The Three Forks Baptist Association held their Semi-Annual meeting on October 20, 2020 at First Baptist Church of Blowing Rock.  There were 33 messengers in attendance in person, and 19 further messengers in attendance via a Facebook Livestream of the meeting, representing 19 churches.

 

Rusty Guenther, pastor of First Baptist Church of Blowing Rock, opened the meeting with a welcome and a prayer.

 

Seth Norris, Associational Moderator, explained to those watching via Livestream what the procedures would be for voting for the nominating report, the proposed 2021 budget, and for the approval of Wesley Smith as the new Director of Missions.

 

Darrell Hobbs, Finance Team Chair, gave the Treasurer’s report in the absence of Treasurer Pat Dalton, and also gave the Finance report.  There were no questions regarding these two reports. Darrell then presented the proposed 2021 budget for approval.  There was a question regarding how church giving had been looking lately.  Darrell answered that giving has been consistently down this year, but the Association is still in good shape financially, due to not having paid a DOM this year.

 

Another question was, have we spent all the Strategic Envisioning Funds.  Seth answered that the Strategic Envisioning Process is complete, and we have spent all the funds that were allocated for that process.

 

There were no further questions regarding the 2021 budget.  The budget was voted on and passed.

 

Ben Bolick, Administrative team chair, gave the Administrative Team report and Nominating Report.  Seth Norris and Travis Suits were at the end of their terms as moderator and vice-moderator.  It was proposed that they be replace by David Cooper and Charlie Martin respectively.  Seth and Travis will become cluster representatives on the Executive Council, Seth for the Boone cluster and Travis for the Parkway cluster. There is still a vacancy remaining on the Northern cluster that the Administrative Team was unable to fill.  There is also an unfilled vacancy on the finance team and on the church strengthening team.  Ben made an appeal for volunteers to fill those vacancies.

 

Time was given for messengers to ask any questions regarding the nominating report.  No questions were posed, and the Nominations Report was voted on and passed.

 

Bud Russell gave the report for the DOM Search Team.  He read a statement from David Cooper, chair of the Search Team, who was unable to attend the meeting, giving a brief introduction of Wesley and why the search team had chosen him as the candidate. 

 

Wesley Smith spoke briefly on being still and waiting patiently on the Lord, on the uniqueness of each church, and on his hope to help the churches of the Association seek out and join in their communities, and in the Association at large, to impact lostness and make disciples. 

 

At this time, the messengers both online and in person cast their vote regarding Wesley as our new Director of Missions.  Seth led the Association in a time of prayer, to allow those who were voting online time to get their votes in.  The vote was unanimously in favor of Wesley Smith as the new Director of Missions for the Association.

 

Travis Suits closed the meeting in prayer.