La. convention’s Hankins, board make new CP stance

WOODWORTH, La. — In a show of solidarity with Louisiana Baptist Convention (LBC) Executive Director David E. Hankins, the LBC executive board overwhelmingly adopted a resolution Sept. 28 supporting the Cooperative Program as the convention’s primary funding method and praising Hankins for his unwavering and passionate defense of the 85-year-old channel of missions giving.

Hankins told executive board members he is willing, if necessary, to play “the skunk at the tea party” in challenging the idea that the Baptist state conventions are “the bottleneck preventing mission dollars getting to where they need to be.” The resolution, “On Cooperative Giving, Our Common Method For Reaching the Peoples of the World with the Gospel,” was presented following Hankins’ report.

In his report, Hankins told the group the national Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) “is presenting the LBC — all state conventions — with a number of challenges.”

“I am speaking the truth in love and I am challenging some of the assumptions of our Southern Baptist brothers,” Hankins said. “The state conventions are being accused of being the bottleneck preventing mission dollars getting to where they need to be. I say the biggest problem is the back pockets in our own Baptist churches. Our members are giving less percentage of their income than our parents and grandparents did 80 years ago during the Great Depression. If people gave as generously as they did 20 years ago, then another $300 million would have been given through the Cooperative Program this year.

“There is a lot of talk, but not a lot of action, at the SBC about getting resources to the ends of the earth,” Hankins said. “The SBC has not reallocated one additional penny to the two mission boards. The SBC has had two opportunities to do so in the last 15 years when unallocated money was released back to the budget. Instead of increasing support for missions, SBC leaders recommended increased funding to the seminaries, the Executive Committee and The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.” “I would suggest if the SBC wants more money for [the International Mission Board], it allocate the money it has charge over, rather than trying to allocate the money it doesn’t have charge over,” Hankins said.