The Deadline Approacheth

The 2012 Directory of the Seventh Day Baptist Yearbook is in the works.  At the first of the year a sheet with the 2011 statitics was sent out to every church of the SDB General Conference.  We asked that you make the necessary changes to that form and send it back to the SDB Center by the end of February.  The reason for this is that it gives you ample time to 1.) collect the current information and verify that what we sent you was correct in the first place, and 2.) after your January annual business meeting where officers can change, you can get those up-to-date changes made.  Then when you send in your info, it is current!

The 2012 Directory will be available in April.  But we need your help.  Every year we have to follow up on those churches we do not receive their information by the end of February.  We spend a good portion of March emailing, calling and writing to anyone in the church we have contact information, to see if they can help us get this info.  There is a reason we need the info from your church.

One of the items in our incorporation in the state of Wisconsin is the Directory.  The state recognizes that those churches listed in the Directory as a legal document.  It verifies that you are truly a church, you are really a non-profit, and you do fall under the guidelines of a non-profit 501(c)3, the legal term for a non-profit organization doing the work of a church or charity.

So by being listed in the Directory, your church is legal even to the US government!  Even if you don't have your own 501(c)3, you fall under the umbrella of the SDB General Conference!

The secondary reason is that the number of delegates you can send to General Conference sessions is based on the number you report to the Directory.  If your information is not current, you get three votes at Conference no matter how many people come and what your membership number actually is.  If you don't report, you don't get what you should be entitled to.

To those we have already received info from, and you know who you are, KUDOS to you.  We are waiting to hear from the rest of you by February 28th...we will even throw in the leap year...make it the 29th!