[1]EAST HELENA, Mont. (BP)–The Montana Southern Baptist Fellowship adopted a $1-million budget for the second year in a row during its Oct. 8-9 annual meeting at Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church, East Helena.
The coming year’s budget of $1,111,283 is an increase of $3,847 over the first-ever million-dollar budget adopted last year of $1,107,436.
In Cooperative Program giving from the fellowship’s 117 churches and missions, receipts of $334,771 are anticipated during the coming year, with 22 percent to be allocated to Southern Baptist Convention international and North American missions, the same percentage as in the current budget.
B.J. Hallmark, pastor of Crossroads Memorial Church, Great Falls, was elected president of the fellowship, encompassing 12,055 church members in Montana. Hallmark is the former director of associational missions for Triangle Southern Baptist Association. He resigned the position last January and with his wife, JoAnn, started the new work where he is pastor.
Bobby King, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, Missoula, was elected vice president of the fellowship, and Bert Murphy, associate pastor at First Southern Baptist Church, Great Falls, was re-elected recording secretary.
The theme of this year’s annual meeting, attended by 119 messengers, was “Strengthening our hands for this good work.” Outgoing President Jim Shaver, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church, Great Falls, brought the annual convention sermon, titled, “Strengthening our hands for this good work through sound doctrine.”
Messengers approved a change in the fellowship’s bylaws to permit a person to fill out the unexpired executive board term of another person and still be eligible to serve six years of his/her own terms.
Next year’s annual meeting will be at Fellowship Baptist Church, Sidney, Oct. 7-8.