By Roger S. Oldham
SBC LIFE
Southern Baptists are putting their Cooperative Program (CP) treasure where their missional heart is, according to the most recent CP survey conducted by LifeWay Research.
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was created to elicit, combine and direct the energies of Baptists “for the propagation of the gospel,” as noted in the SBC’s 1845 charter. The convention’s formal purpose, meanwhile, is the “promotion of Christian missions at home and abroad,” according to its constitution.
And the convention has embraced a missional vision to “present the gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the world and to make disciples of all the nations,” stemming from messengers’ approval of the final report of the Great Commission Task Force of the SBC in 2010.
To help accomplish these goals, the convention adopted a program of cooperative giving we today call the CP.
The CP is the means by which Southern Baptists work together to provide financial support for the missions and ministries in their respective states, across the nation and around the world.
For 87 years, the CP has provided Southern Baptists a cooperative means to fulfill a missional vision of building what Frank Page, president of the SBC Executive Committee, calls “A Strong Home Base with an Aggressive Global Vision!”
In cooperation with CP-funded state convention ministries and the SBC ministries of the North American Mission Board, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and the six SBC seminaries, local churches seek to establish a strong home base.
In partnership with the CP-funded SBC International Mission Board and state convention overseas partnerships, local churches champion an aggressive global vision.
Formation of the SBC provided new opportunities to engage in an aggressive vision of missions and evangelism. It also created new challenges. These new SBC ministries drew their support from the same churches that provided funds for state ministries. Soon representatives from all of these ministries flooded the churches with financial appeals.
The outcome of this “direct-appeal” approach was less than ideal. More visible ministries received larger offerings while other important ministries suffered in want. Support for all ministries was unpredictable from one year to the next.
Church and ministry leaders were frustrated with the time, effort and money it took to generate a never-sufficient financial base.
In 1923, the convention commissioned the “Committee on Future Program” to come up with a solution.
The committee wanted a plan that was biblical — one that would incorporate both storehouse tithing and special offerings; rational — one that would address all essentials of ministry in proper proportion; and dependable — one that would provide consistent, equitable support for the ministries Baptists deemed essential in their respective states and in the SBC.
Two years later, when Southern Baptists gathered in Memphis, Tenn., for their annual meeting, the committee introduced a plan they believed would be coordinated and fruitful. Their proposal utilized the biblical ideals of obedient giving, on a regular basis, in proportion to one’s blessing from God (1 Cor. 16:2). They called it the “Co-Operative Program of Southern Baptists.”
The design of the CP is remarkably simple:
- Churches pray over and approve their annual budgets based on anticipated tithes and offerings from their members.
- Cooperating churches prayerfully commit to give a percentage of their undesignated receipts through the CP.
- That percentage is sent to the state convention on a monthly basis and becomes the basis of the state convention’s ministry budget.
- Each cooperating state convention prayerfully commits to send a portion of its CP contributions to the SBC for distribution to the convention’s missions and ministries.
- The SBC determines an appropriate allocation for each of its approved ministries, following a model of prayerful reflection and messenger approval.
The original plan called for states to deduct the costs of promoting the CP, with a goal of forwarding 50 percent of the remainder to the SBC for its missions and ministries.
During that first year, cooperating churches contributed an average of nearly 11 percent of their undesignated contributions to this new, integrated plan for supporting convention missions and ministries. This level of response continued for more than 60 years.
During this same 60-year period, the SBC portion of the CP forwarded from the states fluctuated between a low of 26 percent during the Great Depression to a high of 39 percent in 1989. Following a slow decline through the 1990s, the percentage forwarded by the states began rising steadily in 2002 and now stands again at nearly 39 percent.
As the new LifeWay Research survey shows, Southern Baptist pastors who are 55 and older are more likely to support the CP, believing the CP supports missions and ministries their churches value. They also are more likely to think convention entities use their CP contributions effectively and to place a higher value on the ministries the CP supports.
Younger pastors (age 18–44) are less likely to believe the convention’s entities use their CP contributions effectively and are less willing to agree that the CP supports SBC ministries and missions their churches value.
Over the past two decades, Southern Baptists’ greatest growth has been among ethnic congregations. Many of these newer churches are unacquainted with the history, value and successes of the CP. As they become more fully informed about the missional impetus behind the CP, their support for the CP is increasing.
Over the past two and a half decades, the average percentage forwarded from the churches through the CP has declined by almost one half — from 10.52 percent in 1987 to 5.41 percent in 2011.
Messengers from cooperating churches must join SBC entity leaders by thinking about the question, “Does there come a point at which we can no longer count on the CP as a dependable source of funding for our collective Kingdom ministries?”
Convention leadership at every level must continually take strides to build the trust that is the glue that holds the convention’s missions and ministry enterprises together. The LifeWay Research survey is encouraging in that it shows the majority believe that God still desires to use CP-funded missions and ministries. The survey is instructive in that it reminds us that trust must be earned from one generation to the next to maintain an Aggressive Global Vision for presenting the gospel.
(BP)
Share with others: