As members of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM) heard budget recommendations for the upcoming year, they also got a glimpse of how Alabama Baptists are impacting the world through the Cooperative Program (CP).
Meeting Aug. 14 in Montgomery, the SBOM unanimously approved a recommendation for a 2010 CP base budget of $46 million and challenge budget of $46.5 million.
The SBOM’s budget recommendation will be voted on by messengers to the annual meeting of the Alabama Baptist State Convention Nov. 17–18 at Whitesburg Baptist Church, Huntsville. The 2010 proposal would keep the base budget amount the same as the 2009 CP base budget.
“If we reach this 2010 budget, $21.5 million in Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon dollars will be going from Alabama to the International Mission Board,” said SBOM Executive Director Rick Lance.
“There’s no other state that can say that. … There will be over $37 million going to the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention).”
Alabama currently ranks No. 1 in CP giving (dollars and percentage) among state conventions, he added.
“Alabama Baptists have been faithful in giving through the Cooperative Program in the worst economic times of my whole life,” he said. “And year to date, we’re No. 1 in Cooperative Program giving. … We’re No. 1 in terms of Annie Armstrong giving and very close to the top in Lottie Moon.”
“I can tell you we’re doing everything we can to be frugal with your Cooperative Program dollars in order to send more to the uttermost,” Lance said. “And we also try to be as faithful as we can be to the Great Commission as we understand it.
“This is no time for us to give up on the Cooperative Program,” he noted, describing the CP as a “missional mutual fund” — one that has increased in value while other funds have dipped.
“[The CP is] circulating through the circulatory system of Baptist life and Kingdom enterprise,” he said.
“In Alabama, when we invest through the Cooperative Program, we are touching the ends of the earth,” Lance said, noting the world is being impacted for Christ all day, every day.
“If you want to be in the world all the time at the same time, the Cooperative Program is your missional mutual fund for being able to do that,” he said. “It is a God-given genius that has been given to Southern Baptists since 1925.
“The Cooperative Program is the best tool we have for supporting Great Commission ministries locally and globally. … It’s the glue that can hold us together as a people, not just doctrinally but relationally.”
Lance described the CP as “shared not societal,” “responsive and not static” and “autonomous not coerced.”
“We believe in the autonomy of the local church,” he said. “You decide and then we provide. We allocate.
“It is time for us to grow up and embrace it and run with the horses (referencing Jeremiah 12:5).” (ABSC, TAB)
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