Messengers and guests will install a new executive director and will celebrate missions when the 175th Missouri Baptist Convention annual meeting convenes Oct. 26-28 at First Baptist Church, Raytown.
The installation of David Tolliver as MBC executive director will highlight Monday evening’s program. Tolliver will offer the executive director’s address, and MBC president Bruce McCoy also will preach. The annual meeting kicks off with pre-session music at 6:30 p.m.
On Tuesday, messengers will hear reports, including one by the agency restoration group to relay the status of MBC lawsuits against five of its formerly affiliated entities — The Baptist Home, Missouri Baptist University, the Missouri Baptist Foundation, Windermere Baptist Conference Center and Word&Way.
Among Executive Board recommendations will be the 2010 allocations budget, which, for the first time, will designate Cooperative Program funds to pay attorney and court fees incurred in the on-going legal battle, now in its eighth year.
Messengers will consider an Executive Board recommendation to adopt Rick Hedger’s engaging church model of mission involvement, based on Acts 1:8. They will be asked to approve partnerships with northern Illinois; northern Ontario, Canada; Africa’s western cluster, including Cape Verde, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Mali; and to extend the current partnership with El Salvador through 2012. Hedger is the MBC’s partnership missions specialist.
Messengers will elect the convention’s next president and hear the annual sermon by Micah Fries, pastor of Frederick Boulevard Baptist Church, St. Joseph. The morning session begins with music at 8:15 a.m. Business also will be the focus Tuesday afternoon, with the committee on continuing review to present miscellaneous items and the nominating committee to offer its full report. Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, will be the featured speaker for the Tuesday afternoon session.
That evening, the focus will be on missions and Hedger will offer a mission challenge.
Slated to begin with music at 8:15 a.m., Wednesday’s session will see the election of first and second vice presidents and the recording secretary. Miscellaneous business also will be concluded.
Chuck Kelley, president of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, will preach.
