The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Executive Board took the first official steps toward establishing an SBTC foundation during its summer meeting Aug. 2 in Grapevine. The board also hired three new ministry staff, including a South Texas area coordinator and associates in the collegiate ministries and financial services areas, and approved a proposed 2006 budget of $19.3 million.

The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Executive Board took the first official steps toward establishing an SBTC foundation during its summer meeting Aug. 2 in Grapevine. The board also hired three new ministry staff, including a South Texas area coordinator and associates in the collegiate ministries and financial services areas, and approved a proposed 2006 budget of $19.3 million.

The board unanimously voted to establish the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention Foundation (SBTCF) and to “file the appropriate documents with the Secretary of State of the state of Texas and to further pursue tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service and the state of Texas.”

If SBTC messengers meeting in October in Amarillo vote to officially establish the foundation, it will then be able to accept gifts, according to a motion the board passed.

Further, the board approved $60,000 of SBTC surplus funds for the foundation’s “start-up, operational and other costs.”

“We have worked very diligently with the staff and have worked to ensure that we have struck the proper balance between equipping the new board and the new entity to do what it is intended to do, and that is to develop resources for the kingdom’s work and the work of this convention, and to do that in the broadest manner possible,” said Terry Simmons, a lawyer specializing in charitable foundations who has helped the SBTC in developing the foundation.

In a statement to the TEXAN, SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards said: “After careful study, the Executive Board proposes to the convention the creation of a separate entity. There are incredible possibilities with this ministry. Kingdom-minded people want to invest funds for the glory of God and provide for the work of ministry after they are gone. The SBTC Foundation is a vehicle that will help forward-thinking believers accomplish what they desire. New church starts, scholarships for SBTC students, evangelism efforts and a myriad of other expressions of faith will come to reality through the foundation.”

Simmons said increasing instances of litigation against non-profit organizations “makes it appropriate to separate (the foundation’s functions) from the convention proper” yet maintain control over the separate convention entity.

According to an organizational summary given to the SBTC board:

>The Foundation will have a five-member board of directors that SBTC messengers will elect; they must be members of a church in fellowship and cooperation with the SBTC,

>”The Foundation is a supporting entity of the SBTC (which means it will contribute funds to the SBTC) and is a ‘controlled entity’ since it is controlled by the SBTC.”

>”In addition to holding and managing assets for the benefit of the SBTC, the Foundation will also be able to hold and manage assets for other entities as shown in the bylaws. …” However, “We cannot hold and manage assets long term for entities that have no relationship with us.”

>Prior to the 2006 SBTC annual meeting the SBTC Nominating Committee will “select the interim board of directors and name the elected and appointed officers of the board. Elected officers must be on the Board. These board officers are also officers of the corporation.”

>”At the SBTC annual meeting in October the Nominating Committee will nominate and the Convention will elect a new board of directors (may result in the continued service of the interim Directors).”

PROPOSED 2006 BUDGET

Administrative Committee chairman Randy Davis told the board the proposed 2006 SBTC budget of $19.3 million is “pretty much a flat budget” compared to the 2005 budget of $19,245,933–an increase of $54,269 or .28 percent.

The budget includes projected Cooperative Program receipts of $18,726,347, with 53 percent distributed to Southern Baptist Convention causes and 47 percent retained for SBTC ministries.

Executive Director Jim Richards told the board that during the convention’s first five years affiliated churches gave an average of $1,000 of undesignated CP gifts per month. Recently that level has dropped to an average of about $900 per church—something Richards said he attributes to many new church starts and newer affiliates who have little knowledge of the role of the Cooperative Probrag in funding SBC missions, and often tight finances.

“It is not because churches are giving less necessarily—although that is the case in some places because some churches have chosen to take formerly Cooperative Program dollars to fund their direct mission efforts. But it’s not ‘either/or,’ it’s ‘both/and,’ hopefully,” Richards said.

“It is always better to receive 110 percent of your budget, than it is to receive 98 percent of your budget,” Richards said, noting that this year’s 18 percent budget increase would likely be met by year’s end based on mid-year numbers that you are almost at pace with projections.

