The Georgia Baptist Convention is negotiating with a developer to possibly sell five of their Baptist Collegiate Ministry Centers on five flagship campuses that have excellent and central campus locations. This follows a period of the last three or four years where several Georgia Baptist Convention employees (including several BCM Campus Ministers) were asked to take early retirement due to convention funding issues.
If the conversations develop and the Centers are sold, the developer would demolish the BCM Centers and build a multi-use commercial building. The Baptist Collegiate Ministry would then lease some space in the new building. This would be somewhat similar to what has been done at the University of Texas by the Texas Baptist Convention. One key difference is that the Texas BSM purchased their space and the Georgia proposal calls for a lease.
It is my understanding that the building would be sold and demolished but the Georgia Baptist Convention would retain ownership of the land and lease it to the developer on which the new building would be built.
Those who have heard of the conversations have raised the following questions:
Would all or any of the money received from the purchase go back to the collegiate ministry or simply go into the Georgia Baptist Convention general funds?
Will the amount of space they lease be equivalent to the space they have in their current Centers to allow the same sort of ministry? Or, is this just office space and a conference room?
How long will the BCM lease be and is it possible that the developer will continue to raise the price of the space they are leasing to the point they will not be able to afford to continue in that location?
Is this a good new option to consider as the cost of maintaining Campus Centers increases or is this just about money?
Will each BCM be able to negotiate specifications for their space prior to it being built, such as having a kitchen, etc, or will they simply get whatever type space the developer does generally?
What provisions are made for the BCM ministries on those campuses while they are without their centers and the commercial building is being built? Is each ministry on their own for the interim?
I do not know the answer to these questions. But hopefully, these are being addressed in the negotiations.
There is no doubt we must always be looking to the future and what approaches are best in reaching the college campus today. Obviously, money is always a factor in what we do and cannot do.
Is this an approach that is possible everywhere there is a Baptist Student Center? The simple answer is no. First, it all depends on location. In many cases, the land which the Centers are on is owned by the University and is provided for a ministry center, not a commercial building. In most of these cases, the University would be the only one that would have the option of buying the building. And, for a developer to be interested, it has to be a prime location.
It would be my prayer that in this situation and any other similar ones that the collegiate ministry experts would be part of these conversations and that Baptists as a whole would have input into these kinds of decisions. This is not a decision that can be re-visited when finances are better. As we lament the loss of the young adult generation to faith and the church, we must be wise in our decisions.
Are we being strategic in our college ministry decisions or just making dollars and cents decisions and are we giving Baptists as a whole, the opportunity to speak into these decisions? These days are days of hard and difficult decisions and choices.
Arliss Dickerson's book, Tips for College Freshmen: 124 Tips for Fun, Faith & Good Grades, is available at amazon.com/dp/B09QFB9DJ9.
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