COSBE Publishing Report- David Ball, MD Editor

COSBE Publishing Report- David Ball, MD Editor

1. 
   With legal assistance, we wrote a charter and obtained a 501(c) (3) not for profit status from the IRS. IRS response was SLOW and hampered further progress.
   
2. 
   We then (with legal assistance) researched the availability of the title, "The Voice of the Evangelist" and confirmed its availability for our use.
   
3. 
   Next, we set about to establish a Board of Directors. This proved to be more time consuming than I had expected—but we ended up with an outstanding BOD. Larry Pratt-President is CEO First Security Bank-Batesville, MS. Mickey Aldridge -Secretary-Treasurer is a CPA. Danny Drake is a Corporate Lawyer in Jackson, MS. Johnny Hunt of Woodstock, GA Fred Luter, Jr. of New Orleans, Bob Pitman of Memphis are all pastors. Dr. Chuck Kelly is President of NOBTS, While Dr. Roy Fish of SWBTS and Dr. Alvin Reid of SEBTS are Professors of Evangelism.
   

1. 
   My original intent of publishing a 16 page magazine was simply not in keeping with the desire of COSBE members to publish a "first rate" magazine that could speak to the issues facing evangelists and pastors. We, therefore, chose to enlarge our publication to meet our publishing goals.
   
2. 
   We then began a study to determine ad cost. We compared advertising costs in several Christian magazines and came to some "ball-park" figures. Since the ultimate cost would be determined by the number of copies we mailed, the size of the magazine and the mailing costs—we were unable to come to a definite fixed cost early on.
   

1. 
   We were given a $10,000 endowment to help with the start-up of the new company and to get the first issue published. This allowed us to proceed even though we did not have definite cost projections.
   

4. 
   We set the ad costs and mailed out notices to COSBE members and had a better than expected response.
   

2. 
   I thoroughly researched the companies available to print our magazine. The ultimate deciding factor was cost. However, this "cost" factor was much more involved that just printing. We have no staff to help with design and layout so we were limited to printers who could include this service in their bottom line price to us. (Hopefully, we will be able to do some of this ourselves in the future and, therefore, get a more competitive printing price.)
   

1. 
   I obtained help from a local graphic artist (free) and with permission from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association; she designed a cover that met the editors' approval.
   
2. 
   Content outline was organized and approved by the editors and I began to solicit authors I thought would lend credibility to our publication—realizing the first issue was critical. Some of these authors were difficult to contact and this materially delayed our progress. I think the effort paid off and we have an outstanding list of contributing authors.
   

5. 
   The magazine will be a glossy publication with the cover weight slightly more than the inside pages.
   
6. 
   All ads are full color.
   
7. 
   We will mail out about 7800 copies (7500 to churches; -200 to COSBE members; 100 to SBC officials and state officials, etc.)
   
8. 
   We will purchase 10, 000 copies (we get a cost break at this point). That will leave us 2000+ copies to hand out at the convention this year. ¹¹⁵
   

The following By-Law change is our COSBE’s latest attempt to increase the financial base attempt to increase the financial base.

In the COSBE Business Meeting in Indianapolis 2008, we approved the following categories of membership for COSBE. This is for your information so you can determine which category is yours and you will be able to explain this to prospective members. It was also decided that denominational employees are deeply appreciated and respected by COSBE but membership in the organization is inappropriate.
A. Membership shall be available to all Southern Baptist Evangelists who:

1. Notify, in writing, the Secretary-Treasurer’s or designated officer of their desire to join this organization.

a) Vocational Evangelist (VE): Available on a full-time basis for focused ministry to various churches and other areas of evangelism activity missionary and otherwise. The evangelist is responsible to determine to what extent they can do other areas of ministry and still maintain their focus, agenda, and title of “Full Time Vocational Evangelist”

b) Bi-vocational Evangelist (BV): A working interest and involvement in the “work of an Evangelist” while also doing other task both religious and secular and being paid for same and having responsibilities that would prohibit full-time effort toward the work of evangelism. The Bi-vocational member shall have no voting rights. Election as a COSBE officer is forfeited but a Presidential appointment in any other capacity is allowed. Membership fees shall be $25.00 less than the Vocational Evangelist rate.

c) Evangelist Emeritus (EE): A present or former member of COSBE that has served Southern Baptist faithfully for many years and wishes to have fellowship with COSBE and privileges when they reach the point of withdrawing from the role of an active vocational evangelists. Each application would be evaluated by the officers individually, but, several factors would be considered; (a) years of service as an evangelist, (b) age, (c) years of COSBE membership, and (d) references. The Evangelist Emeritus member shall have full voting rights but election as a COSBE officer is forfeited. A Presidential appointment in any other capacity is allowed. Annual membership fees are waived for anyone given the status of Evangelist Emeritus.

d) Honorary Member (HM): Because of their commitment and support of the work of the Evangelist and the COSBE organization, the COSBE officers shall confer on behalf of the membership the status of honorary member. No membership fees or voting privileges are associated with this membership.

3. Pay the membership dues and maintain future annual dues.

Namb’s new leadership is going to have to overcome a lot to regain the trust of the State Convention workers in 2008. Namb has at the same time vastly increased its work with vocational evangelists as a group and individually. Especially in the new Baptism Assistance Project.

Baptism Assistance Project