By Frank Stirk
EDMONTON, AB—Messengers to this year’s Canadian National Baptist Convention (CNBC) meeting took part in a first for such gatherings. They all stood and recited together the “Church-to-Church Covenant” that had been approved at last year’s convention in Char lottetown, Prince Edward Island.
“We’re using it in all our convention meetings. Every convention meet ing we have, we now have a time where we affirm the ‘Church-to-Church Covenant,’” said National Ministry Leader Gerry Taillon.
Local churches that affirm the Covenant basically agree to come alongside fellow CNBC churches and pastors in their immediate area in times of need. But more than that, the hope is that it will foster a new mindset among member-churches.
“The emphasis among Baptists has been autonomy, and we respect the autonomy of the local church. But we feel like there’s another, stronger value in the New Testament, and that is the value of interdependence,” said Strengthen Team Leader Bob Shelton.
“So we’re intentionally trying to create a new culture where churches are interde pendent. Cooperation has been a hallmark of Baptists, and so I don’t think we’re doing anything radical.”
What they want to avoid in the future, he added, are scenarios where “churches that have floun dered and died have said, ‘Why didn’t anyone help us?’”
Prior to the convention, 18 seeds and congregations had affirmed the Covenant. They were joined by the eight new churches that were accepted for membership. (From now on, any church seeking to join the CNBC will be required to affirm the Covenant as a precondition of membership.)
Shelton hopes that by the end of the year, half of all CNBC churches will have endorsed the document—a goal he admits “may be a little ambitious.”
“We’re getting lots of buy-in. All of our associations, I think, are onboard,” he said. “It’s just that one or two have a couple of questions about some of the wording and how we implement it. So we’re just trying to walk with them and try to answer those questions.”
“First of all,” Taillon said, “we’re asking churches to consider affirming it with all due respect to their autonomy and their ability to make the decision them selves. Secondly, we’re trying to have associations learn about our Covenant. In some cases, associations will actually adopt the Covenant themselves and then churches will also affirm it.”
He added that if that process takes as long as five years, then so be it.
“We’re not into pressure and we’re not into mandating this,” Shelton said. “If we have to mandate it, then it’s not really a covenant. And so we want people to see the value of it. But if there’s something there that they’re just not comfortable with, we hope that they’ll choose to be interdependent whether they ever affirm it or not.”
Shelton also stressed that the Covenant is not cast in stone. “This is not a legal document. It’s a relational document,” he said. “And I think as time goes by, we may want to tweak it a little bit.”
In other convention business:
- 264 people attended, including 120 visitors and 144 messengers from 45 churches. Over half the messengers were from Alberta (82), followed by British Columbia (36), Saskatchewan and Manitoba (17), Ontario (5), Atlantic Canada (3) and Quebec (1).
- Rick Lamothe, lead pastor of Sequoia Com munity Church in Nepean, Ontario, was re-elected by acclamation as president of the CNBC. Also re-elected were Joey Mask, senior pastor at The Potter’s House Community Church in Westbank, British Columbia, as first vice president; and John Evans, co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, as second vice president.
- Messengers approved the 2010 budgets of $2,497,579.00 for the CNBC, $341,548.00 for International Missions, $1,980,017 for the Cana dian Southern Baptist Seminary and College, and $53,000.00 for the CCSB Foundation.