The Three Parts of the ‘Co-Operative Program’

The Three Parts of the ‘Co-Operative Program’

Eighty years ago when Southern Baptists adopted the concept of the “Co-Operative Program,” most of the emphasis was on the middle word “operative.” Baptist causes had long suffered from sporadic giving.

The first Baptist Sunday School Board had closed due to lack of finances — so had Baptists’ first efforts at Bible publishing, the Baptist Bible Board. The Foreign Mission Board, now called the International Mission Board, borrowed money from month to month against anticipated receipts. The Home Mission Board, now part of the North American Mission Board, was deeply in debt.

Members of the Committee on Future Programming, which recommended the “Co-Operative Program,” hoped the new method of denominational support would result in desperately needed financial stability for Baptist work.

To do this, the committee recommended a return to the biblical emphasis of tithing and financial stewardship. Regular weekly giving was to replace offerings once or twice a year.

Instead of Baptist causes competing against each other for time in local churches to promote their work, the new method would have all Baptist causes working together to increase giving. Baptists were urged to make one undesignated offering that would support all Baptist work rather than designate money to favorite ministries.

The haphazardness of giving, as known by Southern Baptists in their first 80 years, would be replaced by a giving method that would bring, at least in theory, an operational and financial foundation that would allow Baptist work to prosper.

The unusual spelling of the new giving channel was not accidental. “Co-Operative Program” was a purposeful decision. It was not because the members of the Future Programming Committee did not know how to spell.

The emphasis on “Co” recognized that the method of giving was an agreement between two equal partners — the various state Baptist conventions and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). In 1925, most Baptists considered themselves Alabama Baptists or Georgia Baptists or Virginia Baptists before they called themselves Southern Baptists.

SBC officials knew that any giving plan had to start with the support of the state conventions. They emphasized that point by the title of their recommendation. It was a “Co-Operative Program.” The state and the national conventions were working together to help support state and national Baptist causes. The partners were equal. There was no over-under relationship.

Churches were urged to send their missions offerings for causes beyond their local churches to their state convention offices. Baptists in that state would decide in annual convention meetings what percentage to forward to the national convention. The goal held out by the SBC Futures Committee was an equal division between state and national causes.

At the time, however, the definition of “Co-Operative Program” was different than today. Baptist historian Robert Baker points out in his book, “The Southern Baptist Convention and its People,” that originally, the “Co-Operative Program” included “all distributable funds, all designated funds and all special offerings such as the Woman’s Missionary Union Lottie Moon (Christmas) Offering for foreign missions, the Annie Armstrong (Easter) Offering for home missions, offering for state missions, etc.”

Today, only undesignated receipts are considered in the percentage division of what is now called the “Cooperative Program.”

The third part is obvious — “Program.” The new concept represented a sea change in giving for Southern Baptists. Instead of giving to favorite causes, Baptists were urged to make gifts to the church and allow the appropriate conventions to make decisions about how best to use the money given for work beyond the local church. State conventions would decide how to use state money, and the national convention would decide how to use money forwarded to them.

Baptists would be supporting a “program,” not just a particular cause. And through participation in the state and national conventions, they would have a voice in determining what that “program” would be. Baptists understood that unless there was general agreement on the “program” supported by Baptist tithes and offerings, the whole concept would fail.

During the years since the “Co-Operative Program” was presented and adopted by the SBC and the cooperating state Baptist conventions, some observers have called the giving plan “a revelation from God.”

Certainly, no one is equating it with God’s revelation of Himself in Holy Scripture. Rather, the phrase asserts that God led Southern Baptists to adopt this method of giving that has succeeded beyond the expectations of the recommending committee.

Baptists should give regularly of their tithes and offerings. Baptists should give unselfishly rather than supporting only those causes closest to their own hearts. Baptists should give in ways that impact the whole world — not just their local communities.

Baptists should give cooperatively with brothers and sisters in the faith. Baptists should participate in determining how their tithes and offerings are spent in the local church and in the state and national conventions.

These important principles are as valid today as they were when the Committee on Future Programming recommended the “Co-Operative Program.”

The SBC existed 80 years before it embraced the principles that resulted in the “Co-Operative Program.” We have lived another 80 years with what we now call the Cooperative Program.

Baptists hopefully will wholeheartedly embrace the principles that resulted in formulating this God-blessed giving plan as we begin our next 80 years together, if the Lord tarries.