BUDGET YEAR-TO-DATE

Chief Financial Officer Joe Davis reported to the board that though CP receipts were 1.5 percent below budget at the end of June, total revenues were nearly one-half percent higher than projected because of interest income and designated gifts.

Compared with the same period last year, CP receipts are $160,859 higher, Davis said.

Based on income and expenses at midyear, Davis said he expects a surplus of around $900,000 at year’s end.

Reserve operating funds are approximately $3.25 million–$900,000 above the convention’s stated goal.

Also at the end of June:

>Reach Texas, the state mission offering, was $882,736—more than $110,000 above the same period last year;

>The Annie Armstrong offering (North American missions) was $1,709,885–$90,949 above the same period last year;

>The Lottie Moon offering (international missions) was $5,132,131—less that the $6.3 million during the same period last year.

Including the three new ministry associates elected during the meeting, the convention employs 22 ministry staff members and 23 ministry staff assistants.

NEW MINISTRY STAFF

The board elected three new ministry associates, including Kyle Cox as SBCT area coordinator for South Texas. Cox’s hiring gives the SBTC one area director in each of its three areas of East Texas, West Texas and South Texas.

Cox is a former SBC missionary to Chile who served for nine years as executive director of Galveston Baptist Association. He has served the SBTC this year as a consultant in minister-church relations and is a Southwestern Seminary graduate.

“My vision and my desire and dream (for South Texas),” Cox said, “is to network with pastors in the area, to bring them closer in cooperation with our convention … and to instill in them a desire to get in touch with Bro. Robby’s (Partain) department to begin new churches. I would like to see churches doubling in that area as soon as possible.”

The board also hired its first collegiate and young adult ministries associate, Lance Crowell of Deer Park, Texas. Previously the convention used consultants to serve its church-based collegiate ministry program.

Crowell, also a Southwestern graduate, has served as college and career minister at Sagemont Church in Houston for six years.

Crowell told the board that college ministry is “one of the most vital areas of ministry to the next generation.”

“My vision is that we would connect these college students and young adults, 18-to-25-year-olds, to the local church, because they are going to be the leaders for this next generation.” Crowell also said he hopes to help churches develop effective ministries to the young adult age group.

The board also elected Randall Jenkins as associate chief financial officer, a new position that will include management of the new SBTC Foundation.

Jenkins is a veteran banker and chairman of deacons at Galloway Avenue Baptist Church in Mesquite. Since 1998, Jenkins has served as vice president and commercial relationship manager at Compass Bank in Dallas.

He is a 1980 graduate of Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas.

Jenkins told the board he has sensed for some time that commercial banking was “just a vocation” for him and that “God had other things for me to do.” When corporate search agencies would occasionally call to see if Jenkins was interested in other positions, he never felt impressed enough in prayer to respond, he said. When the SBTC called, however, Jenkins said he realized the Lord had been preparing him for a ministry vocation through his 24 years in banking.

Jenkins’ job description includes management of the SBTC budget, internal accounting oversight, human resources, SBTC office operations, and assisting in the SBTC Foundation’s development and management.

In other business, the board:

>Recommended Skeet Workman of Lubbock as recipient of the 2005 H. Paul Pressler Distinguished Service Award.

>Renewed affiliations with East Texas Baptist Family Ministry and Jacksonville College.

>Established an affiliation with Texas Baptist Home in Waxahachie, a ministry of the Baptist Missionary Association of Texas.

>Created a new category of relating to outside ministries known as “ministry partnerships.”

>Recognized the Korean Baptist Fellowship of Texas and Texas Baptist Men as ministry partners under this new category.

>Received an addendum, signed by SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards and North American Mission Board President Robert E. Reccord, to the cooperative agreement between the two entities that asks NAMB to provide SBTC staff written notification of planned NAMB events within Texas “twelve months prior to public promotion of such events as well as clear communication of any other conferences conducted in Texas.”

