Arizona Southern Baptist Convention

Spanish Portraits, July-August 2010.

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Messengers at the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting adopted a $3,288,800 Cooperative Program budget and a $4,964,678 state convention operating budget for 2010.

"As you know, this year was a little bit of a tough year," said Rodney McCarty, chairman of the Convention Council finance team and pastor of First Southern, Morenci. After the first quarter of the year, the budget was reduced to about 83 percent of the original budget. However, he said, over the course of the year, Cooperative Program giving has come in at about 90 percent of the original budget.

Next year's Cooperative Program budget is a 13.05 percent increase over the reduced budget and a 9.07 percent decrease from the original 2009 budget.

The 2010 budget calls for 26.016 percent of Cooperative Program gifts to be forwarded to Southern Baptist Convention causes, up from 25.88 percent in 2009. While the ASBC allows churches to designate the percentages used in distributing their Cooperative Program gifts, 95.78 percent of Cooperative Program gifts are sent undesignated and will be distributed using the new formula.

Despite convention messengers in 2006 adopting a systematic plan to increase the percentage of Cooperative Program gifts forwarded to the SBC, ASBC President Steve Ballew told messengers the Convention Council in May "had a very animated discussion" about increasing the SBC percentage in 2010.

"I want you to understand that even in the midst of a reduced budget time, your Convention Council (voted) to continue," he said. "It's not a significant percentage (increase), but it's more than it was the year before."

Ballew, who is pastor of Trinity, Casa Grande, the top Cooperative Program giving church in the state, challenged other churches to increase their Cooperative Program giving also.

"We need to figure out ways within our own church contexts ... to continue to forward more on to the greater work of God beyond just our local areas," he said. "Our state convention has taken that challenge, and I hope that we as local church people will do exactly the same."

The total $3,288,800 Cooperative Program budget will be distributed as follows: SBC Cooperative Program, $824,707; Arizona Southern Baptist Convention, $2,005,459; Arizona Campus of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, $247,865; Arizona Baptist Children's Services, $131,455; and Baptist Senior Life Ministries, $79,314.

Income sources in the ASBC operating budget include the $3,288,800 from Cooperative Program giving by Arizona churches, $1,563,832 from the North American Mission Board, $57,996 from LifeWay Christian Resources, and $54,050 in other revenue.

During a time for questions, Keith Rogers, pastor of Santan Baptist Church, a Native American church in Chandler, said he saw "very little or no financial support for Native Americans" in the budget. "I think we need to have ... more financial support for Native American work and I think we need more emphasis in the Portraits magazine on what is happening on our reservations," he said.

State Missionary Steve Bass responded, "We would apologize for the perception that there's not been the caring in terms of our convention toward the reservation work." He explained that "we make no distinction in our budget between certain ethnic groups except our convention authorized us to set aside a Hispanic ministries facilitator at our last evaluation process."

Through its association, any church can request funding in the areas of evangelism, church planting, leadership or church strengthening, Bass said. "I want you to know that the money is there," he said, "and we try to get it to everyone equally."

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