MONTROSE, Colo. (BP)–A 10.1 budget increase was adopted during the Colorado Baptist General Convention’s annual meeting Oct. 27-28 at The Pavillion convention center in Montrose.
The convention celebrated record Cooperative Program giving of $1,675,000 during the past year by the state’s 342 churches and missions, encompassing 72,000 members.
The 1999 budget of $3,210,025, includes restored funding for a women’s missions and ministries director, including responsibility for Woman’s Missionary Union, which was shifted to auxiliary status during the mid-1980s in a time of convention financial cutbacks.
The convention honored Sydney Portiss who retires Dec. 31 after 28 years as Woman’s Missionary Union director.
The 1999 budget includes $1.65 million in anticipated Cooperative Program giving from Colorado churches, with 29 percent designated for Southern Baptist Convention national and international missions and ministries. The percentage is unchanged from last year, when a 1 percent-of-budget increase was adopted.
The convention’s executive director-treasurer, David Bunch, reporting on the convention’s goal of reaching 500 congregations, noted Southern Baptists now report the second-largest number of congregations in Colorado, behind the Roman Catholic Church’s 452. In terms of members, Southern Baptists are third, behind Catholics and United Methodists, Bunch said.
Re-elected to a second one-year term were the convention’s president, James Vaughan, director of missions for the Grand Valley Baptist Association; first vice president, Rick Lewis, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Sterling; and second vice president, Willard Johnson, assistant pastor of Denver Temple Baptist Church.
A total of 292 messengers attended the meeting, hosted by Rosemont Baptist Church, Montrose.
The 1999 annual meeting will be Oct. 26-27 at Chapel Hills Baptist Church, Colorado Springs.
