Praying together (left to right) soon after their election are First Vice President Mike Cummings, President Mac Brunson and Second Vice President David Crocker.

• Elected a full slate of new officers.
• Approved the recommendation from its General Board for a new executive director-treasurer to succeed retiring Roy J. Smith whom they honored in the opening session.
• Adopted a record budget for 1998 of $31 million.
• Received the report of a special study committee on the circulation of the state Baptist paper.

Organized conservative effort
Brunson was supported by the Conservative Carolina Baptists (CCB), an organization which advocates the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) agenda in the state. Causey was the moderate candidate, but that element has no organization in the state since "Friends of Missions" was disbanded earlier this year.

In his 1996 address to the messengers, retiring Executive Director-treasurer Roy J. Smith appealed to both groups to disband and stop the political activity which he deemed harmful to Tar Heel Baptists. Brunson disclaimed any participation in the CCB, but his candidacy was actively promoted by the organization and its publication, The Conservative Record.

Mike Cummings, director of missions in the Burnt Swamp Association, defeated Charlotte Cook of Lexington -- the only layperson in the race -- by 183 votes for the first vice president slot. The percentage division was 52/48, almost the same as for the presidency. Cummings, a Native American, represented the conservatives, while Cook is known as a moderate.

Moderate Crocker chosen
David Crocker, pastor of Fayetteville's Snyder Memorial Church, won the second vice presidency by 33 votes over Allan Blume, pastor of the Mt. Vernon Church, Boone. Crocker was clearly identified as a moderate while Blume has been one of the major leaders in the CCB.

Both men served on the Committee of 20, an ad hoc group which met three times in 1997 to find ways of developing unity and trust between the moderates and conservatives in the state.

Blume served as president of the N.C. Baptist Pastors' Conference and invited Brunson to bring the closing address on the afternoon of Nov. 10.

Smith honored
Roy J. Smith, executive director-treasurer of the BSC for the past 13 years, was honored in the opening evening session Nov. 10. He was lauded by Baptist leaders, both lay and clergy, and was given a 1997 Lincoln Town Car.

A native of North Carolina, Smith has spent all 43 years of his ministry in the state, serving as a pastor, an area missionary and associate executive director before being named to the top post in 1984. James H. Royston, pastor of the Colonial Heights Church in Kingsport, Tenn., was "unanimously and enthusiastically" approved by the messengers to succeed Smith who retires Dec. 31.

Royston approved
Royston, a native of Johnson City, Tenn., spent 16 years in North Carolina as a student, as a pastor and as a staff member of the association in the Charlotte area. He became pastor of the Kingsport church in 1991, going there from the pastorate of First Church, Huntersville, N.C.

Pledging to make local Baptist churches his top priority, Royston emphasized that he did not want two conventions in North Carolina and that he would work with moderates and conservatives in the state.

$31-million budget
The budget of $31 million was adopted with a challenge goal of $1 million above the basic budget.

The operating budget uses 68 percent of the Cooperative Program receipts in North Carolina and sends the remaining 32 percent to world mission causes beyond the state. The percentage of division between state and world mission causes remains the same as in 1997.

C. Mark Corts

C. Mark Corts, pastor of Winston-Salem's Calvary Church and a former president of the BSC, offered a motion which called for the Budget Committee and the General Board to study the feasibility of creating a "Plan D" in the budget which would enable churches to choose the option of sending 50 percent of their funds to the state convention and the other 50 percent to the SBC.

For several years there have been three options:

• Plan A which divides Cooperative Program funds 68 percent in the state and 32 percent to the SBC.
• Plan B which allocates 22 percent to various mission and educational causes and 10 percent to the SBC.
• Plan C which has the same causes as Plan B except that the 10 percent goes to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

Debate over the Biblical Recorder
Two efforts to reduce or escrow the budget allocation to the Biblical Recorder, the state Baptist paper, were overwhelmingly defeated during the discussion and adoption of the budget for 1998.

Messengers also heard a report from a special study committee commissioned to analyze the declining subscriptions of the Biblical Recorder.

Ed Beddingfield, pastor of First Church, Sylva, chaired the committee which reported after extensive study and several surveys that there were three basic reasons for the decline. The report noted that all major state Baptist papers in the United States had been affected by the same factors:

• A society which is reading less and is more oriented toward electronic media.
• Flat finances in churches which prompted them to remove from the budget the Every Family Plan of subscribing for all resident members.
• The continuing controversy within Southern Baptist ranks for nearly 20 years. Beddingfield reported that the study revealed that 31 of the 39 state Baptist papers in the United States had declined in circulation in the past 10 years. The Biblical Recorder's decline fell in the middle of the spread of all the papers.

A proposal which would have required churches to contribute at least 1 percent of their undesignated receipts to the N.C. Cooperative Program in order to send more than two messengers to the annual state convention failed to receive the necessary two-thirds affirmative vote needed to amend the constitution. After a brief discussion, the vote was 62 percent for and 38 per cent against the change. The proposal failed by 153 votes.

Messengers heard numerous reports on the work and ministries of the BSC. The address by BSC outgoing president Greg Mathis was delivered on the evening of Nov. 10.

The Convention Sermon was preached by Kelvin Smith of Charlotte, on the morning of Nov.11.

Steve Scoggins, pastor of Hendersonville's First Baptist Church, was selected to preach the Convention Sermon in 1998 when the annual session will be held Nov. 9-11 in the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Winston-Salem.

The convention is scheduled to meet in this location each year through 2000.

The new officers (L to R) are Mike Cummings, first vice president; Mavis Bissette, assistant recording secretary; Mac Brunson, president; Ray Benfield, recording secretary; and David Crocker, second vice president.