According to the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board, 13 million people in Texas profess no relationship with Jesus Christ. Many of those are among the 600,000 people who immigrated from other countries to Texas between 2000-2004. They are also among the 140 language groups that live here.

Since 1998, the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention has helped start more than 300 churches in Texas. The SBTC state missions offering?”Reach Texas”?funds such work and has as its goal for 2005-’06 $1 million to help reach the state’s growing diversity of people.

“The offering is the ‘booster rocket’ for kingdom work in Texas,” said Robby Partain, SBTC missions director. “The Cooperative Program launches and sustains us each year. The Reach Texas Offering sends us to the next level. More churches are started and more souls are saved because of this special offering.”

Like seasonal offerings that help fund Southern Baptists’ national and international missions, everything given through Reach Texas is used in Texas missions and evangelism, Partain noted.

Of the Reach Texas Offering:

4450 percent funds church planting;

4425 percent funds missions work within Texas;

4425 percent funds evangelism training and events.

Each Reach Texas prayer guide, sent to churches in a promotional packet this month with resource order materials, contains eight daily devotionals. Each day also features “A God Story” of how SBTC churches and members who have benefited from Reach Texas have helped reach people for Christ.

The Reach Texas week of prayer is scheduled for Sept. 18-25. For additional information on the Reach Texas Offering, visit www.sbtexas.com, call the SBTC missions team at 817-552-2500 or e-mail cassyp@sbtexas.com.

A GOD STORY

“Shedding a Huge Weight”

The following is an excerpt from this year’s Reach Texas devotional guide.

When David and his girlfriend Blanca first came in contact with church planter Jeff Burkart and Bridgeway Fellowship, they were not ready to make a commitment to Christ. They had a hard time believing that Jesus would forgive them, that he had died for them personally. But they felt welcomed in this new church and got involved. Eventually they did make private decisions for Christ but were hesitant to publicly identify themselves as Christians. When they asked Pastor Jeff if he would conduct their wedding ceremony, Jeff used this opportunity to open the Bible and share with David and Blanca what it means to be saved. He showed them God’s promises about complete forgiveness and his amazing grace. David and Blanca had thought they needed to become “worthy” of the name Christian before publicly identifying themselves with Christ. Now they realized that it was the blood of Jesus and God’s free gift that provided all the worthiness that was needed.

Blanca says, “After that Sunday I felt as if a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. I guess it was hard to accept that God could forgive me when I did not feel worthy of forgiveness. But now David and I have been chosen to put Christ in the center of our lives and our marriage. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that I can start over with a clean slate. I would not trade that for anything!”

HOUSTON–School funding legislation was the focus during the 79th Texas Legislature, but a provision attached to a capital projects bill had advocates on both sides of the embryonic stem cell research issue lobbying legislators in the last weeks of the second special session.

House Bill 6 drew attention for a provision critics say could have facilitated future state-funded embryonic stem cell research. The bill itself would have allocated $2.75 billion in capital improvement bonds within university systems throughout Texas.

As of the TEXAN’s deadline, HB 6 had not been acted on.

The contentious provision read, “The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston: (A) $41,100,000 for facilities to be used primarily to conduct biomedical research. …”

Biomedical research, as requested by UT-Houston, would be stem cell research. In his request to the Legislature for the bond money, UT-Houston President James T. Willerson said taxpayer funds would be used to continue current research utilizing adult stem cells. But pro-life advocates like Kyleen Wright, president of Texans for Life Coalition, objected to the language because it did not exclude future use of embryonic stem cells.

To gather support for the coalition’s opposition to embryonic stem cell research, Wright organized a group of pro-life organizations and individuals called Texans for Ethical Research. They signed onto a letter distributed by hand to members of the Texas House and Senate Aug. 5 and 8 in an attempt to stave off passage of HB 6. As of Aug. 12, the bill had not passed. The special legislative session was scheduled to end at midnight Aug. 20.

SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards added his name to the list of 65 signatures as a show of the convention’s support for laws banning embryonic stem cell research. The letter requested that the Texas Legislature amend HB 6 “to ensure that public funds are used only for biomedical research that does not involve human embryonic stem cells or the destruction of human embryos.”

Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Houston, introduced similar language in a bill that was never voted on in the last regular session.

Wright said she is troubled that no anti-cloning or anti-embryonic stem cell research measure managed to reach a vote, despite Gov. Rick Perry’s stated support of both issues. Without such laws, Wright said it would be easy for scientists to follow the lead of foreign researchers who have announced making advances in human cloning technology.

The idea of human cloning is an abhorrent concept to most people, but the bar of compromise keeps moving, she contended. If research is not restrained by ethical standards, she said cloning could be called by another name and accepted as a common medical practice.

“This is what happens when we’re not tethered to God. Science is ahead of our culture when it comes to abandoning God.”

With embryo research supporters vying for the ears of legislators, Wright said it is difficult to wage a meaningful fight. She was competing against the sway of influential physicians and scientists lobbying for embryonic stem cell research. There was, she added, an automatic presumption of authority for academics who testified. “They have the degrees and positions to be heard by the legislators.”

Moreover, emotional arguments and arguments about the “greater good” further cloud the issue. “They had people in wheelchairs in regular session lobbying for this.”

“It’s had to make the case for humanity from a petri dish,” she added.

Wright said infants who have been adopted as embryos from fertility clinics may be the only useful emotional appeal pro-lifers can make against destructive embryo research. These “snowflake” embryos otherwise would have been discarded or used for stem cell research.

Wright and other pro-life organizations have reiterated the fact that they are not opposed to adult stem cell research—a proven technology currently undergoing FDA testing in the field of cardiovascular clinical research in Houston.

According to the UT Houston website, the Texas Heart Institute and St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in collaboration with UT-Houston will conduct the first clinical trial in the United States using Adult stem cell therapy in treating heart disease. The trial was approved based on the success of Willerson and his colleague Emerson Person with a test subject in Brazil.

Willerson said in a statement that adult stem cell research tends to be confused with embryonic stem cell research and therefore rejected by the public.

“Adult stem cell therapy will ultimately provide effective curative treatments for heart attacks, strokes, dementia, kidney and liver diseases, and many other devastating diseases, as well as for catastrophic injuries that result in paralysis. Adult stem cell research will help to revolutionize biomedical research and how we deal with injuries and diseases that, today, wreak havoc on our friends and families.”

It is such research and treatment that Texans for Life Coalition and the SBTC support, according to their letter to the Texas Legislature. But it is the lack of assurances that state tax dollars will not be used for research that requires the destruction of an embryo that has pro-life advocates concerned.

“We’re all for stem cell research,” Wright said. “Just don’t kill the donor.”

HAMILTON, Ohio?What’s a church to do when the new church start that was the focus of an upcoming out-of-state mission trip suddenly disbands and the leader accepts another pastorate?

For Inglewood Baptist Church of Grand Prairie it meant remembering the often-cited adage to be flexible while on mission. Ultimately, that led to an expanded ministry to residents of the site of the previous church plant in Hamilton, Ohio, as well as the pastor’s new flock in nearby Fairfield.

When Inglewood Baptist began looking for a new opportunity to spread the gospel beyond Texas, the missions committee learned of a new church plant in the Five Points area of Hamilton. For more than a year Point of Hope Baptist Church pastor Doug Morgan and his family led the church to reach the community through block parties, clothing distribution and ministry to teachers and students of a local elementary school.

“We wanted to share the love of God with this neighborhood and start something that was different, but relevant to people,” Morgan said. “Our ministry is showing God’s love in a practical way to people who are hurting and lonely.”

Inglewood supported several of those efforts, purchasing backpacks for kids in the Hamilton neighborhood who could not afford them and helping host a breakfast for teachers working in the challenging school setting. Three IBC staff members traveled to the church last November to get a better sense of the needs while participating in a Thanksgiving community dinner.

