Texas Baptists to Vote on Controversial Restructuring Plan
The new plan, if adopted, would shift representative power from geographic regions to population-based sectors; supporters say the plan is modern, opponents say the plan would disenfranchise them
Delegates to the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT)’s annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, will vote on a controversial reorganization plan that would effectively shift the balance of power within the 2.5-million-member convention from the general population to densely populated urban areas, Nov. 8, 2004.
Currently, the BGCT has 234 Executive Committee members that serve as the principal governing body of the convention. Each of the BGCT’s 114 regional governing bodies (associations) has at least one member on the executive board.
The new plan, which was already approved overwhelmingly by the convention’s executive board, would reduce the number of serving executive board members from 234 to 90, and would restructure the make-up of the associations to population-based regions as opposed to the geographic divide. The proposed plan would divide the state into 30 sectors, each made up of 52,000 active church members; each of those sectors would have three representatives on the executive board.
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Top executive members in densely populated regions lauded the new plan, saying it will move the BGCT into the “21st century” and make it more responsive to its 5,700 churches.
However, leaders in sparsely populated large geographic regions criticized the plan, saying it is a “dangerous trend” that would disenfranchise them.
"You can take half of West Texas all the way west and down to Brownsville and we would have 12 representatives, less than Houston, which would have 15," said the Rev. Charlie Davenport, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Tulia. "That's a dangerous trend."
Davenport tried on Oct. 26 to delay the vote on the plan for a year so people could better understand it, but failed to convince the executive board, which voted in favor of the amendment 81-28.
During the Oct. 26 meeting, the Rev. Wesley Shotwell, vice chairman of the executive board rebutted Davenport’s argument, saying West Texans would see only a slight drop in representation. According to Shotwell, West Texans currently have an 11.5 percent representation in the board; under the new plan, they will make up 10 percent of the representation. Shotwell also explained that the new plan would extend representation to ethnic minorities.
Because it is a constitutional amendment, the new plan must pass by a majority vote during this year’s meeting as well as the next. Once it passes, the new plan would also eliminate some of the longstanding state convention entities, such as the Christian Life Commission, The State Missions Commission, the Human Welfare Coordinating Board, and the Christian Education Coordinating Board.
