Alabama Baptists seek to be ‘DifferenceMakers’
By The Alabama Baptist staff
DAPHNE, Ala. – Messengers to the Nov. 12-13 Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting at Eastern Shore Baptist Church in Daphne approved a $37.5 million Cooperative Program allocation budget for 2025 and re-elected all current officers to a second one-year term.
The budget is up $500,000 over the 2024 budget and maintains the 50-50 percentage allocation between Southern Baptist Convention and state convention-related Great Commission missions and ministries.
Messengers also approved the following 2025 special offering goals, all of which are the same amount as last year:
- Lottie Moon Christmas Offering: $12 million
- Annie Armstrong Easter Offering: $6 million
- Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries: $3 million
- Myers-Mallory State Missions Offering: $1.2 million
- World Hunger Offering: $800,000
In other financial updates, Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, said Alabama Baptists will give Mission:Dignity recipients three extra checks in 2025 funded by interest income, similar to what was done in 2024.
Mission:Dignity helps retirement-age Southern Baptist ministers and widows who are struggling to pay for their basic needs, like housing, food and medication.
State convention president Craig Carlisle, who serves as director of missions for Etowah Baptist Association in the Gadsden, Alabama, area, was re-elected without opposition as were the two vice presidents.
Jarman Leatherwood, pastor of House of Hope and Restoration Church in Huntsville, Alabama, was re-elected first vice president, and Ryan Whitley, pastor of CrossPoint Church in Trussville, Alabama, was re-elected second vice president.
Also re-elected were Debbie Oliver as recording secretary and Mike Jackson as statistical secretary and registration secretary. Oliver and Jackson both serve on staff of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
The 201st annual meeting of Alabama Baptists also included various presentations featuring the meeting’s theme of DifferenceMakers.
A major focus for Carlisle during his year as president — and continuing into his second year in the role — is that of the pastor shortage “crisis.”
“Here in Alabama, we have 3,162 churches, and presently 501 of our churches do not have pastors,” he shared during his president’s address. “That represents 16 percent of our churches.”
Nearly 90 percent of pastorless churches are smaller congregations that need bivocational or part-time ministers, he added.
Carlisle led an effort to develop a Calling Out the Called emphasis that was launched during the annual meeting.
Kevin Blackwell, disciple-making/teaching pastor at The Station Church in Bessemer, Alabama, is part of the Calling Out the Called Alabama team and shared a report on the new web-based resource with messengers during the Nov. 12 afternoon session.
Blackwell hopes the new strategy will be a “game changer for our churches,” many of which are congregations that average less than 75 in worship and are seeking bivocational pastors.
“There is a growing number of open ministerial positions, particularly bivocational [ones], and a diminishing number of people responding to a call to ministry,” Blackwell said.
A total of 830 people representing 358 churches were present for the state convention annual meeting — 660 messengers and 170 guests.
The 2025 annual meeting will be held Nov. 11–12 at Whitesburg Baptist Church in Huntsville.
New Mexico Baptists approve budget restructure
By Kevin Parker
CLOVIS, N.M. – The Baptist Convention of New Mexico met for its 2024 Annual Meeting at Restoration Church in Clovis. The location was significant. The church is a replant effort of the Tri-Area Association and the state convention. Previously First Baptist Church, the congregation had diminished and found itself on hard times. With assistance, the congregation agreed to a relpant under direction. The church is again reaching its community.
Attendance at the meeting fell below 200 messengers for the first time since 1980, the earliest year of current records. In the final count, 191 messengers from 72 churches and 65 visitors for a total registered attendance of 256.
The program for the meeting included two pre-convention meetings: The 2024 WMU Missions Celebration and the 2024 Pastors’ and Laymen’s Conference (PLC). Parkland Baptist Church, Clovis, hosted both meetings. The WMU meeting featured testimonies from IMB missionaries, skits, prayer times and testimonies from churches. The PLC featured Kansas City pastor and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary dean Todd Shipman.
Messengers heard from three speakers – BCNM President Stephen Baum; SBC Executive Committee President and CEO Jeff Iorg; and New Mexico pastor Stephen Soto.
Messengers also approved a 2025 budget of $4,295,010 – $58,562 higher than last year. The budget represented a change in convention structure. The new convention organization funded by the budget consists of two primary teams, two support teams and a team of five regional missionaries.
The two primary teams are the Church Health Team and the Church Missions Team. The two support teams address the less visible functions of the convention and churches. They are the Office of Communication and Technology and the Office of Administration and Finance. The five regional missionaries engage in direct relationships with churches and connect them with convention resources.
The approved budget removes BCNM reliance on partner funding for its core functions. To accomplish that goal, messengers changed the Cooperative Program sharing ratio from 75 percent retained and 25 percent forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention’s CP allocation budget to a new ratio of 80 percent retained and 20 percent forwarded to the SBC’s CP allocation budget. Convention leaders have expressed a desire to strengthen churches and the convention’s ministry to reach more people and eventually reverse the ratio change.
The convention will still receive and use partner funding when available. However, the new budget, structure and CP ration enables to convention to provide ministries and resources without concern for SBC entities’ ability to supply funds. In the past, major portions of BCNM funding came from Lifeway Christian Resources and the North American Mission Board. The convention still partners with those organizations whenever possible. But, New Mexicans are now funding their own ministries to reach the state with the Gospel, as well as participating in funding CP ministries through the SBC.
During officer elections, messengers reelected Baum to serve a second term as president and Al Carroll to serve a second term as first vice president. They aslo elected Joel Gunn as second vice president. Gunn serves as executive pastor at First Baptist Church, Bloomfield. Carroll serves as pastor of First Baptist Church, Bernalillo.
The convention’s next Annual Meeting will convene Oct. 21-22, 2025, at First Baptist Church, Las Cruces.
