WMU underscores partnership with SBC missions: Missions is the heartbeat of Woman's Missionary Union, leaders of the organization told messengers during the SBC meeting in New Orleans. Wanda S. Lee, WMU executive director, and Janet Hoffman, WMU president, in their June 13 report to the SBC, used the organization's five strategic principles to describe the organization's commitment to missions: (1) Pray for missions. Hoffman told the crowd that prayer is a top priority for WMU members because of the their commitment to missionaries. (2) Do missions. Lee reported on several ways the national organization helps members be involved in missions, including Christian Women's Job Corps and MissionsFEST. (3) Give to missions. Hoffman thanked church members for their record contributions to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and Annie Armstrong Easter Offering during the past year. The 2001 LMCO topped $113 million, while the 2000 AAEO surpassed $48 million. (4) Grow spiritually toward a missions lifestyle. The ultimate goal of everything done in a WMU missions organization, Hoffman said, is to help members grow in their commitment to God and sharing the gospel with others. (5) Support the work of the denomination. Lee closed the WMU report by highlighting the organization's ongoing relationship with the SBC's two missions boards. "The two missions boards treat us as equal partners, and we are committed to continuing our close relationship with the agencies as we work together to support the work of our missionaries in North America and around the world," she said. [BP]

SEBTS faculty sign BFM: The return of the SBC to the faith of its fathers came full circle at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, May 17, when the seminary's elected faculty lined up to sign the Baptist Faith and Message during the annual Awards Chapel. In an introduction to the signing, Dean Russ Bush affirmed to Patterson and to the packed auditorium of the campus chapel, "The current faculty voluntarily wishes to make a testimony to you and to one another and to our Southern Baptist Convention that we stand with them and with you on these essential doctrines." Many on the faculty, like Keith Eitel, professor of Christian missions and director of the Center for Great Commission Studies, had wanted to sign the document on Sept. 13, 2000, the day they unanimously affirmed the BFM by raised hands during a faculty meeting, but Patterson had asked them to wait until the trustees made official provision for the signing. The trustees made that provision at their April meeting when they approved a bylaw change which required all new faculty to sign both the Abstract of Principles, Southeastern's longstanding faith statement, and the BFM. Elected faculty at Southeastern have signed the Abstract of Principles since the seminary's founding in 1950. Speaking of the SBC's free church tradition, Patterson said, "Our founding fathers of our Southern Baptist Convention saw to it that the churches remained autonomous from the convention itself and from each other so that their accountability was directly to God, and then they would cooperate together to do the Lord's work. That voluntary cooperation is a signal phenomenon even today." The voluntary cooperation was not based on autonomy alone, Patterson said, "but a portion of that [cooperation] was also based on the fact that we had a strong confidence in the reliability of the Word of God. That confidence was really the rule that kept us all together." Patterson recounted that "we made an attempt to amend the Baptist Faith and Message [during his presidency of the SBC] so as to strengthen it and to return it to the strong document it once was when it was the New Hampshire Confession of Faith and then the Baptist Faith and Message of 1925." Patterson also clarified a common misconception concerning the statements of faith. "Now, of course, any one of us, if we were setting out to write this would write it a little differently. What a statement of faith like this is supposed to be is a statement of those things that are most commonly believed among us." As an example, Patterson noted that he was premillenial in his eschatology and believes in a pretribulation rapture, neither of which made it into the BFM as adopted by the SBC in June 2000. [BP]

Alliance, CBF, and homosexuality: The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has adopted a new “organizational value” forbidding direct funding of groups that condone homosexual relationships. This statement will be used in developing the next CBF budget. Presumably it will most affect divinity schools that include sexual diversity in their open-admissions policies. In April, the Alliance of Baptists, a group even more liberal than CBF, expressed grief over the new CBF stance and urged CBF’s Coordinating Council to rescind the action. [Editorial Note: This is another example of the tendency of those who do not accept the full authority of the Bible to follow different paths. Without the centripetal pull of biblical authority, each such organization can follow its own preferences and there is no final arbiter of right and wrong. TCP]

