MURFREESBORO — The 150th annual meeting of the Tennessee Baptist Convention convened Nov. 11 with 836 registered messengers from 468 churches.
“We are excited to be back in the town where it all started,” said TBC president Jay Hardwick, senior pastor of Forest Hills Baptist Church, Nashville.
The convention exists because of the “faithfulness” of the group that gathered in 1874 and “decided they could do more together than they could apart,” he said.
Breaking from a longstanding tradition, the convention convened on Monday night instead of Tuesday morning. “This year our schedule is different than in recent years,” Hardwick said. As a result, several committees had to report on the first night, including the Budget and Ministry Committee.
Daniel Jerkins, pastor of Hickory Withe First Baptist Church, Eads, presented the Cooperative Program budget recommendation. “The proposed CP allocation goal for next year is $35 million with the first $800,000 committed to Cooperative Program Promotion and Administration,” he said.
Jerkins cited three issues the committee dealt with in making the recommendation.
• Cooperative Program giving has been consistently between $34 and $35 million for the last 10 years. Adjusted for inflation over those 10 years, usable income has dropped by 24 percent.
• TBC messengers have consistently expressed a desire to move toward an equal distribution between SBC and TBMB causes so that more funds can go to reaching the nations through the International Mission Board.
• The Acts 2:17 Initiative has been received with excitement and enthusiasm but those priorities require funding.
“In an effort to deal with each of these issues, the Board is recommending a change in the CP allocation for the new year,” Jerkins said.
“In the new structure, 40 percent will be allocated to the SBC, in which the IMB receives 50.41 percent of those funds,” he continued, adding that the TBC will allocate an additional 5 percent to the IMB.
“With this additional percentage to the IMB, our missionaries working to reach the unreached with the gospel will receive the same amount of funding that they would if the TBC sent 50 percent to the SBC,” Jerkins said.
“This formula allocates more dollars for reaching the nations than ever before in the history of the TBC,” he added.
Overall, the SBC allocation will be reduced from 47.5 percent to 45 percent with 55 percent remaining for TBC causes.
Any amendment to the budget had to be made after the presentation, Hardwick told messengers.
Steve Freeman, pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Springfield, moved that the 5 percent for the IMB be eliminated and proposed a distribution of 55 percent to the TBC and 45 percent to the SBC.
The motion was referred to TBMB for assignment to the Budget and Ministry Committee for analysis and report to the convention on Tuesday for discussion and vote, Hardwick told messengers.
The Committee on Constitution and Bylaws, Committee on Boards and Committee on Committees issued reports and recommendations which received no proposed amendments. Those reports will be discussed and voted on my messengers on Tuesday as well, Hardwick said.
Roc Collins, director of strategic objectives for TBMB, presented a report on the Five Objectives, a 10-year strategic plan for the convention from 2014-2024 (an extensive report on the strategic plan will be printed in a future issue of the B&R).
Collins noted that “while looking over our shoulder at what God has brought us from, we rejoice and celebrate all He has done in our beloved state. However, I have come today to say, “Don’t stop, press on.’ ”
The opening night session ended with a historical message and presentation of the history of the Tennessee Baptist Convention by David S. Dockery (see story in an upcoming issue of the B&R). Dockery, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, is a former president of Union University in Jackson. B&R
