Southern Baptists in World Service,” a booklet written by E.P. Alldredge for the Sunday School Board in 1936, aptly captured the essence of the Cooperative Program (CP) started by Southern Baptists in 1925.
It stated simply, “[It’s] the beginning of a new day in Southern Baptist life and work.”
The foresight and wisdom of Southern Baptist Convention leaders to establish a coordinated giving plan for all churches have resulted in literally millions of lost souls around the world professing Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior since 1925, and its impact continues to resonate greatly.
In 2004, revivalist Henry Blackaby captured the sentiments of many when he expressed that the CP was much more than just a great idea, saying, “The Cooperative Program is not something men designed but something God put together.”
When a church gives a portion of its receipts through the CP, its gospel reach expands exponentially.
M.E. Dodd, considered the father of the CP, wrote about it in a tract titled “Why I Like the Baptist Cooperative Program.” He listed seven “special advantages” of the unified giving plan that are still true today:
• It enables me to carry out my part of Christ’s program of service.
• The Cooperative Program enables me to have a part in all that is being done.
• The Cooperative Program enables me to have some part in the whole work of Christ each and every week of the year.
• This Cooperative Program enables me to do all that needs to be done because it includes every sort of service to every sort of somebody that any sort of anybody may wish to render.
• This Cooperative Program enables me to carry out God’s financial program for His Kingdom.
• This Baptist Cooperative Program fixes the support of Christ’s causes as a permanent principle in life and does not leave them to temporary emotional appeal.
• The Cooperative Program does not leave the causes of Christ to become the victims of temporary weather conditions, depressions in business or other hindered causes.
The CP has shaped for all eternity generations of Southern Baptists who have been called into service with the charge to carry the good news of Jesus Christ to their communities, state and country and throughout the entire world.
“The Cooperative Program is a conduit, a channel of giving, where we as a family of faith join together in making a difference in today’s world,” said Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM). “Our spiritual ancestors were wise in developing and nurturing this sense of cooperation.”
Jim Swedenburg, director of the SBOM office of Cooperative Program and stewardship development, added that by creating a team of churches, convention agencies and missions personnel, the CP does what no other system has ever done.
“The Cooperative Program is, of course, a budget distribution system based on a working relationship between each state convention and the Southern Baptist Convention. It permits churches making an undesignated gift to help support all the causes supported by their state convention and by the SBC. The system may not sound exciting, but what it does is exciting,” he said.
Just ask Olan Burcham, outgoing moderator for and retired pastor in Franklin Baptist Association.
He said the CP became hands and feet for him following the April 27 tornado that devastated his property and that of many of his neighbors in Phil Campbell.
“People came from four different areas to help us,” he said. “I couldn’t have done what needed to be done without them.”
One visual that continues to stand out in Burcham’s mind is the Alabama Baptist disaster relief trailer on his property.
“The Cooperative Program is real to me. I watched it in action.” (BP, TAB)
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