BMAT approves agreement with SBTC

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LUFKIN?The Baptist Missionary Association of Texas (BMAT)
overwhelmingly approved in its annual session on Nov. 10 a “working ministry
relationship” between BMAT and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

Calling the relationship “historic and monumental,” Vernon
Lee, pastor of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, made the motion for the
vote after summarizing the agreement drafted by a BMAT task force along with
representatives from the SBTC.

Noting shared conservative theology and a gracious dialogue
over five years, Lee said in a statement to the TEXAN: “I am very pleased with
the overwhelming support we have received from the churches of the BMAT, and
especially with the tremendous vote of the messengers at our recent annual
state meeting approving the agreement.”

“This relationship will enable us to expand our efforts to
work together here in Texas, to further our commitment to evangelizing our
state and serving our Lord through our cooperative ministries. It is my hope
that this official relationship is just the beginning of greater things to
come?. I am excitedly optimistic and confident that the manifold benefits will
be eternally beneficial.”

Tom Campbell, SBTC director of facilitating ministries, told
those at the BMAT annual session: “I appreciate all the time that I’ve been
able to spend with the task force?. I love the fellowship that you have. I look
forward to many years together in a relationship and I just thank God for this
historic moment.”

Over the summer, the BMAT task force and SBTC
representatives developed the proposed agreement, spelling out that it is “one
of cooperation with neither party having control over the other’s ministry
activities. This does not create a partnership as that term is used in the
Texas Business Organizations Code. Nor is either party the legal agent of the
other.”

The related ministry agreement proposal is patterned after
one the SBTC holds with the Korean Baptist Fellowship. Both groups will remain
independent bodies but will cooperate on several levels of mission.

At last year’s BMAT annual session, a task force was named
to continue dialogue with the SBTC on shared ministry. Two BMAT institutions,
the two-year Jacksonville College and the Texas Baptist Home, based in
Waxahachie, are ministry affiliates of the SBTC and receive budgeted funding.

“The purpose of this agreement is to establish guidelines
and parameters for a working ministry relationship between the BMAT and SBTC,”
the agreement states.

In it, both parties endeavor to:

?”continued affirmation of a high view of Scripture and
basic Baptist distinctives”;

?joint ministry opportunities;

?freely share information about each respective group with
interested churches;

?cooperation between the two groups’ flagship publications,
the Baptist Progress and the Southern Baptist TEXAN;

?Reciprocal linking of the SBTC and BMAT websites;

?Reciprocal exhibits at each group’s annual meetings;

Additionally, BMAT will provide the SBTC Facilitating
Ministries Committee an annual report of BMAT ministry activities, and in turn
the SBTC will provide the BMAT Administrative Committee with its annual Book of
Reports.

The agreement specifies that a “high view of Scripture
includes but is not limited to the position that the Bible is factual in
character and historicity in such matters as: 1) the supernatural character of
the biblical miracles which occurred as factual events in time and space, 2)
the historical accuracy of biblical narratives which occurred precisely as the
text of Scripture indicates, and 3) the actual authorship of biblical writings
as attributed by Scripture itself.”

The agreement is for the 2011 calendar year.

In addition to the Korean Baptist Fellowship, the SBTC has related
ministry agreements with Houston Baptist University and Baptist Credit Union.