nineteen hundred and forty-six - Amazon Web Services

434 SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
Brown, South Carolina; Wm. Lunsford, Tennessee; G. W. McDaniel, Virginia;
R. T. Hanks, Texas. LOCAL MEMBERS: M. H. Wolfe, J. Dabney Day,
L. R. Scarborough, R. H. Coleman, C. D. Fine, Cullen F. Thomas, 0. C. Payne,
J. L. Gross, Wallace Basset, E. C. Routh, Hal White, D. Y. Bagby, George W.
Truett, 0. S. Lattimore, S. P. Brooks, J. H. Moore, Rice Maxey, Sam H. Campbell.
The Convention having referred the choosing of an executive head to the
Board itself, the Board at its first meeting on July 10, 1918, in the City of
Dallas, Texas, chose Dr. William Lunsford to fill the office of corresponding
secretary. Other officers chosen were Dr. Samuel P. Brooks, president; Robert
H. Coleman, recording secretary; Judge Rice Maxey, vice president; J. Dabney
Day, treasurer.
As instructed by the convention, the new board set about securing a chart
This task it very readily accomplished under the Texas statutes. This was done
on July 31, 1918, and the same was amended September 17, 1920, whereby the
corporate name of the board was changed from "The Board of Ministerial
Relief and Annuities of the Southern Baptist Convention" to "RELIEF AND
ANNUITY BOARD OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION."
At its first meeting, the Board provided for the setting up of the machin
of two great departments of work, viz., the department of relief and the department
of annuities.
The first of these departments began to function almost immediately in an
organizing way, although the benefits distributed during the first year aggregated
only $1,397. Funds were requested from the churches of the several states
in the aggregate sum of $150,000 (One Hundred and Fifty Thousands Dollars)
for the Convention year 1918-1919. The sum actually received from the
churches during the first year was $4,545.42. Evidently, the apportionment
committees of the southern and state conventions either did not make the
apportionments or they were announced too Late to secure worthy results. In
several of the states, the funds given were channeled to the aged ministers
through the state Ministers Relief Societies. At any rate the new Board could
not function effectively save as definite and satisfactory agreements were made
by and between the Board and the several state conventions. It required a year
or more to perfect these agreements. In some cases the work of ministerial
relief was carried on for a time through the state societies. In the main, however,
the states entered promptly (after the Conventions had met) into full and
hearty cooperation with the general southwide Board. By the end of 1925,
every state save one was in full cooperation with the Relief and Annuity
Board, and that single state came into cooperation whole-heartedly in later
years, and in doing so made the Relief and Annuity Board custodian, under
a trustee agreement, of the funds formerly administered by the state society.
The closest possible cooperation with those who had charge of these state
funds was ever sought by the Relief and Annuity Board.
As instructed by the Convention, the annuity department was to refrain
from issuing membership certificates until a minimum of three hundred applications
had been approved. This course was pursued and the first certificate
was issued to Dr Allen Fort pastor of the First Baptist Church, Nashville,
Tennessee, under date of July 1, 1919.
During the period under review, there were issued to ministers and other
eligible persons 1,445 certificates, and by May, 1925, the number of beneficiaries*
including those who were adjudged totally and permanently disabled,
was 31, and during that year the benefits amounted to $10,145.
The Board in all of its work was yet in the period of beginnings.
^ 5 ef i 0r f l 92 ^ that great and devoted friend of Baptist ministers, Mr. John
D. Rockefeller, Sr., learning through Secretary Lunsford and Dr Georee W
Truett, chairman of the executive committee, of the Board's need for financial
undergoing, responded graciously to their appeal for his beneficent consideration.
Mr. Rockefeller's several gifts to the Board before the end of 1925 amrregate
Four Hundred Thousand Dollars A stock dividend was declared on certain
stocks which had been given by Mr. Rockefeller to the Board This stork was
valued by the Board at One Hundred Thousand Dollars.
Later we shall see the munificent hand of Mr. Rockefeller again in the life
and progress of the Relief and Annuity Board.