MBC approves 2006 budget, staff pay raises

Hannibal — Missouri Baptist Convention Executive Board approved a $17.05 million 2006 Cooperative Program budget on July 12 to present to messengers to the MBC annual meeting this fall.

Meeting at Hannibal-LaGrange College, Executive Board members approved setting aside 1 percent, approximately $170,500, of Cooperative Program gifts to be used for CP education and promotion. The remaining money will be divided, with 64.25 percent to be earmarked for MBC causes and 35.75 to be sent to the Southern Baptist Convention for national causes.

The budget, up over the 2005 budget of $16.7 million, will be presented for messenger approval at the annual meeting Oct. 24-26 at Second Baptist Church, Springfield.

Board members also adjusted the Rheubin L. South Missouri Missions Offering budget to include funding for student summer missionaries. As approved in April, the MMO budget dropped student missionaries and shifted the funds to church planting and evangelism in the 2006 budget.

Due to feedback from Directors of Missions Fellowship officers, the board approved a change that will continue to fund summer missionaries next year.

In other action, MBC president Mitchell Jackson directed the board’s personnel work group to study the convention’s personnel policies. The work group includes Ed Hamilton of First Baptist Church, Ozark; Wane Malone of First Baptist Church, Weston; Don Denney of Rock Hill Baptist Church, St. Louis; and Paul Callahan of First Baptist Church, Marshall. Jerry Sheridan of First Baptist Church, Raytown, will serve as an ex officio member.

The board is considering personnel needs, including two associate executive directors, two church planting specialists, a Baptist Student Union director for Rolla and a pastoral ministries leadership specialist.

In other action, board members approved a pay raise for MBC staffers of up to 3 percent.

They also set the 2009 annual meeting for Oct. 28-29 that year at First Baptist Church, Raytown. Messengers will consider the recommendation at this year’s annual session.

The board named Chuck Logue of First Baptist Church, Archie, and Bev Corum of First Baptist Church, Kearney, to fill the unexpired terms of F. Dale Eiceman and James Page, respectively, on the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home trustee board.

(Based on reporting by The Pathway. Word&Way staffers continue to be excluded from MBC Executive Board sessions.) (07-29-05)