During the same week Alabama Baptists lowered their 2012 Cooperative Program (CP) budget goal to 2006–2007 levels, the International Mission Board (IMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) adopted a record budget of $324.3 million.
Alabama Baptists’ budget attempts to balance spending plans with receipts based on actual experience of the past three years. Some observers use investment terminology to call the budget a “bearish” plan that reflects decline. The IMB budget reflects hopes and prayers and calls for more than a 10 percent increase in giving for the coming year. Using the same analogy, the IMB is “bullish” about its financial future because it is going up.
The IMB’s financial experience is similar to Alabama Baptists’ over the last three years. Drops in income caused some international service opportunities to be eliminated, a reduction in the number of international representatives appointed and a corresponding drop in expenditures. In 2008, the IMB spent about $319 million in its worldwide program. In 2009, the figure slid to $306.8 million. By 2010, expenditures dropped to $294.2 million, according to IMB sources.
Much of the reason for the IMB’s bullish attitude about its financial future is based on expectations for the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions (LMCO) now being promoted in cooperating churches across the nation. This year’s national goal is $175 million. If that goal is reached, then the IMB will have every reason to be bullish because the annual offering provides about 57 percent of all IMB funds.
The CP, Southern Baptists’ preferred method of supporting all missions and ministry causes, provides about 30 percent of the IMB’s annual budget. Offerings for world hunger and disaster relief make up about 2 percent. The remaining 11 percent comes from investments, on-field income and other miscellaneous sources.
But it is the LMCO on which the IMB stakes most of its hopes and prayers. Last year, that offering total fell a little more than $3 million — from $148.9 million in 2009 to $145.6 million in 2010. IMB officials are praying the 2011 offering will follow the pattern of the 2009 offering, which jumped almost $8 million despite the sagging economy — up from $141 million in 2008.
Still it will take a 20 percent increase in giving to the 2011 LMCO for the IMB to reach its goal. That borders on the miraculous.
Alabama Baptist giving to the LMCO has followed a different path. In 2008, Alabama Baptists gave $11,345,886 to the LMCO. That was down from the nearly $12 million given in 2007. In 2009, giving increased slightly to $11,352,272. Then in 2010, Alabama Baptist giving decreased to $10,964,780.
IMB officials are also bullish on CP giving. When the 2010–11 SBC budget year closed Sept. 30, CP giving had recorded a slight upturn of 0.06 percent, or $115,492.29. But any increase is to be celebrated since CP giving had declined each year since 2007.
Furthermore the IMB will receive 51 percent of the 2011–12 SBC receipts through the CP rather than the 50 percent of past years. One percent may not sound like much, but it works out to be close to $2 million when CP receipts are nearly $192 million as in the past year.
Again the Alabama Baptist giving pattern is a little different. Since 2007, when Alabama Baptist CP giving was almost $45 million, CP giving has declined annually. In 2008, it was down marginally to almost $44.8 million. Giving in 2009 fell to $43,640,579. In 2010, giving fell by about another $1.9 million, down to $41,727,510.
That is a 7 percent decline in three years.
State leaders reduced the Alabama Baptist CP goal to $43 million for 2011, but giving does not indicate that goal will be reached. At the end of October, contributions were below the base budget by almost $2.4 million and below last year’s receipts by $714,704.
Currently CP giving is on track to reach the giving level of 2003 and 2004 — between $40 million and $41 million. Again the SBC is up marginally at present while Alabama continues on a downward trend.
Yet Alabama remains the top CP giving state convention. Figures supplied by the SBC Executive Committee show that slightly more than one out of every 10 dollars given to SBC missions and ministries for the past year came from Alabama Baptists. For October 2011, that trend continued. Total CP receipts received by the SBC were $14.1 million. Alabama Baptists gave $1,555,592.67 of that amount, or slightly more than 10 percent of the total. The Alabama Baptist State Convention continues to lead the SBC in CP giving, and Alabama’s LMCO total, as well as the totals for other SBC offerings, is near the top.
It is this kind of faithfulness in difficult times that allows the IMB to be bullish about the LMCO and total IMB budget even in bearish times.
We hope the IMB is correct in its bullish outlook. Certainly there is much to be done around the world to help make the love of God in Jesus Christ known to all people everywhere. The SBC is not the only Baptist group working in missions and evangelism, to be sure. But the SBC is the largest, and “to whom much is given, much is required.” The SBC’s membership of 16 million means it has a major responsibility in the United States and around the world.
Altogether there are about 70 million Baptists outside the United States and more than 220 Baptist conventions, unions and associations. SBC representatives work with slightly more than 3 million of these. That means SBC representatives have opportunity to work with and resource a large number of national Baptist believers in most every nation as, together, Southern Baptists labor to make the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ known to every tribe and people of every tongue.
Alabama Baptists have opportunity to be a part of that worldwide effort by supporting international missions with our money, prayers and participation in this season of the year.
Whether one’s financial condition is bullish or bearish, all Baptists are united in the bullish enterprise of sharing the gospel.
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