Day 3 - Report A
9:15 AM:
After enjoying a great breakfast (the bacon is incredible at the hotel restaurant - even though Jen did eat some of mine!) with the Grigsby's (former Pastor of Pleasant Hill MBC outside of Overton), we started the morning meeting with prayer, a devotional, and a special in song (a lady performed "How Great Thou Art" in sign language - it was beautiful!). Dr. Randy Cloud, Secretary-Treasurer of Missions of the ABA, gave his annual report concerning the missionary work supported through Texarkana. He reported "18,452 professions of faith, 1,613 baptisms, 601 received by letters, 74,341 sermons preached, and 16,611 lessons taught. Missionaries reported self-supporting churches being established in Africa, Philippines, India, Belize, and Thailand. For the fiscal year 2007-2008, $2,614,584.64 was given through the office in Texarkana. At the messenger meeting of the churches this year in Spokane, Washington, 194 missionaries will be recommended for financial support through the office of Secretary-Treasurer of Missions. These missionaries are serving the Lord in 28 states and 28 foreign countries. If all of the Interstate, Foreign, and National Missionaries are approved without any raises, the monthly pay out will increase approximately $23,000 or 11%. Approximately $2,767,000 will be needed to pay the missionaries for the coming year. The balance in the mission treasury at the end of May 2008 was $783,083.46." (abbreviated information taken from the Secretary-Treasurer's 2007-2008 fiscal year annual report) This information pertains only to the missionaries supported through the office in Texarkana - much more missionary work is done outside this program as well.
The final process of approving missionaries is now under way. Due to the nature of this meeting and my responsibility as a teller, I will be forced to write about the rest of the morning meeting later.
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3 comments:
"18,452 professions of faith, 1,613 baptisms..." If that is correct and not a typo, are the missionaries baptizing less that 10% of the folks who profess faith in Christ?
Does these number include designated-funds missionaries, if it does the numbers seem to be a little off, at least for the self supporting churches started.
Jason,
The numbers reflect the figures turned in to the office of Secretary-Treasurer of Missions in Texarkana. I do not know whether or not these numbers include designated-funds missionaries, but from the way it was presented, I would assume all recommended missionaries through Texarkana were included.
Robert,
It is not a typo. Bro. Joel Cobbs had approximately 1600 professions of faith and 1452 baptisms. If you remove those baptisms, then there are only 161 baptisms left (so to speak). Either not all the numbers are being reported, or there is a major gap between salvation and baptism. I brought these numbers up during the Missions Committee Meeting yesterday.
[Alternate numbers were given yesterday afternoon with approximately 10,500 professions of faith and approximately 2600 baptisms.]
Now that brings up another "can of worms." Why do the year-end numbers differ from the monthly-report numbers so vastly? In Bro. Cloud's defense, he reported this himself. Furthermore, he cannot report but what is given to him in the monthly/yearly reports. The reports from the churches/missionaries seem to be the issue here. How to fix it? I don't know. I'm just glad I'm not in Bro. Cloud's position.
Overall though, I am greatly concerned about the disparity between the number of salvations and the number of baptisms regardless of which figures you use. One way you have less than 10%. The other way, you have approximately 26%. While we may never have 100%, shouldn't a much higher number than 10% or 26% be our "goal"?
[I do not have each missionary's report on these numbers, so this is not intended to "incriminate" anyone. These thoughts are meant to be taken in a general state.]
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