The budget has remained the same since 2010. It includes $33.85 million in Cooperative Program receipts from BGCT member churches and $2.15 million in investment income.
Messengers allocated 79 percent of the budget for the work of the state convention and 21 percent for national and international causes, allowing each church to determine the recipient or recipients of its gifts beyond the BGCT.
In making the budget presentation, BGCT treasurer Jill Larsen shared the stories of people who have been transformed by Christ as a result of ministries supported by the Texas Cooperative Program.
"That's what this budget is all about: sharing the Gospel so men, women and children can know the hope of Christ," Larsen said.
With revenue from other sources such as the North American Mission Board, conference and booth fees and product sales, the convention expects to receive an overall total of $41,314,307 in revenue for 2013, just $28,224 less than this year.
Newly elected as BGCT officers are: president, Jeff Johnson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Commerce; first vice president, Byron Stevenson, pastor of The Fort Bend Church in Sugar Land, and second vice president, Kathy Hillman, director of special collections for the Baylor University libraries.
Johnson served the past year as first vice president, has served on the BGCT's Executive Board and has pastored churches in Del Rio, Bonham, Sherman and Ivanhoe.
Stevenson served the past year as second vice president and has served on the BGCT Executive Board and as secretary of the African American Fellowship of Texas. Hillman is chairwoman of the BGCT committee to nominate executive board members and is a former chairperson of the BGCT committee on order of business.
The 894 convention messengers approved two constitutional amendments, one granting the BGCT executive board the authority to adopt the budget at its fall meeting in years when a summer annual meeting is held. The other will grant presidents of BGCT-recognized fellowships voting privileges on the BGCT Executive Board.
Julio Guarneri, pastor of Calvary Baptist in McAllen, was selected to preach the annual sermon at the 2013 convention, July 14-17 in San Antonio, with Bob McCartney, pastor of First Baptist Church in Wichita Falls, named as alternate. The 2014 BGCT annual meeting is scheduled for Nov. 16-19 in Waco and the 2015 annual meeting will be Nov. 8-11 in Frisco.
Messengers also scheduled a "family gathering" July 14-17, 2013, in San Antonio in conjunction with the African-American Fellowship of Texas and the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas.
Compiled from reports by the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Baptist Standard newsjournal.
Copyright (c) 2012 Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist Press www.BPNews.net
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