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The SBTC Executive Board approved a proposed budget increase of 7.2 percent for 2008, chose a longtime Amarillo pastor for the H. Paul Pressler Distinguished Service Award and elected a veteran of church revitalization and planting to the convention staff.
Addressing the board’s summer meeting July 31 at the SBTC offices in Grapevine, Chief Financial Officer Joe Davis said the proposed budget of $21,539,131 represents a “conservative approach” based on 2007 giving. The SBTC has continued its growth to more than 1,900 affiliated churches.
Messengers to the SBTC annual meeting Nov. 12-13 in Arlington will vote on the budget, which will continue the Cooperative Program split of 54 percent of funds sent to SBC missions and 46 percent retained for Texas ministry.
The 54 percent of undesignated giving to SBC causes remains the highest percentage of any state convention in the SBC. The missions and evangelism budgets comprise 39.13 percent of the in-state budget. Missions includes church planting.
Davis reported that through May the convention was $1.1 million above budget in CP receipts and $976,687 above the same period in 2006.
Designated giving for missions offerings was also significantly increased. Special offerings each have their own giving calendar year. Giving to the Annie Armstrong Offering for North American missions was $1.62 million, up $284,713 over the previous giving year to date; giving to the Lottie Moon Offering for international missions was $7.3 million, up nearly $1.5 million over the last giving year to date; and giving to state missions through the Reach Texas Offering was $923,284, an increase of $136,677 over the same giving period last year.
PRESSLER AWARD
In other business, the board chose longtime Amarillo pastor Stan Coffey to receive the 2007 H. Paul Pressler Distinguished Service Award for his work during the SBC’s Conservative Resurgence and in the formation of the SBTC, for which he served as the first president from 1998-2000.
“Prior to the existence of the SBTC,” wrote SBTC Executive Director Jim Richards in recommending Coffey for the award, “Stan Coffey pastored the largest church in the reformation group pushing for the formation of a new convention. Being a man of conviction, Stan was willing to put his reputation on the line for the cause of biblical inerrancy and cooperative work among Baptists?. He paid a high price for his efforts with challenges to his health and ministry. Through it all he has remained faithful to win people to Jesus.”
A native of Sweetwater, Okla., Coffey was saved at age 6 and took his first pastorate at 20. He earned degrees from Wayland Baptist University (1970), Southwestern Seminary and California Graduate School of Theology, where he received the doctor of divinity.
His pastorates have included: County Line Baptist Church in Morton; Hurlwood Baptist Church in Lubbock; First Baptist Church of Josephine; Trinity Baptist Church of Texarkana, Ark.; First Baptist Church of Albuquerque, N.M., and twice at The Church at Quail Creek in Amarillo (formerly San Jacinto Baptist Church), first from 1975-1979 and then from 1984 until now.
Under Coffey, the church has been a consistent leader among Southern Baptists in baptizing new converts. In 2004 Coffey received the W.A. Criswell Lifetime Achievement Award for Pastoral Evangelism. He is the author of five books, his latest being “The Return.”
He is and his wife, Glenda, have two married children and eight grandchildren.
NEW STAFF MINISTER
Also, the board elected Jim Gatliff as a shared strategist, serving the missions, evangelism and church ministries departments. Gatliff has been an SBTC church planting consultant while serving two associations?Kauf-Van and Hunt?in church planting and church revitalization.
Gatliff will also play a role in the SBTC’s “Ezekiel Project” to help plateaued or declining churches regain health.
In introducing Gatliff to the board before his election, Richards said Gatliff is committed to the SBTC’s vision and values and has vital experience in helping struggling churches revitalize.
“I felt like if I were an NFL coach, he is the best man on the draft board,” Richards said.
In addressing the board, Gatliff quipped that though he appreciated the accolades, “I feel more like the player to be named later in the Mark Teixeira (Texas Rangers baseball) trade.”
The Oklahoma native told the board he was saved as a youngster at a crusade sponsored by First Southern Baptist Church of Del City, Okla., and was called to ministry as a teen attending the Falls Creek youth camp in Oklahoma.
In addition to his theology training (MDiv. and Ph.D. from Southwestern Seminary) and work in church planting and revitalization, Gatliff said his greatest passion is “souls,” “particularly a heart for mass evangelism.” Gatliff begins working full-time with the convention Sept. 1.
BOARD MEMBERS FINISH TERM
Also during the meeting, the board honored five board members attending their last meeting after nine years of service dating back to the convention’s founding.
Richards presented each retiring board member a framed Scripture verse, noting the contributions of each. The board members rotating off are: Al Kawamoto of Arlington; Randy Davis and Alan Burkhalter, both of Amarillo; Ted Tedder of San Antonio; and Steve Burns of Aledo.
“These were the founders of the convention?these were the founders of the Executive Board,” Richards remarked. “We are losing our first generation, so this is a very significant transition time. We stand on their shoulders.”
MINISTRY REPORTS
Richards told the board he was honored with his election as SBC first vice president in June, “but it’s also an affirmation of this convention.” Richards said the SBTC staff was exemplary as ambassadors on behalf of the SBTC to Southern Baptists at the San Antonio meeting.
Reflecting on several weeks of physician-ordered silence after throat surgery and several months of rehabilitation, Richards said he has a new appreciation for the stewardship of the tongue and most importantly, the responsibility to witness of the gospel.
“We all struggle with being a strong witness for Jesus, confronting people with the gospel ? but it’s the right thing to do. One day, if Jesus doesn’t come, the tongue will go silent. Between now and then, I want to be a faithful witness.”
Senior Evangelism Associate Jack Harris reported that more than 32,000 “One-Verse Evangelism” packets have been distributed using Romans 6:23 as a simple entr�e to the gospel. Also, the convention has launched an evangelistic website, freegiftforlife.com.
In other business the board:
?Moved that churches voting to affiliate on or before Aug. 10 may enter the process to enable them to seat messengers at the SBTC annual meeting in the same calendar year.
?Approved a motion that effective next Jan. 1, “only funds given to the SBTC adopted budget shall be considered Cooperative Program gifts.”
The motion follows a definition of the Cooperative Program missions funding channel that SBC messengers approved in June in San Antonio, which read: “The Cooperative Program (CP) is Southern Baptists’ unified plan of giving through which cooperating Southern Baptist churches give a percentage of their undesignated receipts in support of their respective state convention and the Southern Baptist Convention mission and ministries.”
?Passed a motion, offered by Greg Simmons, pastor of Memorial Baptist Church in Grapevine, stating that Richards’ election as SBC first vice president was an affirmation of not only Richards but also the ministry of the SBTC.
