Updated Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2007

Task forces to examine ministries with women, aging

By Norman Jameson

BR Editor

CARY - Separate task forces will examine possibilities for Baptist State Convention (BSC) ministry among women and senior adults after Executive Committee action Dec. 11.

The BSC Executive Committee, meeting at the Convention staff building in Cary, charged Executive Director Milton A. Hollifield Jr. with naming the task forces, preferably by its January 2008 meeting.

The moves come four weeks after messengers to the Baptist State Convention annual meeting excluded Woman's Missionary Union of North Carolina (WMU-NC) from the 2008 budget and adopted a study committee report that surmised the Baptist Retirement Homes (BRH), "will no longer be a ministry of the Convention."

Since there was no response from BRH after action by messengers to the annual meeting in November, Kevin Clubb, pastor of Cape Carteret Baptist Church, said, "It would not be beneficial to wait before we take proactive steps."

Clubb moved that the Executive Committee form a study committee "to look at ways the Baptist State Convention can serve aging adults in the future."

The only official communication from the Baptist Retirement Homes since November has been a request from BRH lawyers asking for clarification of the vote by messengers asking BRH follow the process outlined in the BSC bylaws "to officially sever its relationship with the Convention and then seek to establish a new relationship."

When discussion followed about how long to wait for some response from BRH, Clubb said, "I don't think we need to wait to get some response because we've waited for years to get nowhere basically. We're just in neutral now so let's move ahead."

Affirmation to his motion was unanimous.

The Executive Committee also affirmed a motion by Lisa Horton of Gate City Baptist Church in Greensboro, for "a task force regarding the future of women's ministry in the Baptist State Convention." Only Sandra James, president of WMU-NC, voted against the motion.

Horton said women's ministry is a "very important need in our convention" and her motion asked Hollifield to name a task force "to make formal recommendations to the Executive Committee." The women's work she envisions would focus on, but not be limited to, "comprehensive women's ministry" including evangelism, discipleship, missions education, prayer support and promotion of mission offerings.

She said during discussion her motion does not exclude WMU from consideration to help fulfill the purposes she described. "They are mainly a missions education organization," Horton said. "This will be much broader."

Hollifield said he would enlist Phyllis Foy to help him name the task force. Foy was at one time very involved in WMU but has been less so since her appointment as a North American Mission Board missionary working with her husband, Bob, in lay renewal ministry.

Hollifield said his office has been "getting numerous requests from churches to develop women's ministry in the Baptist State Convention."

He said WMU is going to continue "to function and offer ministry to churches as they have in the past," but that women's ministry offered through the Convention "will give churches a choice about which ministry they want to utilize."

Horton said after the meeting that she wants to see a women's ministry modeled after the North Carolina Baptist Men, "active, vibrant, well rounded, very broad," and more hands on.

"WMU has a lot of love and respect in our state," Horton said. "I hope it will thrive. But many churches have both WMU and a women's ministry. As a convention, we don't have what we need to resource women's ministry in those churches."