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Committees report giving, diversity of members


COLUMBUS, Ohio (BP) — The SBC Committee on Nominations for 2016 has the most diversity in its history, Committee on Committees chairman Bryan Smith reported at the SBC annual meeting June 16.

The Committee on Committees, which includes two members from each state or regional convention, nominates members of the Committee on Nominations, which will nominate next year people to serve on the Southern Baptist Convention’s boards, commissions and committees.

The Committee on Committees’ nominee recommendations were approved by messengers in Columbus for the 2016 Committee on Nominations.

Ethnic and minority members comprise 27 percent of the new Committee on Nominations, Smith said, calling it “one of the highlights” of the report.

“It is the largest percentage of racial diversity ever brought to our convention for the Committee on Nominations,” Smith said. With Southern Baptists committed to reaching America for Christ, he noted, “[O]ur convention committees ought to reflect the faces of those in America for whom our Savior died to save.”

The churches of those serving on the Committee on Nominations give an average of 7 percent of their non-designated receipts to the Cooperative Program, and 12.6 percent to Great Commission giving, including the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, Smith reported.

The 68 churches represented on the committee baptized an average of 248 persons over the past five years and reported average missions participation of 533 members.

The Committee on Nominations will nominate members to the boards of the Executive Committee, GuideStone Financial Resources, the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, LifeWay Christian Resources, the six Southern Baptist seminaries, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and the Committee on Order of Business.

Currently, members appointed to boards by the 2014-15 Committee on Nominations include 16 percent non-Anglos, are members of churches that gave 8.7 percent to the Cooperative Program, and include 86 nominees serving in their first term on an agency or institution board, 2014-15 committee chairman John S. (Chip) Hutcheson reported.

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