SBTC church planting associate Leroy Fountain provided the Inglewood committee with an overview of the needs in Ohio, where 635 Southern Baptist churches attempt to reach a population of 11 million. As part of a multi-year partnership between Ohio and Texas Southern Baptists, churches have been encouraged to link up with the particular “impact association” chosen for yearlong emphasis by Ohio Baptists. Southwestern Baptist Association of Ohio in 2004 gained Inglewood’s attention and plans for a mission trip began forming last fall.

Just as Inglewood began promoting the 1,000-mile trip to Ohio set for mid-July, IBC missions pastor Doug Hixson learned that Morgan had accepted the pastorate of Governor’s Park Baptist Church in nearby Fairfield, Ohio. Although the Point of Hope ministry had been successful, the 40-member church was never able to provide adequate support for the pastor who had resigned his job as a policeman to begin the church in Hamilton.

The core group of Point of Hope members offered to join Morgan’s new church in Fairfield, which, in turn, began bussing in families and other prospects from the Hamilton site. Inglewood’s 15-member mission team joined teachers at Governor’s Park Baptist Church’s Vacation Bible School during the evening and drew kids from both neighboring towns to a morning basketball clinic.

On two of the days, the Texas group helped the association’s New Life Mission by restocking the food pantry and sharing a meal with the several hundred residents who filtered through for a free lunch. Larry and Linda Gaines lead the ministry, serving as North American Mission Board missionaries.

Hixson said manpower became the best tool for Inglewood to encourage a church like Governor’s Park. “Many churches don’t do mission trips because they don’t believe they can afford them. I believe we can’t afford not to do them,” Hixson said, citing Jesus’ command to go to all the nations.

ARLINGTON?A group of African American pastors led by a former SBTC Pastors’ Conference president released a “Christian Family Manifesto” during a press conference Aug. 4.

The Not On My Watch Coalition presented the 10-point manifesto prior to a “State of the Black Family” forum held at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, an SBTC church led by pastor Dwight McKissic.

Nine pastors joined McKissic in unveiling the manifesto. The 10 points called for:

4Sexual purity until marriage;

4Marriage for cohabitating couples;

4Outreach to fatherless children by intact families;

4Love, mercy and grace to homosexuals while supporting passage of a federal amendment protecting marriage and related state legislation;

4Fathers to pay child support;

4Men to honor marriage vows;

4Singles to cease from adultery, which harms families;

4Men to spend quality time with their children;

4Affirming single parents who are raising children alone;

In his address to the SBTC Executive Board, Executive Director Jim Richards said a new church is affiliating with the convention an average of every other day?between 150-180 churches a year?but not all understand the significance of Southern Baptist cooperation. Richards also addressed declining churches, saying the convention should adopt an attitude of “No Church Left Behind.”

Of newly affiliated churches, half are new church starts, which are vital in Great Commission work, Richards said. “The other half are churches that have no Southern Baptist background or have not been actively engaged or involved in the Cooperative Program or participation in convention life.”

Only about one-third of new affiliations are coming from the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Richards said.

“So that gives us a different approach to our Cooperative Program giving because in our first five or six years the majority of churches that were coming in every month were churches that had already had a history of understanding the Cooperative Program and were committed to Southern Baptist life. It provides us with a wonderful opportunity to engage, involve, encourage and educate churches that are now coming to be partners in Southern Baptist life.”

Amid generational shifts in church leadership the SBTC is working effectively to build relationships with young pastors, Richards said.

Nevertheless, “Our Cooperative Program education and growth remains a need for all SBTC churches,” Richards said. “Therefore, we are committed to the task of educating our churches about the Cooperative Program and showing them that this is the best method that God has allowed us to have in Baptist life. The societal method (mission agencies vying against each other for funds) has not worked.

The direct funding method (churches supporting individual missionaries) has not worked. We must never lose sight of that and somehow communicate it to emerging leaders and those who have joined us from other giving traditions.”

Also, Richards said the SBTC must always keep sight of its three core values?doctrinal agreement, missiological activity, and methodological approach through Southern Baptists’ Cooperative Program?while moving forward with its three primary functions.

Those three primary functions are:

4Assisting in starting new churches;

4Assisting existing churches to be “Acts 1:8” churches;

4Advocating spiritual awakening and revival to all churches.

