MBC’s Fowler shares developing vision
JEFFERSON CITY – Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) Executive Board members meeting here, Aug. 26-27, approved the convention’s 2025 spending plan and recommended that MBC messengers gathered for their annual meeting in October take a special offering to support a Christian school in St. Louis.
During the meeting, MBC Executive Director Wes Fowler also highlighted his developing vision for the convention, which included a renewed emphasis on serving local churches.
“We exist to help churches transform lives and communities through the gospel,” Fowler said, highlighting the local church’s role in what God is doing among Missouri Baptists. “The convention is not the local church.”
JEFFERSON CITY – Missouri Baptist Convention executive director Wes Fowler speaks to executive board members, Aug. 27.
Fowler’s vision also includes – among other things – a renewed emphasis on prayer. “I want us to focus on prayer,” he told the executive board. “I want us to have a really strategic, organized prayer ministry.”
Other elements of this vision highlighted the importance of evangelism, missions mobilization, church planting, church health and renewal, communications and MBC entity relations. Asking for feedback from executive board meetings, Fowler said he was refining his vision to present to MBC messengers.
2025 Spending Plan approved
The MBC’s 2025 spending plan is based on a $15 million Cooperative Program (CP) budget approved by the board earlier this year.
This CP budget sets aside 6 percent of the total CP giving for “shared expenses,” which are allocated for annuity protections, CP promotion and The Pathway. The board approved a spending plan for these “shared” funds that amounted to a total of $900,000.
From the remaining CP budget, 36.84 percent is allocated for Missouri Baptist missions and ministries. The board approved a spending plan also for these funds, which amounted to a total of $5,194,737.
Additionally, 23.16 percent of this remaining CP budget is allocated for Missouri Baptist entities, including the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home, Baptist Homes & Healthcare Ministries, the Missouri Baptist Foundation, Hannibal-LaGrange University, Missouri Baptist University and Southwest Baptist University.
The remaining 40 percent is allocated for Southern Baptist Convention causes. Any CP receipts above the budgetary goal will be split evenly between MBC and SBC ministries.
Special MBC offering to help St. Louis school
The executive board also recommended that messengers gathered in St. Charles for their 2024 annual meeting take a special offering on Tuesday morning, Oct. 28, to benefit City Christian Academy, a St. Louis school supported by Tower Grove Baptist Church and the St. Louis Metro Baptist Association.
Other business
In other business, the MBC executive board:
• approved exhibitors for the 2024 annual meeting, pending available exhibitor space. They also extended the requirement for executive board approval of hand-out materials at the convention center, “including exhibit hall space, but excluding public sidewalks and other publicly owned areas.” At the St. Charles Convention Center, “promotional materials by MBC entities and approved exhibitors are authorized for distribution unless in opposition to the spirit of the Convention.”
• authorized the MBC executive director “to execute the necessary documents to continue our relationship with the Whitehead Law Firm as legal counsel for the Missouri Baptist Convention and the Executive Board until March 2025. During which time RFP’s will be sent to several law firms, including the Whitehead Law Firm, to determine legal counsel going forward.”
• authorized the MBC executive director “to execute the necessary documents to complete the process of donating tract 6 of the property formerly known as Windermere Wilderness to the Mid-County Fire Protection District.”