Financial Services
About Us
The Financial Services department provides a supporting role in the mission of the Mississippi Baptist Convention Board. We believe
that the financial aspects of the Lord’s work should be conducted with integrity and strive to accomplish our work in accordance with
that belief.
Our department is responsible for the receipt and distribution of all convention funds. Mississippi Baptists are generous in their
financial support of ministries. Last year we processed over $61 million that was given for missions. Those mission gifts were received
with remittance forms that are checked and balanced twice by two persons to ensure that the designations made by each church are
correctly recorded. An acknowledgement is sent to each church indicating how every dollar they gave was allocated and the amounts given
by each church are published semi-annually in The Baptist Record. This is done to provide church members
an additional way to verify the processing of their church’s gifts. Any member of a church who has questions on reported amounts or wants
to know their church’s giving history should contact us.
Cooperative Program gifts are allocated and distributed according to the budget approved by messengers to the annual convention.
Designated gifts are distributed according to the instructions of the donor. More than 16,000 checks were written in 2006 to allocate
mission funds, pay vendors, and provide the services necessary to carry on the ministries of the convention. The financial records of the
convention are audited annually with the audit published in the convention annual.
Our personnel responsibilities involve both active and retired employees. There are approximately 130 full-time employees, 120
part-time employees (including summer staff at our camps), and 90 retirees. We maintain employee records in compliance with government
regulations, distribute payroll, insure timely payment of payroll taxes and filing of payroll tax forms, and coordinate employee and
retiree benefits.
One ministry of the Cooperative Program is that it allows us to coordinate with GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist
Convention to provide benefits, investments, and resources for ministers and local churches. When a church contributes to the Lord
through the Cooperative Program, every church employee who works at least 20 hours each week (or 1,000 per year) may enroll in the Church
Retirement Plan with GuideStone. Each association employee is grandfathered into the plan via the participation of churches in their
association. Benefits include survivor protection, disability protection, and possible matching state contributions to the individual’s
retirement account at GuideStone. During the previous year 55% of our churches participated in this plan. Please contact our GuideStone
representative, Robin D. Nichols, with any questions you have regarding participating in this plan.
A resource available to each church is the compensation study. This study is a survey among Southern Baptist churches throughout the
convention. Every other year, churches are surveyed in January and a report is made available in June. This is a cooperative effort among
the GuideStone representatives and state conventions. All 42 state conventions participate in the survey.
There are many retired ministers in our state. Unfortunately, not all of them are financially independent. A financial supplement is
available to retired ministers and/or their widows. We have been able to provide over $18,000 last year to assist these faithful servants.
Finally, this department has responsibility for some general business operations. These include the maintenance of property and
casualty insurance coverage, coordination of budget planning, financial reporting, and our telecommunications systems.
In order to get the most accurate data, choose the “Customized Report” option.
Other Financial Services pages