Amendment Change Not a New Concept
A Historical Report on Messenger Representation in the BGCT
By: Royce Measures,
Pastor, Golden Acres Church, Pasadena

For many years there was a strong desire among Texas Baptists to unite the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Baptist Missionary Association. What began as a grass roots movement among pastors and church climaxed in 1933 as the BGCT met in Fort Worth. At that gathering a resolution was presented which read:

Whereas there has existed for more than thirty years a division among Baptist people which has resulted in maintaining two statewide Baptist bodies, and believing that there should be an earnest, prayerful, and scriptural effort made to heal this division, we respectfully submit the following suggestions:

That these bodies in their statewide meetings each name a committee of twenty-five members to meet at a time and place to be agreed upon by the committees for the purpose of fellowship and prayer, and to consider the wisdom of calling a statewide mass meeting to consider the possibility of the unification of these two statewide Baptist bodies;

That the first named member of each committees shall be considered as the chairman of that committee, and that the chairman of the two committees shall arrange for the time and place of the joint meeting of the two committees (1933 Texas Baptist Annual, pp. 20,21).

The resolution was presented by Walter H. Mc Kenzie and A.O. Hinkle, representing the two bodies. The resolution was approved and the BGCT elected a Committed of Twenty-five on Unification. (1934 Annual, p. 24).

In 1934 when the BGCT met in San Antonio the Committee's report to the BGCT was approved without discussion by a standing vote which was almost unanimous. This vote amended the constitution to remove any money-based representation. The constitution, as printed in the minutes of that year, revealed the change.

Previously, each church was entitled to two messengers and additional messenger for every $25 given to the BGCT, with no church having more that eight messengers. In 1933, it was changed to two messengers for each church with additional messenger for each $100 given, with a maximum of five messengers. The new constitution stated that each church can have two messengers and one for every 100 members, with a maximum of ten messengers (1934 Annual, p. 19).

The 1935 Annual contains a report on the Unification Movement, stating that the Baptist Missionary Association, in its annual session, refused to approve the constitution and officially ended all negotiations with the BGCT (p. 86). Even though unification did not occur (many churches did align themselves with the BGCT), the financial clause was removed and remains so to this day.

The action of the 1997 BGCT in Austin to impose a financial base on representation is not a new concept: it is but a return to the original plan of representation.

October 98