[1]NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–The Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee approved legal documents Sept. 18 to allow GuideStone Financial Resources to set up five new subsidiaries providing, among other things, investment financial advice, its own property and casualty insurance and its own life insurance.
The Executive Committee passed the recommendation following one hour of discussion, most of which focused on whether the committee should study the issue for several more months until its next meeting in February. In the end, the recommendation passed on a show of hands.
Some Executive Committee members said they wanted more time to study the proposal’s documents, which they said were extensive. Others responded by saying the entire Executive Committee needed to trust the work of GuideStone’s trustees.
Jody Hudgins, a banker from Sarasota, Fla., requested that consideration of the recommendation be delayed until February.
“What [GuideStone is] proposing is probably OK, but … there are a lot of questions here that we don’t even know to ask yet, and we don’t know the answers to those [questions],” he said.
Calvin Wittman, pastor of Applewood Baptist Church in Arvada, Colo., spoke for the recommendation, saying any questions about the proposal should be left up to GuideStone trustees.
[2]“We have as the Southern Baptist Convention invested the responsibility for these very questions in the trustees of the various entities, and in this particular case GuideStone,” Wittman said. “… We are well served as the Executive Committee to respect their trustees and to do our role, nothing more and nothing less.”
GuideStone President O.S. Hawkins urged Executive Committee members not to delay the vote.
“This is something we’ve been working on a long time,” Hawkins said, adding that the new services of the subsidiaries will be consistent with GuideStone’s ministry assignment. “… This is all about serving our pastors at the crossroads.”
One of the more significant changes will be GuideStone’s ability to offer investment advice to pastors and other participants who currently have their retirement funds through GuideStone. GuideStone has not yet determined whether the advice will be free or fee-based.
“If you were on our call center today you would be hearing scores of pastors saying, ‘Please help me know where to put my funds,'” Hawkins said. “… They need advice on where to put their funds. We can’t even give it to them now.”
GuideStone also will offer churches property and casualty insurance directly, which it now provides through a third party. With its own insurance company, GuideStone will be able to lower costs, Hawkins said. Other denominations have followed that model, he said.
And GuideStone would have its own life insurance company, which will allow it to expand what it offers participants, Hawkins said.
GuideStone’s present subsidiary named GuideStone Financial Services will be renamed GuideStone Trust Services and its old name will be used for the formation of a new subsidiary.
The new subsidiaries will be named:
— GuideStone Risk Management Co. a non-profit Vermont corporation to serve as a property and casualty insurance and risk management affiliate. GuideStone officials chose to make it a Vermont corporation because of favorable laws there.
— GuideStone Life Insurance Co., a for-profit Texas corporation, which may be newly created or acquired substantially.
— GuideStone Agency Services, a non-profit Texas corporation designed to distribute the insurance products and services for GuideStone Risk Management and GuideStone Life Insurance.
— GuideStone Advisors, a non-profit Texas corporation will serve as an additional registered investment adviser.
— GuideStone Financial Services, a non-profit Texas corporation proposed as a broker dealer affiliate.
All five subsidiaries will have GuideStone trustees as their trustees, with the possible exceptions of GuideStone Risk Management and GuideStone Life Insurance. In the first instance, someone who is a member of a Vermont Southern Baptist church and who is not a GuideStone Financial Resources trustee may need to serve as a trustee on GuideStone Risk Management. Vermont law states that at least one trustee of the subsidiary must be a Vermont resident; GuideStone currently has no Vermont trustees. The exception for the life insurance subsidiary is to allow, in the event the subsidiary is formed by substantially acquiring a life insurance company, the election of unencumbered minority shareholder trustees, but the majority of trustees would be GuideStone trustees.
Two attempts were made to end discussion and vote on the recommendation. The first vote to end debate took place about 20 minutes into the hour-long segment and fell short of the required two-thirds majority. The second vote to end debate met the two-thirds requirement, and members subsequently passed the recommendation.
OTHER BUSINESS
In various business matters, the Executive Committee:
— stated its agreement with a motion referred from the SBC annual meeting in San Antonio that the Executive Committee “give serious consideration in the future to select cities as sites for the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting that have not hosted the annual meeting for the past 20 years.”
— responded to a referral from the San Antonio meeting calling for an amendment to the SBC’s bylaws that would stipulate the disclosure of disagreements nominees for the SBC’s various boards and committees may have with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
The Executive Committee stated: “…[A]long with a nominee’s objection to any portion of the Baptist Faith and Message, there are innumerable other specific details about board nominees bearing on their fitness for service and about which messengers may inquire during the Committee on Nominations report.” Declining to recommend a change in the SBC’s bylaws, the Executive Committee stated that it prefers “to encourage the continued inclusion, in the questionnaires and interviews of both the Committee on Committees and Committee on Nominations, of specific inquiries designed to disclose candidates’ affinity for and commitment to the Baptist Faith and Message as well as Convention policies, practices, purposes and activities.”