“Sad to say, some are not experiencing Acts 1:8 likeness. Some churches are not experiencing the presence of God in power. Our desire as a convention staff and our purpose in existence is to assist in starting new churches, assist existing churches to be Acts 1:8 churches, but to advocate spiritual awakening and revival in all our churches.”

As President Bush initiated “No Child Left Behind,” Richards said, “I’d like for us to initiate ‘No Church Left Behind.’ There’s no need for plateauing and declining churches. If a church continues in that direction it will cease to exist. Our desire as a convention is that no church be left behind.”

Crusade evangelism reached its heyday in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, when urban arenas and outdoor stadiums would overflow for days and sometimes weeks of preaching by a handful of nationally known evangelists.

John McKay and Joe Simmons witnessed some of those meetings. Some, in fact, they helped organize. And if their prayers are answered, similar successes in smaller cities and venues might constitute the next wave in crusade evangelism.

McKay and Simmons, who worked together for many years on the staff of evangelist James Robison in the 1960s and ’70s and later with Bailey Smith Ministries, have been working with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention as evangelism consultants since last spring at the behest of SBTC Evangelism Director Don Cass.

Cass, McKay and Simmons are developing a smaller-city crusade concept called “Festival of Hope,” with the first event planned this fall in Cleveland, Texas near Houston. They hope these will be instrumental in evangelizing the varied regions of Texas as part of a larger endeavor, “The Year of Double Harvest,” a challenge that Cass issued to Southern Baptists of Texas Convention churches to double baptisms.

“My heart is for evangelism,” McKay said. “You can turn the television set on and see these young people searching for meaning in life. We have great Bible teaching, we have great conferences, we have great marriage counseling, we have enrichment seminars?all kinds of good things. But evangelism has often taken a backseat in the Southern Baptist Convention. ? The hour is too late for us to not do this.”

Simmons said the SBTC pays McKay’s and his travel expenses for the crusades, but underwriting and organization is handled through local Baptist churches and other evangelical congregations. “We don’t have any financial interest in this,” said Simmons, who retired from a large construction firm and now does consulting for the same commercial contractor.

McKay said he believed the day would come that God “pulled them off the shelf” to use their experience in crusade evangelism to help win the lost.

Though the SBTC is lending its support to the effort, the foremost goal, Simmons said, is to win people to Christ by utilizing all churches that share a burden for lost souls.

“In the case of Cleveland, we also have Methodists and independents, Pentecostals, Assemblies. The comment was made, I think correctly, ‘This isn’t a Baptist thing, this is a Jesus thing.’ That’s really where we want to be. Christ is the answer and the only way to heaven,” Simmons said.

“One of the good things about this is we have the full cooperation of our (Southwestern) seminary behind this thing,” McKay said. “Dr. (Paige) Patterson was just overwhelmingly supportive of this.”

Two teams of students, one of from Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth and another from Southwestern’s Havard theology school in Houston, plan to canvass the Cleveland area the week before the crusade, which is scheduled for Oct. 2-5.

The crusade will feature Ronnie Hill, a 38-year-old evangelist from Haslet who is scheduled to speak to area students on Monday and Tuesday prior to the Tuesday night youth emphasis, Simmons said.

Sunday and Monday will feature the Old Time Gospel Hour Quartet and Tuesday and Wednesday will have more appeal for younger people, including what Simmons described as a “really unusual-type message and presentation” on Wednesday.

“I would love to see these things come about, but they don’t come by the will of man, they come by the will of God,” McKay said.

Simmons said throughout his years of evangelism work that many of the most successful crusades were born in the hearts of ordinary people, not prominent business people or ministers. Those ordinary people would then share their desire with others who began to pray earnestly, Simmons said.

“I would rather go someplace where there are five people who have a heart for God than go somewhere where there are 50 who do not,” he added.

He said Cleveland seems to be conducive to God’s moving among the people.

“We’ve been involved in some unbelievable crusades,” Simmons said. “? But Cleveland, Texas h