Updated Monday, Nov 12, 2007

Myers Park To Challenge Messenger Seating

By Norman Jameson

BR Editor

The Executive Committee ruled Monday morning that Myers Park Baptist Church is not "in friendly cooperation with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina."

Myers Park will challenge that finding at the BSC annual meeting Tuesday morning in Greensboro.

Myers Park is affiliated with several groups that "welcome and affirm" homosexuals as members and in leadership.

They wrote a letter to the Baptist State Convention in January declaring both that fact and their intent to stay affiliated with the Baptist State Convention.

At issue is a membership requirement - passed in 2006 - that says churches which in any way affirm homosexual behavior will be considered to be "not in friendly cooperation" with the BSC.

To be "in friendly cooperation" with the Convention's purposes is one of only two qualifications for membership.

The other is financial support in any measure.

If a church is ruled not to be in friendly cooperation, then it is effectively not a member church of the Baptist State Convention.

Myers Park representatives challenged that membership parameter, pleading instead "from the mercies of God, to refrain from removing churches like ours from your fellowship," said pastor Steve Shoemaker.

Three Myers Park members and Shoemaker met first with officers of the Executive Committee, then with the entire Executive Committee Monday morning. The process for appeal was outlined to them, and they were prepared to exercise it.

Asked if they expected any different outcome, Myers Park member Barbara Mishoe said, "We had no expectations, other than a desire to be heard, and we were heard."

Shoemaker said Myers Park had been studying the issue for 20 years. "We do not claim to have the whole mind of God," Shoemaker said. "We respect those whose perspectives differ."

"Jesus welcomed those considered outcasts into his Kingdom of God," Shoemaker said in his comments to the Executive Committee, where each church member also spoke. "We hope to live in His spirit. We have overcome our original resistance to the inclusion of gays and lesbians as Peter overcame his resistance to gentiles being included in the Kingdom. "

Shoemaker said unity could be based on "any number of issues of interpretation" such as speaking in tongues, war, divorce, sexuality or others, but said, "Let us base our unity on Jesus Christ as Lord."

Roy Owens, a life deacon at Myers Park, said his fellow church members, "are Baptists, southern style."

"We need no priests, cardinals or creeds," he said, "nothing between us and the Bible, between us and our Lord." While Owens said he has friends on both sides, "I would never say we could be neither friends nor family on this issue about which our Lord said not one word. You would stop a church with a 60-year association (with the BSC) because of this?"

Nancy walker, secretary to the Myers Park board of deacons and a member there since 1975, said, "I'm a lesbian, Baptist and devoted follower of Christ."

When asked about her lifestyle*, Walker said, "It's not a lifestyle, it 's an orientation. It's who God made me. I would consider it a sin to live other than who God made me."

While Myers Park lists affiliations* with other Baptist groups on its website, the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina is not listed. It contributes no money to the work of the Convention through the Cooperative Program, but has made gifts of about $7,000 in the past year to BSC institutions, primarily to Baptist Children's Homes.

It has not sent messengers to the annual meeting for at least eight years.

Shoemaker said it is not a priority for the church "to be a part of Convention business as such, but we feel a deep spiritual kinship with North Carolina Baptists and that's why we wish to speak with you today."

During the Board of Directors report Tuesday morning Board President Allan Blume will introduce the issue. Messengers must indicate by a simple majority that they wish to hear from Myers Park or their appeal is dead. If it dies at that point, Myers Park could appeal to the Board of Directors in January 2008.

If messengers indicate they wish to hear from Myers Park, Blume will set for the process for consideration, including statements from Myers Park, from the Executive Committee and time for debate. Approval of that process will require two-thirds majority vote. The final step - voting to sustain or overturn the decision of the Executive Committee, will require a simple majority.

"We have no choice but to say they are in violation of the Convention's articles," Blume said. "Our articles are in disagreement with their position.