— declined to recommend to the convention the creation of a task force on “the spiritual gift of tongues” and “private prayer language” proposed in a motion at the San Antonio meeting. The Executive Committee stated that it “respectfully declines to appoint or act as a task force to develop a doctrinal policy on tongues or any other doctrine aside from the Baptist Faith and Message.” Akin to its previous statements on the BF&M, the Executive Committee stated that the BF&M is “sufficient in its current form to guide trustees in their establishment of policies and practices of entities of the Convention … [and] likewise sufficient to guide the Convention’s Committee on Nominations in its selection and qualification of trustee nominees.”
— approved LifeWay Christian Resources’ request to publish a new magazine named LifeWalk, a daily devotional for reading through the Bible in one year.
— elected Dave Hill, pastor of Northside Baptist Church in Springfield, Ohio, to serve as chairman of the 2007-08 Committee on Nominations, filling a vacancy in the post created by the recent death of Glenn Weekley, pastor of First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tenn. The Executive Committee also elected Ken Polk, senior pastor of Northside Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tenn., to replace Weekley as a member of the committee.
EC IN PRAYER
Times of focused prayer during the Executive Committee meeting included:
— an Executive Committee member [unnamed in this report out of security concerns for his daughter] asking for prayer for his 25-year-old daughter’s ministry in a Muslim country.
“… [T]his father who loves his daughter has had a request from her, ‘Will you see if there are other prayer partners who will pray for me?'” Morris H. Chapman said.
The daughter told her father how she couldn’t sleep one night and felt led to go to a nearby park, where a middle-aged Muslim approached her and said, “Allah told me to come to the park and told me to sit down and ask you what you believe.”
— EC chairman William Harrell reporting that vice chairman Randall James will be undergoing treatment for a recurrence of lymphoma. James, president of First Orlando Foundation in Florida, has faced 19 sieges of cancer over the last 19 years. “He’s confident and we’re all confident that the Lord’s going to bring him through and heal him again like He has before,” Harrell said.
James is known to Executive Committee staff members as having led one of the SBC Building’s security guards to faith in Christ just before the man died of cancer a couple of years ago.
— R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, speaking on behalf of the presidents of the SBC’s various entities, noted to the Executive Committee that “there is an unprecedented level of attack upon some of our own leaders … in the form of innuendo and smear and caricature and character assassination.” Mohler also noted, “Two of our own have suffered in particular along these lines,” referencing Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his wife Dorothy.
Mohler stated that the SBC entity presidents have committed “that we will not ourselves tolerate personal attacks upon one of our colleagues,” and Jerry Rankin, president of the International Mission Board, then led in a time of prayer for the Pattersons.
APPRECIATION EXPRESSED
The Executive Committee adopted resolutions of appreciation for three leaders who are retiring from Baptist life:
— John R. (Jack) Wilkerson, who retired Sept. 30 after 14-plus years of service as vice president of business and finance at the Executive Committee.
Wilkerson’s responsibilities have included the logistics for the planning and execution of SBC annual meetings. The resolution said Wilkerson has “warmly welcomed numerous notable personalities at the annual meetings, including several United States government officials and dignitaries, serving as an excellent and appropriate representation of Southern Baptist hospitality.”
Wilkerson also has given oversight to “the annual reception and distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars in Cooperative Program and designated gifts, totaling more than $4.7 billion over the course of his tenure,” the resolution stated. “Because of his conscientious and efficient performance of these duties, thousands of Southern Baptist missionaries and seminary students, and untold numbers of Southern Baptist ministry endeavors, have benefited from the seamless distribution of those sacrificial gifts from Southern Baptists across North America.”
Wilkerson additionally has been in charge of the daily management and maintenance of the seven-story SBC Building in Nashville.
Executive Committee members said Wilkerson “maintained and exemplified the highest standards of fiscal responsibility and biblical stewardship” and “displayed exemplary Christian character” in his work, along with a passion for evangelism in his dealings with personnel in host cities for SBC meetings.
— Charles Wade, executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, who retires Jan. 31 after eight years in the position. The resolution of appreciation noted Wade’s leadership during “an extensive process of reorganization resulting in enhanced efficiency” within the state convention.
Executive Committee members said Wade “sought to enhance communication between the churches of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and its leaders” and led the state convention “to incorporate a broader ethnic representation in its leadership.”
The resolution said Wade, as pastor of First Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, “provided exemplary leadership in promoting ministry to the physical needs of thousands in the surrounding community.”
— Michael Weeks, who retired June 30 after five years as president of the Southern Baptist Foundation.
The resolution said Weeks “provided exemplary, professional, and Christian leadership during his tenure” and he “exercised the highest standards of Christian integrity, ethics, and stewardship” as president of the foundation. It also noted that the proceeds from the foundation’s assets “have been used to finance the advance of the cause of Christ around the world through Southern Baptist enterprises.”
EC members also recognized Weeks’ 10 years of “exemplary service to Tennessee Southern Baptists as trustee of Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, serving three years as chairman,” and they mentioned his “successful and laudable career in the banking industry” prior to his tenure with the foundation.
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Compiled by Michael Foust, assistant editor of Baptist Press; Art Toalston, BP editor; and Erin Roach, BP staff writer.