David Hankins, executive director of the Louisiana Baptist Convention, listed four “affirmations” shared by state Baptist convention executives concerning the work of the task force created by a vote of messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting in Louisville, Ky., in June. Addressing the Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) Task Force on Oct. 27 in Dallas, Hankins listed affirmations that center around cooperation between the SBC and state conventions:
• “Affirmation One: The structure that has served Southern Baptists in the past is well-suited for the future.”
• “Affirmation Two: State conventions are necessary, crucial partners for a Great Commission resurgence among Southern Baptists.”
• “Affirmation Three: The North American Mission Board serves a vital role in a coordinated, comprehensive evangelism and church-planting movement for Southern Baptists.”
• “Affirmation Four: The Cooperative Program (CP) should be the vehicle of choice for funding Southern Baptist initiatives related to a Great Commission resurgence.”
Hankins suggested a three-part strategy to reverse a decline in CP giving by churches, falling from more than 10 percent of their undesignated receipts about 25 years ago to about 6 percent currently.
A strategy to strengthen the CP would entail:
• stewardship, addressing the “allocation problem … between the church members’ pocket book and the offering plate” in which Southern Baptists only give an average of 2 percent of their income for missions, including CP.
• leadership, with Hankins noting, “Tepid endorsements of the CP are not the solution; they are the problem. We need what we had in 1925 (when the CP was founded): the best and brightest among us leading the way in word and deed for the Cooperative Program.”
• partnership — “a relationship between the SBC and the state conventions that provides promotion, collection, allocation, accountability, and unity.”
Cooperation “can be lost” if, for example, the GCR Task Force were to be “hijacked by those who merely want to vent frustrations, or engage in blame-storming, or pursue personal agendas, or sow dissension among brethren, or justify their unwillingness to cooperate.”
“There is a better way,” Hankins said. “We would recommend elevating partnership and moderating noncooperation. Let’s invite all who are willing to come to the table. Let’s honor and bless the calling and contribution of all who make up the vast network of Southern Baptists. Let’s respect one another and believe the best about each other, even those we don’t know or whose ministries don’t involve us directly. … A resurgence in cooperation could be the key to a resurgence for the Great Commission.” (BP)
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