STATESBORO, Ga. — Georgia Baptist messengers at the annual meeting overwhelmingly approved updates to the convention’s 200-year-old governing documents on Tuesday. The amendments to the bylaws were provisionally approved at last year’s meeting.
Stephen Fountain, chairman of the executive committee and pastor of First Baptist Buford, said, “We took great, painstaking care to make sure that we gave everybody to speak into these, and to respond to these.” He added that the committee only received two requests for changes to be made to the documents approved last year, and “took those very, very seriously.”
Fountain told the messengers that the committee cleared up the four pathways of giving that qualify a cooperating church: Cooperative Program; restricted Cooperative Program; Georgia Baptist Convention only; and Georgia Baptist Mission Board only.
In order to qualify as a cooperating church, it must contribute at least $500 in accordance with one of those pathways.
Sixty percent of contributions from churches giving to the Cooperative Program are used to support Georgia Baptist causes and the remaining 40% supports national Southern Baptist Convention causes such as the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and SBC seminaries.
In restricted Cooperative Program giving, churches can also expressly omit up to two causes, either GBC or SBC, from receiving contributions.
Churches can specify their contribution to be used only for Georgia Baptist Convention causes to be distributed among the GBMB and Convention institutions defined in the bylaws.
Lastly, churches can designate their contributions to be used only to meet the operating budget of the GBMB.
Gene Roberts, messenger from Macedonia Baptist Church in Preston and associational missionary strategist for the Summerhill Baptist Association, moved that giving to Georgia Baptist Children’s Homes be included to qualify a church as a cooperating church. “Several of the churches in the Summerhill Baptist Association give very generously to the Georgia Baptist Children’s Homes, he said. “I urge my fellow messengers to adopt this amendment to allow more churches to be considered cooperating.”
Tommy Fountain, pastor of 1025 Church in Monroe, speaking against the amendment, recognized “the fact that you guys have worked for two years on this.” In addition, he said “We’ll just be opening a Pandora’s Box if we were to approve this amendment. “
Tim Oliver, pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Milledgeville and chairman of the Georgia Baptist Administration Committee, also spoke against the amendment, noting the financial benefits available to pastors of cooperating churches, which amount to $1.1 million in the 2025 budget. He pointed out that while he and his church support Georgia Baptist Children’s Homes, “monies given to other partnering entities… are completely separate from monies the GBMB receives.”
The amendment was defeated, and messengers went on to approve the bylaws.
Among other changes in the bylaws, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 is officially adopted as the statement of faith of the Georgia Baptist Convention. The new documents also reduce the number of vice presidents elected each year from four to two.
