitution related to the question of what it means for a church to closely identify with the SBC. The proposed amendment would replace “closely identifies” with “in accordance with.” The SBC EC declined to recommend an amendment to the SBC Constitution since messengers in New Orleans approved the formation of a Cooperation Group to consider the issue and report back to messengers in June.
• Declined a referral related to providing clarity to the Baptist Faith and Message on whether it requires closed communion. The referral was declined because “historically, the SBC Executive Committee does not offer interpretation on the Convention’s consensus statement of faith.”
• Reviewed and received the 2022–2023 audit report, which came with an unmodified opinion. “We are 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,” EC trustee chair Philip Robertson said.
• Approved the election of two Southern Baptist Foundation trustees — Bob Dawkins of Memphis and Key Holleman of Nashville — for a second term, which would expire in 2027.
• Approved filling a vacancy with Myles Adamson of Las Vegas for a three-year term on the SBC Committee on Order of Business, after a current committee member passed away.
• Approved meeting hall expenses for the 2024 Pastors Conference, with the understanding that the conference would reimburse $100,000 used for meeting space to help offset cost.
• Approved Al Gage as parliamentarian for the 2024 SBC Annual Meeting in Indianapolis in June.
• Approved 3.4 percent cost-of-living salary increase in the EC salary structure effective Oct. 1.
• approved the 2029 SBC Calendar items. B&R — EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is a joint effort with reporting by Lonnie Wilkey of the Baptist and Reflector, Shawn Hendricks of The Baptist Paper and Jennifer Davis Rash of The Alabama Baptist.
