October is Cooperative Program Month. It is a time when Alabama Baptists remind themselves of the marvelous ways Baptists cooperate to do missions and ministries as well as to provide education and benevolence in our state and around the world.
Cooperative Program Month is also a time to give thanks for the progress made in supporting these many causes through the giving channel known as the Cooperative Program.
Few people realize that prior to 1925 Baptist work lived and died on special offerings. Many families gave once or twice a year when they sold their crops. Weekly giving was almost unheard of. Offering envelopes were not widely used. Few churches had budgets.
The result was obvious. Few churches and almost no Baptist entity could reliably plan their work. Finances depended on the effectiveness of fund-raisers who vied with one another for time to make appeals during local church worship services.
In 1925 that began to change. Heavy debt by state and national institutions caused Baptists in the South to find a better way to financially undergird their cooperative work. The result was the Cooperative Program.
The genius of this approach was that leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) worked cooperatively with leaders of the various state conventions to promote the total program of Baptists. No longer did one mission board compete for funds with another mission board or a state Baptist college compete with a Southern Baptist seminary.
The SBC Executive Committee was authorized “to act as the agent for the convention (SBC) to conclude all agreements with cooperating state agents for handling Southwide funds.” The language sounds a little archaic. “Southwide” is now national and international causes and no one refers to state conventions as “state agents.” Yet, the meaning is still clear. From the beginning state conventions stood as equal partners with the SBC. Each partner would promote the total program — state and national. Each partner would be financed from the same offering stream — the Cooperative Program.
The goal for the Cooperative Program was equal sharing between state and national causes, a 50–50 division of receipts. A 1934 report adopted by the SBC said, “We recognize the 50–50 division as between state and Southwide causes as, in general, an ideal.” The report then added, “There may be some states where local conditions make this impracticable at present.”
What is sometimes forgotten is that in 1934 the Cooperative Program was defined differently from the way most people define it today. Baptist historian Robert Baker makes that point in his book “Southern Baptist Convention and Its People.” Baker quotes from the early records, “The Cooperative Program includes all distributable funds, all designated funds and all special offerings such as the Woman’s Missionary Union’s Lottie Moon Offering for foreign missions, the Annie Armstrong Offering for home missions, offerings for state missions, etc. In reality, all funds received for any cause included in the Cooperative Program, whether they be distributable, designated or special funds, belong to the Cooperative Program.”
In 1934, Alabama Baptists fell short of the 50–50 goal. That year Alabama Baptists adopted a goal of dividing “denominational funds,” 55 percent for state causes and 45 percent for “southwide causes.” Today Alabama Baptists have not only met the 50–50 division but surpassed it when one applies the definition of Cooperative Program used when the 50–50 goal was adopted.
In 2002, 54.77 percent of all funds given by Alabama Baptists that were channeled through the State Board of Missions went to national causes through the SBC. Alabama used only 45.23 percent of those funds. The exact percentages fluctuate each year based on the amount of the special offerings, but the pattern is always the same. National causes always surpass funds used in Alabama.
Using today’s definition of the Cooperative Program — undesignated funds that can be used to support all state and SBC programs — Alabama Baptists still rank near the top. SBC causes receive 42.3 percent of every undesignated dollar while Alabama Baptist causes divide 57.7 percent.
By using some of the loopholes in the agreements between state conventions and the SBC, Alabama could make it look like an even larger percentage of funds flow to national causes. SBC-adopted guidelines allow for deducting the expense of causes that promote the “total program” before applying the percentage division. Specifically listed are such items as Cooperative Program promotion, Woman’s Missionary Union, pension programs, even supplements to state Baptist papers.
Some states use this preferred item approach. Not Alabama. All funds spent in Alabama are reflected in the state budget. The percentage of funds going to national causes reflects the actual dollars forwarded to the SBC.
While state conventions and the SBC are both autonomous and each decides how its respective budget will be allocated, Baker makes the point that one of the historical strengths of the Cooperative Program is a “wide-based plan of representation whose authority stemmed from consensus.” In other words, state and national leaders walk together, shoulder to shoulder, as equal partners in a common task.
One should never forget that the Cooperative Program is a program. It is missions, ministries, education, training, benevolence and more. The Cooperative Program is also a channel of giving to financially undergird these causes. The Cooperative Program moves forward on consensus, not on power. The consensus is about the program as well as about the division of funds.
The Cooperative Program has been called “the greatest step forward in Kingdom finances Southern Baptists have ever taken. … It is believed to be sane, scriptural, comprehensive, unifying, equitable, economical and thoroughly workable” (1939 Cooperative Program report).
Alabama Baptists believe in the principles of the Cooperative Program as much now as then. Alabama Baptists generously give through the Cooperative Program. Our record demonstrates that fact. May the future affirm our continued commitment to the principles that make the Cooperative Program such a unifying force among us.
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