Executive Board proposes $16.5 million budget
BOLIVAR – The Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) Executive Board voted unanimously July 11 to approve a proposed $16.5 million budget for 2007, with one percent set aside for Cooperative Program (CP) missions education and promotion.
Board members meeting in the Davis-Newport Theater of the Jester Learning and Performance Center at Southwest Baptist University voted to recommend that the remaining $16,335,000, or 36 percent, be designated for Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) causes, and 64 percent for MBC work. That represents .25 percent more for Southern Baptist work than was budgeted for 2006. Messengers to the MBC’s annual meeting Oct. 30-Nov. 1 at Southeast Missouri State University’s Show Me Center in Cape Girardeau will vote on whether to approve or amend the budget.
The proposed budget is slightly down from the $17.05 million figure approved for 2006. MBC Executive Director David Clippard reported that Cooperative Program giving is up .5 percent from last year but still 2.64 percent under the budget goal for this year.
“We’re catching up with budget a little bit,” MBC Controller Jay Hughes said.
Hughes said the MBC now has $1.9 million in reserves and is on track to save $2.4 million by the end of the year, which represents a four-month cushion. While generally pleased that the Baptist Building is operating in the black, Clippard cautioned that any discussion about small CP gains needs to be balanced by talk about inflation.
“We still have some real challenges ahead as far as seeing some real CP growth,” Clippard said.
Board members also discussed a financial future that they hope will include the return of five breakaway agencies that are tied up in litigation, including Missouri Baptist College. The board voted to have its Audit/Finance workgroup examine the MBC’s funding for Christian higher education with the goal of moving the percentage back to the 2001 level of 20.5 percent. The budget in this area for 2007 is 13 percent of the total, or $2,123,550, which is the same percentage as 2006.
The proposed 2007 budget sets a goal of $4 million for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for international missions, $2 million for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American missions, and $325,000 for the World Hunger Offering.
In outreach news, board members voted to recommend that the MBC enter into a three-year missions/church planting partnership with the Baptist Association of El Salvador beginning in January 2007. The partnership is subject to formal approval by messengers in Cape Girardeau. Besides the El Salvador recommendation, board members are also backing exercising the option to renew the existing partnership with Romania for another year, extending the relationship through October 2007. Once again, messengers at the Show Me Center will have the final say.
An interim staff position in development that is tied to the launching of a capital fundraising project for a new MBC headquarters building (which is contingent upon Executive Board approval of a plan for the sale and relocation of headquarters) was approved. A one-year, $40,000 contract with Jim Sells, former president of Southwest Baptist University, was authorized so that he can serve as a development consultant looking toward the establishment of an ongoing MBC Development Office. All development projects would be approved by the Executive Board before execution.
Concerns about the upcoming battle against the proposed constitutional amendment promoting embryonic stem cell research, or cloning, prompted board members to approve a $100,000 gift out of reserves to Missourians Against Human Cloning. It passed overwhelmingly with perhaps three-fourths of the board voting for it. In arguing for passage, board member Cindy Province declared, “This is a pro-life emergency,” explaining that if Missouri falls for this initiative in November, all 50 states will fall.
MBC President Ralph Sawyer appointed three new members to the Committee on Executive Board Committees. Those members are: Kerry Messer, laity, First Baptist Church, Festus-Crystal City; Tom Johnson, pastor, First Baptist Church, Fredricktown; and Bill Edwards, pastor, Path of Life Community Church, Wright City. Messer was appointed chairman.
The three holdover members of the committee are: Randy Comer, pastor, Highview Baptist Church, Chillicothe; Roy Dameron, laity, Concord Baptist Church, Jefferson City; and Darrell Decker, laity, Ridgecrest Baptist Church, Springfield.
• Recommend that messengers return to Springfield in 2010 for the MBC annual meeting, which would be conducted at the University Plaza Hotel and adjacent Expo Center;
• Approve both a purpose statement and an editorial policy for The Pathway;
• Approve a maximum of three percent pay raises for MBC staff.