SBC Membership approaches record 16 million: Membership in Southern Baptist churches continued to climb toward the 16 million mark in 2000, with an increase of 108,552 bringing the total number of members to an all-time high of 15,960,308. Total baptisms surpassed 400,000 for the fourth consecutive year, although the 2000 total of 414,657 was 1.12% less than the growth in 1999. Sunday school enrollment increased by 38,958 or 0.48 percent in 2000. Increases in Discipleship Training and men/boys mission education enrollment were significant, due in part to an increased number of state conventions reporting in these categories. Discipleship gained 232,118 participants, an 11.75% increase, for a total of 2,208,427. Men/boys mission education gained 9.52% or 42,353 for a total of 487,410. Other increases were reported in total tithes and offerings and special gifts, $7,793,931,050, a 7.37% increase compared to the 1999 increase of 5.38%. Sunday morning average worship attendance increased 2.33% from 5,418,348 in 1999 to 5,544,439 in 2000. Music ministry enrollment/participation declined by 12,072 or 0.72% to a total of 1,654,877. Woman's Missionary Union enrollment declined by 17,370 or 1.91% to 892,157. [BP]

Texas churches bypass BGCT: A growing number of Texas Baptist churches are bypassing the Baptist General Convention of Texas and sending their Cooperative Program gifts directly to the Southern Baptist Convention, according to information released by SBC officials. "The amount of money given [directly] has jumped tenfold," said David Hankins, vice president for Cooperative Program. "We have not seen numbers like this before." In May, Texas Baptist churches sent $372,288 in Cooperative Program gifts directly to the SBC, instead of the traditional CP method of giving to the state convention. Hankins said the SBC prefers for churches to use the traditional methods of giving to the Cooperative Program. However, he said actions take by the BGCT forced Texas churches to consider alternate methods of giving. Becky Bridges, director of communication center for the BGCT, confirmed that the state convention's financial picture has been impacted by churches that give directly to the SBC. "Yes, we are aware but we don't have access to the same statistics as the SBC," Bridges said in response to the amount of money bypassing the BGCT. "We don't want to have to dramatically change the ministries and work we do, but we will be accountable and work within our means. "It's obvious that giving is down this year," Bridges told Baptist Press. "Our books are always open as a matter of accountability and I know that Dr. [Charles] Wade and everyone on staff feels like the lower giving to CP is a matter of prayer and concern for us." "Churches who give directly to the Southern Baptist Convention are saying they want to give to the Southern Baptist Convention. That is their right as an autonomous church and we respect that." Hankins said the drop in BGCT giving can be attributed to two issues -- churches that are bypassing the BGCT and churches that have aligned with the SBTC. More than 800 Texas churches have either exclusively aligned or dually aligned with the pro-SBC state convention. [BP]

CP gifts 0.76% less due to BGCT giving changes: Gifts to the SBC’s Cooperative Program of $12,650,999.98 were 11.59 percent below the total for May 2000, according to a news release from the treasurer of the SBC, Morris H. Chapman. For the fiscal year to date, October 2000 through May 2001, CP giving stands at 0.76% less than the same period a year ago, $117,580,589.31 compared to $118,479,606.61. The year-to-date decline is attributed to a major drop in CP gifts from the Baptist General Convention of Texas, according to David Hankins, vice president for Cooperative Program. "From February through May, the BGCT has forwarded approximately $3.5 million to be distributed as 'designated,'" Hankins told Baptist Press. "Traditionally, those gifts would have been forwarded as Cooperative Program gifts. "Had the $3.5 million been forwarded in the traditional manner, those gifts would be counted as Cooperative Program and the receipts year to date would be approximately $2.6 million or 2.1% ahead of last year's giving," Hankins noted. [BP]