Conventions & Fellowships

If you look closely at the SBC, you'll find your charicature of it is not accurate at all.

 

To be over the local church? You mean as in rule over it, be in charge over it?
I think I have gone through this one already on here. I am SB and we are not 'run' by anyone. We govern ourselves, the SBC has nothing to do with hat we do in our church building, not in the material we use, the missionaries we send out, the VBS material we use, who our pastor or other employees are. They make no decisions as to what we do with our money, what ministries we do.
We do.
So I don't understand this statement or others like it. Because for us, it is not true.

I am glad yur church has the resources to have a ministry like this, you are blessed with missionary work. Don't let it become a chance to boast.
We send out missionaries each year to Mexico, which is what God has called our church too.

Missionary work of any kind that God has called a person to is never a waste of God time. He said His word will never come back to Him void, it will accomplish what He intended it too.

You need to be cardful about judgement. Speak for your own church and pastor, not someone elses. When you go to someone elses pastor, without even knowing any of the pastors you are speaking of, is judgement, of the worst kind, without facts of any kind.

I have not missed a single blessing at Horse Cave Baptist Church.

The church that does govern itself, without help or orders from anyone else but God.

Thank you very much

Tom is correct, you have made judgements on things you know nothing about.

 

This might be a good place to note how much money different organizations spend getting their mission monies to their missionaries (that is, overhead involved in maintaining staff, buildings, etc.)

American Baptist Association - A few years ago (circa 1992), I did a study on how much this group spends in overhead. The national association, supporting interstate and foreign missionaries, spent about 6-7% of funds gathered on overhead. The Missionary Baptist Association of Texas, the state organization affiliated with the ABA (supporting missionaries only in Texas), spent approximately 21% of their mission funds on overhead expenses.

Any figures for other groups??

 

Ernie, in actuality it doesn't apply to any of the SB churches in ths area. They all are self governed. None take orders from the SBC as to anything they do in thisr churches. Most belongs to the association in thier area, but none of us are governed by the association.

 

Does anyone have information on the costs of maintaining the "mission systems" used by some of the following groups?

American Baptist Churches in the USA
Baptist Missionary Association
Cooperative Baptist Fellowship
National Association of Free Will Baptists
Southern Baptist Convention
Or
Any others of which you know!

How many cents on the dollar does it cost to get the money to the missionaries?

 

This is what the SBC has for a website on the Cooperative Program:

http://www.cooperativeprogram.org/money.htm

I am not sure, however, that the Cooperative Program represents 100% of the money received by the SBC. I will research it some, but as you know between local associations, state associations, and whatever other stops there are on the pike to Nashville it will be hard to come up with a specific figure from the offering plate to a missionary handing a foriegn citizen a Bible. I am also not sure if the special offerings of the "Lottie Moon" and "Annie Armstrong" are represented in these figures.

[ February 28, 2002, 07:12 PM: Message edited by: Clint Kritzer ]

 

I was unable to locate much specific information on overhead expenses of missionary societies, so I sent e-inquiries to about 10 different groups. Here are the two responses I have received thus far:

 

Baptist Bible Fellowship International

[ March 07, 2002, 07:10 PM: Message edited by: rlvaughn ]

 

About Baptist Mid Missions, I served for about 3 months with a midmissions missionary in Brazil. I think he told me that the overhead were from voluntary contributions of the missionaries to the board. I think he told me that they did not have to contribute if they could not. I was under the impression that the operating expenses for the mission board did not come out of missionaries support involuntarily. I could be wrong. Perhaps Smallman commented on this.

 

I am involved in the application process with ABWE (Association Of Baptists For World Evangelism). In thier "Principles & Practices", missionaries have included in their fund-raising a "Missionary Administrative Services Fund" which helps with the costs of running the board. What percentage of the missionaries funds this is, is not stated. Also, I work for a charity, the Jewish National Fund, which supports land development in Israel. Their overhead expenses are 30% of every dollar raised. That is pretty standard for a secular charity. I seriously doubt that ABWE's expense contribution is that high.

 

Real briefly, each church sends (voluntarily...a church can send a little as $250/year and still have a vote in SBC matters) funds to the state convention. This fund is split up (in a manner decided by the churches of the particular state) with some staying in the state and some going to the SBC.

This money is used to fund the SBC institutions (some institutions, like seminaries, also bring in funds - tuition, publishing, etc...). Lifeway Christian Resources (formerly the "Baptist Sunday School Board") is one of these institutions. One interesting fact about Lifeway is that any receipts (publishing, Lifeway store sales) that are over and above the annual budget go back into the SBC general fund.

The annual missionary offerings are not part of this equation. 100% of the dollars that one gives to either the "Lottie Moon" international missions offering or the "Annie Armstrong" North American missions offering actually go to the field. No administrative cut is taken. All mission agency administrative expenses are take from the SBC general fund.

I've been in "independent" churches and have experienced the inefficiency of "deputation" (which, btw, if this suits your church, keep up the good work).

 

There is no doubt that the traditional deputation system among IFBs is inefficient. I have friends on the mission field who have over 30 supporting churches. When they come home for a 1-yr furlough, they run around the US visiting churches who support them for 25-50 bucks per month. However, this is widely understood to be a problem now and many churches are changing their approach. Many are supporting fewer missionaries for larger amounts. When the missionaries come home, they live close to their sending church and actually engage in more extended ministry for that year in a single church. For the church of which I was a member until recently which practiced this later method, having the missionary family for a year was/is a GREAT blessing. People with a zeal to win others to Christ can be down-right contagious!!!

 

Association of Baptists for World Evangelism

 

Pastor Larry, here is the entire quote from the e-mail from Bill Smallman. Perhaps this will help.

 

Separate Baptist Missions, Inc.

[ March 11, 2002, 09:19 AM: Message edited by: rlvaughn ]

 

Continental Baptist Missions

I'm not sure if they don't keep this information or just don't give it out. She didn't say.