Tuesday Afternoon

President Eric Sutton brought a powerful message on the billions of people who are without the gospel and laid out a vision for reaching them.

Brother Terry Parrish presented the suggested revisions of the Missions Policy and the Articles of Agreement. I have written previously about the proposed changes to the Missions Policy. The resolution to amend the Articles of Agreement must be voted on by churches and addressed by letter next year. Like the missions policy, the proposed changes to the Articles of Agreement are mostly clarifications and improvements of the terminology (the business manager is renamed CEO, the "Treasurer" is renamed "Secretary/Treasurer," and "sovereignty" of churches is replaced by "autonomy"). The substantial changes are (1) adding to article III a possibility for a virtual meeting if necessary, where each church is given one vote, (2) several roles given to the missionary committee are specified to apply to the standing missionary committee (the standing missionary committee is made up of those elected officers, the missionary committee includes one messenger from each church), (3) the standing missionary committee and the association president and VP are given the authority to act as the executive of the association in between meetings, and (4) article X has not been used in several years and is stricken and later articles are renumbered.

A resolution supporting the abolition of abortion was also laid on the table (although I am not sure it was necessary for a resolution to be laid on the table). 

Invitations for 2025 (corrected from 2023) were received (Jacksonville, Orlando, and Springfield, MO). A motion was made to give Brother Sutton $35,000 ($1k for each year of his service as meeting director). It was adopted by a rising vote without opposition in light of his years of selfless service to the churches of the American Baptist Association. 

Editorial

I wish they put Secretary-Treasurer instead of Secretary/Treasurer. It is not worth walking to the microphone over, but it did seem worth typing. :) 

In 2020, when the messenger meeting was canceled because of the pandemic, the standing missionary committee met and voted to reject all new requests for missionaries and to hold salaries the same, in their role as executive of the association. The text of the Articles of Agreement indicates that each church should have had one messenger who was able to vote alongside the missionary committee, but the chair ruled that only the SMC would be able to vote. While I respect the brother who made this ruling, I think it was clearly incorrect: the whole missions committee (the SMC plus one messenger from each church) should have been able to vote.  The amendment to the Articles of Agreement would eliminate any ambiguity. In my opinion, if the provision for a digital meeting with one messenger from each church is adopted, then only having the SMC at as the executive of the association makes a lot of sense. If, for some reason, the proposal for allowing digital meetings is rejected, I believe that allowing one messenger for each church at the emergency meeting of the Missions Committee would be better.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 21, 2022 at 8:54 PM

    I believe the meeting place invitations were for 2025 rather than 2023. Thanks for the information!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousJune 21, 2022 at 9:37 PM

      Yes, you're right! That is what happens when you're typing and talking at the same time.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousJune 22, 2022 at 10:13 AM

    Changing "sovereignty" to "autonomy" is a HUGE change. It violates Scripture (Matthew 20:25-27 and 2 Corinthians 8:23) and the Doctrinal Statement #20. We are the ABA, NOT the SBC.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Justin GatlinJune 22, 2022 at 3:11 PM

    The logic of the committee was that "sovereign" is rightly applied only to God. In English, the word "sovereign" specifically refers to supreme authority and autonomy means "self governing."

    ReplyDelete

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