By Lonnie Wilkey
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org
FRANKLIN — As in past years, the proposed 2020-21 Tennessee Baptist Convention Cooperative Program Allocation budget is being released 30 days in advance prior of the TBC annual meeting held each year in conjunction with Summit.
This year, however, the annual Summit has been postponed until 2021. The staff of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board is preparing a Virtual Summit to be aired at 9 a.m. Central Time on Tuesday, Nov. 10.
Included in the event will be reports from convention president Bruce Chesser and TBMB president and executive director Randy C. Davis.
Virtual Summit will also feature numerous video presentations and updates from various organizations.
“It will be a time of inspiration and information as we hear some great stories of how God has moved in churches across Tennessee during the time of this pandemic,” Davis said.
Due to the pandemic, messengers will be unable to conduct business, including the approval of the 2020-21 budget. In accordance with the TBC’s Constitution and Bylaws, the directors of the Tennessee Baptist Convention will convene via Zoom on Wednesday, Nov. 11, acting as the Convention ad interim.
Constitution Bylaw VI.A. determines that “TBMB is responsible for conducting all activities on behalf of the Convention between the meetings of the Convention. This corporation shall discharge the powers and authority delegated to it by the Convention and the specific ministry responsibilities which the Convention assigns to it by resolution, covenant, and by provisions in the Convention’s Constitution and Bylaws and Financial Plan.”
The recommended budget for 2020-21 includes an allocation of 47.5 percent to the SBC and 52.5 percent to the TBC. The full budget can be viewed at tnbaptist.org/budget.
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“A lot of work has gone into creating a proposed budget that accounts for various scenarios,” said Davis. “At this stage, the next several months nationally are filled with uncertainty. We’ve consulted with a number of financial people and they concur that the variables affecting the economy are many: Will COVID-19 linger and have a negative financial impact? How will the national election impact the economy and for how long? There are other unknowns.
“The Budget and Ministries Committee, working with our TBMB financial team and the Board of Directors, took a creative approach and wanted to offer a unique financial plan that could account for the scenarios while ensuring Tennessee Baptists giving through the Cooperative Program can have the greatest Kingdom impact here in Tennessee, across the nation and around the world,” Davis continued. “We are hopeful our national situation will stabilize and we can return to a much more straightforward budgeting plan for 2021-2022.”
In a video to Tennessee Baptists (which can be viewed below), Clay Hallmark, chair of the board of directors and pastor of First Baptist Church, Lexington, explained the budget.
“The 2021 economy is really an unknown for all of us,” Hallmark said. “We don’t know what it’s going to look like and we don’t know what church income and Cooperative Program giving is really going to look like,” he observed.
“All of these things are unknown factors to us. So, the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board has recommended the same $35 million budget (as the 2019-20 budget) with only a slight increase going to the SBC portion,” he said.
Due to the uncertainty of the unknown, the Board recommended that “we have a staged approach to our giving, where, for the first $25 million of our budget, 40 percent will be sent to SBC causes, with 60 percent of that budget remaining in Tennessee for Tennessee Baptist Convention causes,” he explained.
“In the second stage, $5 million will be allocated 50/50 between TBC and SBC causes. And, finally, the last $5 million will be allocated, with 81.3 percent being sent to SBC causes, while 18.7 percent will remain here in Tennessee.”
Hallmark stressed that the budget proposal is “a one-year plan. Hopefully when we get to 2022, the economy will have corrected itself and things will get more back to normal and we can continue to move forward with the things that we’re planning to do as Tennessee Baptists,” Hallmark continued.
Hallmark explained that the budget in three stages is needed “to keep our Tennessee Baptist Mission Board staff strong and able to help all of our churches of every size across the state.
“This will also allow us to provide for all the needs of Tennessee Baptist institutions and allow them to be financially stable during these difficult times.”
Hallmark and the TBMB staff welcome questions and comments about the budget. Questions can be sent to Response@tnbaptist.org.
Hallmark expressed his thanks to Tennessee Baptists for their faithful giving. “It’s because of your generosity that we are able to go and tell people about Jesus all over Tennessee, so that more people will go to heaven and less people will go to hell from Tennessee,” he said.
The Lexington pastor added that Cooperative Program gifts from Tennessee Baptists allow the gospel of Jesus Christ to be shared with all the nations.
“Thank you, Tennessee Baptists, for all that you’ve done and your faithful giving this year,” Hallmark said. B&R
