NASHVILLE (BP) — At its annual February meeting next week in Nashville, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee (EC) will continue to take action on numerous motions adopted by messengers at the 2024 SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis.
The EC dealt with dozens of such motions at its last meeting in September, but there is more to be done.
“We are making substantive progress in key areas — sexual abuse prevention and response, transparency and financial accountability, meeting financial and legal challenges — as well as a backlog of other issues,” EC President and CEO Jeff Iorg said. “Decisions and recommendations by the EC will move us forward in significant ways.”
Motion referrals
Among the EC’s business next week will be to take up the few remaining referrals from messengers at last year’s annual meeting.
At their fall 2024 meeting, EC members passed 32 recommendations from EC officers and standing committees in response to motion referrals. Those recommendations dealt with everything from changes to the EC staff personnel manual to the process for seating messengers at the annual meeting.
Perhaps the EC’s most consequential action last fall was voting to establish a permanent home for sexual abuse prevention and response in the SBC.
That vote led to the hiring last month of Jeff Dalrymple to lead a new department of Sexual Abuse Prevention and Response within the EC.
Financial update
In response to a referral from messengers, the finance committee released detailed information last September about the EC’s financial struggles due to legal expenses stemming from sexual abuse-related investigations and lawsuits.
From 2021-2024, the EC spent more than $12 million on legal costs, the EC learned.
The numbers show the EC has “done everything in our power to take the burden on ourselves to protect the Cooperative Program and the work of the convention and its entities,” finance committee chair Adam Wyatt told Baptist Press at the time. “And it is our effort of trying to just be as transparent and clear about where we really are.”
Also last fall, at the recommendation of the EC’s Committee on Convention Finances and Stewardship, the full EC declined two referrals asking to amend the SBC’s Business and Financial Plan. The rationale for declining was that steps to modify the plan were already underway.
Legal update
EC members also may hear updates on various lawsuits pending against the SBC and the SBC EC, including one brought by former seminary professor David Sills, which is set to go to trial next year and one by former SBC president Johnny Hunt, which is scheduled to go to trial in Nashville the week after this year’s annual meeting in Dallas.
As he approaches the one-year mark of the announcement of his nomination to lead the EC, Iorg is focusing on the tasks at hand.
“My hope is Southern Baptists will appreciate the deliberate, intentional work the EC is doing to keep us focused on God’s mission,” he said. “We are addressing the present challenges, but focused more on future opportunities.”
Next week’s meeting will be held at the Hilton Hotel on the grounds of the Nashville International Airport and will be livestreamed on the Baptist Press YouTube page. Plenary sessions are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Central Monday, Feb. 17, and 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 18.
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Laura Erlanson is managing editor of Baptist Press.)
