Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSC) Executive Director-Treasurer Milton A. Hollifield Jr. challenged North Carolina Baptists to live lives that are marked by humility and free from hypocrisy in an address to the state convention’s board of directors on Tuesday, May 22.
“If we claim to be Christ-followers, we should live with behaviors and attitudes that remind people of Christ,” Hollifield said, drawing from several passages in the New Testament. His remarks came at Caraway Conference Center near Asheboro as part of his report during a regularly scheduled meeting of the BSC’s board of directors.
Hollifield called on North Carolina Baptists to pray for upcoming ministry activities and meetings on both the state and national levels. These include annual summer children’s and youth ministry events that begin in June at state convention camps and conference centers, as well as the upcoming Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting scheduled for June 12-13 in Dallas, Texas.
Each year thousands of middle and high school students attend one of seven weeklong camps sponsored by the state convention at Fort Caswell. Since 2014, more than 1,400 students have trusted Christ as Savior during youth weeks, which includes more than 300 last year alone, Hollifield said. Many others surrender to a call to vocational ministry at youth weeks. Likewise, both Camp Caraway and Truett Camp share the call to follow Christ with hundreds of children and teens each summer, while encouraging those making salvation decisions to become true disciples of the living Lord.
“Let’s pray that God would do another great work this year,” Hollifield said.
Hollifield called on N.C. Baptists to pray for the ministry and outreach events being held in conjunction with the SBC annual meeting, as well as this year’s SBC presidential election. Both of the announced SBC presidential candidates have North Carolina ties. They are J.D. Greear, pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, and Ken Hemphill, a North Carolina native and current administrator at North Greenville University in Greenville, S.C.
Hollifield also requested prayer for wisdom for search committees seeking to fill leadership vacancies with the International Mission Board (IMB) and the SBC Executive Committee.
During Hollifield’s report, Chuck Register, BSC executive leader for Church Planting and Missions Partnerships, introduced Greg Queen, a former IMB missionary who now serves as a church mobilization specialist with the IMB for several southern states, including North Carolina. Queen’s role is to help churches embrace and engage in mission partnerships and opportunities. Queen may be reached by email at [email protected].
In other business, the board heard several other ministry reports and took action on one financial item.
Financial updates
The board authorized the transfer of $381,097 in surplus operations funds from 2017 into the state convention’s contingency reserve fund.
Additionally, Beverly Volz, director of accounting services, reported that through the end of April, Cooperative Program giving from N.C. Baptist churches totaled more than $8.65 million.
Appointees announced
Board President Marc Francis announced the appointment of several individuals to serve on various convention and board committees. Appointments included:
- Kelton Hinton of Princeton Baptist Church; Don Goforth of Great Marsh Baptist Church in Saint Paul’s; and Gregory Shaver of Hopewell Baptist Church in Monroe to the Articles and Bylaws Special Committee.
- Terry Stockman of Meherrin Baptist Church in Murfreesboro and Barbara Bowen of Trinity Baptist Church in Raleigh to the Budget Special Committee.
- Lee Davis of Crosslink Community Church in Mebane; Ben Francis of Parkwood Baptist Church in Gastonia; and Josh Hayes of Pleasant Garden Baptist Church in Marion to the Christian Life and Public Affairs Special Committee.
- BSC Executive Committee members Lawrence Clapp, Ken Jones and Matt Ledbetter to the Fruitland Baptist Bible College Nominating Committee.
Facilities named
John Butler, executive leader for Business Services, reported that the Business Services Committee approved the renaming of the existing recreation pavilion at Camp Caraway in honor of the late Raiford Troutman, who was instrumental in starting the camp at Caraway. Additionally, the new gymnasium at Camp Caraway will be named in honor of former camp director Charles Harris.
One of Caraway’s conference rooms will also be renamed the Higher Education Dining Room in appreciation of gifts made to Caraway’s capital fund by the five educational institutions historically affiliated with the state convention.
In addition, the gym floor at Fort Caswell will be named for the Farmer family, who has maintained the floor for the past two decades.
Statement on designated giving
Francis made the following announcement based on work of the Executive Committee in recent months related to designated giving to the convention by some North Carolina churches.
“During the Executive Committee’s March 2018 meeting, the Executive Director-Treasurer made the Committee aware that in 2017 ten churches added a special designation on their Baptist State Convention remittance forms for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF). The staff forwarded these designated funds to CBF consistent with accounting practices to forward funds to those organizations/entities that have previously been in the Baptist State Convention’s budget. In 2017, the funds designated to CBF totaled approximately $36,000. These same 10 churches also gave in excess of $413,000 to the Cooperative Program and all special offerings supporting Baptist State Convention and Southern Baptist Convention causes.
“Because the national CBF had changed its hiring policy in February 2018, the Executive Committee voted to direct Convention staff to cease forwarding designated funds from churches to CBF.
The Executive Committee also asked the Executive Director-Treasurer to contact each of the churches that made such designations in 2017 and inform them that the Baptist State Convention would no longer receive funds designated for CBF. The Executive Director-Treasurer has reported to the Executive Committee that he has successfully contacted all of the churches in question and received confirmation that the churches would cease sending funds designated to CBF to the Baptist State Convention.”
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the board of directors is set for September 24-25 at Caraway.