North Carolina Baptists’ top
administrator declared his commitment to move the state convention to a 50-50
split of Cooperative Program (CP) funds with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)
“over a protracted period” in his address to messengers Nov. 8.
At the same time, he said it
could not be done without increased giving from North Carolina Baptist
churches.
“It is imperative that we
all understand that a move to increase the SBC portion must be accompanied by
an increase in CP support by our churches,” Hollifield said.
This will mark the sixth
year of the past eight that CP gifts from churches have been lower than the
previous year. Messengers adopted a 2011 budget the size of the 1999 budget. Yet
in 2011, for the sixth consecutive year, the SBC allocation of CP gifts has been
increased one-half percent.
“If our churches do not increase their support of the
Cooperative Program we can’t reach the goal without deep cuts in church
planting and partnership ministries that I’m convinced God is calling us to do …
ministries that the churches of this state voted to establish and support,”
Hollifield said.
Hollifield pointed out that
if churches had maintained their CP giving percentage of 1995, $15 million more
would have been available for missions throughout the state and world annually.
While Hollifield affirmed
each church’s autonomy to determine how it will invest mission dollars,
including avenues other than the Cooperative Program, he said, “If a
congregation wants to have a strong voice in how a convention uses the dollars,
they need to be strong givers.”
His call to dramatically
alter the division of Cooperative Program gifts between the Baptist State
Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention is evidence that he is “deeply
committed to strengthening the partnership between the Baptist State Convention
and the Southern Baptist Convention.”
Hollifield’s declaration comes
after a year of vocal pushing for such a division by supporters of the Great
Commission Resurgence Task Force study and report. During a panel at last year’s
annual session GCR task force member and Calvary Baptist Church’s pastor from
Winston-Salem Al Gilbert called a 50-50 division “a good start.”
Hollifield said lower gifts in
churches and from churches “is just a symptom of a larger problem of church
health. When this problem is solved then stewardship will naturally be
addressed with our people.”
If more churches were
spiritually healthy, Hollifield said, “we would see them doing things
differently,” including seeing members who tithe instead of giving an average
of two percent of their income.
In his annual address,
Hollifield said 2010 has been a year both of “difficulty and challenge” and a
year of “great celebration.”
He said challenges included
the economy which has negatively affected all but a “few churches,” and a
growing diversity that includes “many newcomers (who) bring religious practices
that many North Carolina Baptists are not prepared to address.”
He encouraged his audience
not to be distracted by difficulties “or we’ll miss the great and mighty things
God is accomplishing through His church.”
For Hollifield such evidence
includes planting 98 churches in 2009; financially sponsoring five ethnic
church plants in New York City with a gift of $50,000; and 20 percent growth in
baptisms.
As people push the Baptist
State Convention toward a closer identity with the Southern Baptist Convention,
Hollifield drew distinctions between the work of each organization. Each has “different
and distinct assignments … but we partner with the SBC to accomplish some things
that require joint efforts,” he said.
Lamenting too many Christian’s
moral failures, Hollifield committed to “pray, share, and to personally seek to
disciple and mentor” more persons in 2011. If others would make such a
commitment but are unsure how to do it, he urged them to call the Baptist State
Convention and staff would come help.
He said he is “disturbed at
the infighting that continues to paralyze the ministries of so many churches.”
Such conflict leaves people “wounded and discouraged.”
“I do not know about you,”
Hollifield said, “but I am committing before you this evening to work to bring
peace, and healing, and unity without uniformity to this convention in the
hopes that this convention might indeed be a model for the churches.”