HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Messengers to the 134th annual meeting of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, held Nov. 11-12 at First Baptist Church, Hendersonville, Tenn., approved a new missions partnership with West Africa and adopted a $39 million budget.
The annual meeting drew 1,255 messengers, the lowest messenger count since 1974. “Exalting Jesus Through Worship” was the theme of the annual meeting and worship was highlighted with music, theme interpretations and sermons throughout the sessions.
TBC Executive Director James Porch presented West Africa as a new missions partnership region for Tennessee Baptists. The state’s Southern Baptists recently ended a 10-year partnership with Baptists in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and currently has an ongoing partnership in Malta.
“Tennessee Baptists are about going, about volunteering, and about sacrifice,” Porch observed.
Roger Haun, associate regional leader for West Africa, International Mission Board, Richmond, Va., invited Tennessee Baptists to “return to the place where you pioneered partnership missions 25 years ago.” Haun referred to the project adopted by the Tennessee Baptist Convention with Burkina Faso (now Upper Volta), which was the first missions partnership between a state convention and an overseas area.
Porch presented Haun a Tennessee flag, noting that it is “a symbol to the people of West Africa that we are coming.”
BUDGET
Messengers approved, with one opposing vote, a budget of $39 million for 2008-09, an increase of $500,000 or 1.3 percent over the 2007-08 budget.
During the financial report, Porch said the convention received $65.9 million in total receipts last year. Gifts to the Cooperative Program through the convention decreased 1.6 percent over the previous year and represented a budget shortfall of 3.67 percent or $1.4 million. He noted the TBC passes on 40 percent of Cooperative Program receipts to the Southern Baptist Convention for national and international missions and ministry causes.
Porch also noted that giving statistics from 1984 through 2006 show “a drastic decline in church giving.” Lon Shoopman, chairman of the state convention’s budget and program committee, told messengers TBC leadership has frozen budget items and cut expenditures and that the convention’s entities receive fixed percentages of income. In addition, staff members aren’t receiving raises and no more staff members are being hired, Shoopman said.
Mickey Basham, president of the convention’s executive board, asked the messengers to “prayerfully go back” to their churches and ask their churches “to consider increasing” their Cooperative Program giving. He noted the church he has served as pastor, Eastanallee Baptist Church in Riceville, has given 30 percent to the Cooperative Program for 20 years. Yet the church has built facilities, increased staff, and funded ministries.
Basham encouraged churches to “move beyond looking inward” for the “cause of Christ around the world. God will honor that and bless it.”
GPS EMPHASIS
Larry Gilmore, Steve Pearson and Don Pierson of the TBC staff introduced the GPS — God’s Plan for Sharing — evangelism emphasis of the convention and the North American Mission Board.
A dramatic presentation featured a man who prayed for folks in his sphere of influence. They included a soccer coach who was worried about losing his job, a boss who had attended a meeting on scientology, a friend with financial problems, a woman neighbor who was having trouble keeping her lawn work done and a Hispanic man he knew.
Pierson, state prayer specialist, said Christians are known for taking extreme measures to pray for people who are ill and dying but wondered what would happen if Baptists “would take extreme measures in prayer for those who are going to die and go to hell.”
Gilmore, state evangelism director, said the multi-year GPS emphasis will focus on prayer during 2008-09. He asked the messengers to think of “Five on the Way,” or five people they are in contact with on their way in life who aren’t Christians and then pray for those five people during the coming year.
Messengers were asked to remove a write the name of an unsaved friend on a card and place it in an offering bucket so the convention staff could add them to a prayer list.
OTHER BUSINESS
During the Executive Board report, Basham introduced David Green, pastor of First Baptist Church in Greeneville, and chairman of the committee which is charged with finding a successor for Porch, who will retire as executive director-treasurer in 2010.
Messengers also heard detailed reports from the Executive Board staff and leaders from other convention entities and committees, including Randall O’Brien, new president of Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City.
Danny Sinquefield, pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Bartlett, was elected president by acclamation, while Roc Collins, pastor of Indian Springs Baptist Church in Kingsport, was elected vice president. Julie Heath, a member of Forest Hills Baptist Church in Nashville, was re-elected as recording secretary.
Messengers considered one motion from the floor, a proposal that the 2009 annual meeting and all subsequent meetings of the convention be made available on the Internet via live streaming.
Joseph White of Thompson Springs Baptist Church in Cleveland, said this would make the convention accessible to people who are unable to attend or for churches who are unable to send messengers. While there was support for the concept, concern was expressed about the financial obligations involved and the motion was referred to the Executive Board for a feasibility study.
The 2009 annual meeting will be held Nov. 10-11 at West Jackson Baptist Church, Jackson.
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Lonnie Wilkey and Connie Davis Bushey are the editor and news editor of the Baptist & Reflector (tnbaptist.org), newsjournal of the Tennessee Baptist Convention.
