Report of Bylaws Committee

1. The Bylaws Committee of the South Carolina Baptist Convention proposes the following amendments to Bylaws Part 1. The proposed changes (strikethroughs and bold) are presented as a second reading and vote.

 

ARTICLE III – Church Membership of Officers, Boards, Appointees, Committees

All officers of the Convention, all appointees, and all persons elected to membership on the Executive Board, to the boards of trustees of the institutions, and to committees shall be members of cooperating Baptist churches in the state Baptist churches in friendly cooperation with this Convention and sympathetic with its purposes and work and have during the fiscal year preceding been bona fide contributors to the Convention’s work.

 

ARTICLE V, B. Special Meetings

In cases of important concern(s), special meetings shall be called by the President of the Convention at the request of the Executive Board, the Executive Board shall instruct the Convention President to call a special meeting of the Convention provided two (2) weeks written notice is given through the religious and secular news media.

 

ARTICLE VI, B., 1.

1. The membership of the Executive Board shall include one member from the area of each association where the membership of the churches, according to the latest South Carolina Baptist Convention Annual, numbers up to 15,000, and one member for each additional 10,000 members or fraction thereof. Membership of the Executive Board shall also include, ex officio, Convention officers,; and the state president of Woman’s Missionary Union, and the state president of Baptist Student Union Collegiate Ministry (who must be a member of a Baptist church in cooperation with South Carolina Baptist Convention)., both of whom are subject to election to the Executive Board by the Convention. No member of the Executive Board, except ex officio members, shall serve simultaneously on a board of trustees of an institution.

 

ARTICLE VII, B. (Institutions)

B. Identification of Sponsored Institutions

The following are the institutions sponsored pursuant to the Convention’s Bylaws.

Anderson College University, The Baptist Courier, Baptist Foundation of South Carolina, Charleston Southern University, Connie Maxwell Children’s Home, North Greenville College University, South Carolina Baptist Ministries for the Aging Inc.

 

ARTICLE VII, D.

3. Any trustee of an institution who becomes a member of a church in another state shall thereby terminate membership on that board.

 

Rename ARTICLE IX to Supreme Authority and would state the following:

The Holy Bible shall be the supreme and final authority for all of the activities of the Convention and for all decisions that are made by or on behalf of the Convention.

 

ARTICLE IX X — Parliamentary Authority

 

ARTICLE X XI — Amendments

 

2. At the 2005 annual convention meeting, the following motion was presented by Jim Stovall and automatically referred to the Bylaws Committee.

“I move that the Bylaws Committee consider and recommend at the 2006 annual convention that the candidates for the Nominations Committee be at least 40% laypersons, and that this percentage continue in future years.”

 

The Bylaws Committee has met and discussed this amendment at length. Following Mr. Stovall’s suggestion, we are proposing the following amendment to SCBC Bylaws, Part 2, Article III, C. Nominations (presented for discussion and vote):

 

1. This committee shall be composed of one (1) member from the area of each association. The committee shall be divided into two groupings: one group comprised of church employees, and one group comprised of others. No more than sixty (60) percent of the committee shall be drawn from either grouping. A member shall serve a term of three (3) years. The terms of approximately one-third (1/3) of the members shall expire annually. A member who moves church membership from the area of one association to the area of another association within the state shall remain on the committee until the next annual session of the Convention. A member who moves church membership from the state shall, thereby, terminate membership on the committee. Vacancies occurring on this committee shall be filled by action of the Convention at its next annual session. No member of this committee may serve or be nominated as a member of the Executive Board or a board of trustees of any institution of the Convention while serving on the Committee on Nominations.