BCNE Board of Directors meeting celebrates a fruitful summer and receives training in sexual abuse response
BCNE Board Meeting, October 13th, 2022
With eleven board members present in person and six online, the BCNE Board of Directors meeting on October 13, 2022, focused on celebrations of God's work in New England and training in sexual abuse response.
Dr. Terry Dorsett opened with the state of the convention, reporting highlights from a fruitful summer for the network and New England churches. In-person training resumed for the BCNE, and Dr. Dorsett highlighted a few events saying, "There were 120 people present at the Boston Chinese Church for a children's ministry training, 30 at a leadership training event in CT, and over 50 women were present for a women's retreat in VT." He added: "Online trainings have continued to stay strong and have reached over 660 people!"
Daniel Molind, pastor of Enough Ministries
In addition to successful trainings, two new ministries have taken off in the BCNE. First, Restorative Ministries have launched, led by Daniel Molind, pastor of Enough Ministries in Barre, VT.
In discussing the background of the ministry, Dr. Dorsett said, "Our BCNE Disaster Relief [DR] ministry has been adrift for several years. This is part of a national trend in our denomination as many volunteers have aged out, and various cultural shifts have created many roadblocks for this type of ministry. But DR has left us with a wealth of experience in meeting community needs. It seems best to use those skills to meet needs right in our own communities and not just in other places when there is a natural disaster."
Restorative Ministries will have five focus areas:
Responding to crisis (including disaster relief)
Strengthening communities
Protecting children and families
Fighting human trafficking
Caring for the sojourner
"Partnership Ministries have soared," said Dr. Dorsett, sharing about the second ministry that has taken off in the BCNE. "Sharon Haller is doing an amazing job connecting our churches to partners from Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia. Our goal is to have 400 partners, to make partnerships for every church in New England."
Partnership Ministries have grown in the BCNE
"The focus is pastor to pastor, church to church, and projects and BCNE level events." The partnerships have already proven helpful as several churches sent teams this past summer to work on renovating and updating the Rice Lodge, the BCNE's retreat property.
Also, one of the BCNE's partners, Phil Waldrep Ministries, hosted two fully-funded retreats for pastors and their wives, which "were an outstanding success," said Dr. Dorsett, with over 200 in attendance at both retreats.
Dr. Dorsett's final comments in the report addressed the SBC sexual abuse fallout: "The sexual abuse issue at the national level continues to have a lot of negative consequences at the local level…We must pray for the SBC leaders to handle this well. We must pray for the ongoing DOJ investigation."
Stephen Woodard leading an Abuse Response Training at the BCNE Board Meeting in October
Along with prayer, a large portion of the Board of Directors meeting included a special "Abuse Response Training" led by current president Steven Woodard. All board members and BCNE Staff who were present participated in the training, which consisted of viewing three training videos and discussion between each portion. The videos were from Ministry Grid, a training platform provided by Lifeway, and focused on the following topics: "If I Learn of Abuse, When Am I Mandated to Report and What Should I Do Even When I'm Not Mandated to Report?" and "Abuse Response Policies and Plan."
Woodard told the group, "It doesn't matter what training you choose, as long as you choose something and start with this in your own churches." The Sexual Abuse Task Force, which was put in place by Woodard at the June 2022 Board of Directors Meeting, presented preliminary documents for Woodard to review with recommendations for changes to the BCNE's policies and practices and safety recommendations for churches in the network. Woodard told the Board, "the Task Force will present their recommendations to be voted on at the March 2023 Board of Directors meeting."
The final portion of the meeting included Committee meeting reports. Highlights were the Credentials committee voting in seven new churches to the network and the Next Generation Committee sharing about baptisms and conversions across New England college campuses.
Renee Ghobrial serves as the communications director of the Baptist Churches of New England.
