talkCP

The traditional role of CP funding to facilitate missionaries on the field is critical to Englewood Baptist Church’s strategy.  From our perspective, being able to connect our mission efforts through our SBC personnel both in the United States and around the world allows us to skip over the vetting process that would be necessary without our mission agencies.  We trust that if the SBC sending agencies have approved these persons we can work with them with confidence. 

We also have the knowledge that our work is not something that is “one and done.”  We are part of an overall strategy for a particular place or people group that will have ongoing work taking place even when we are not present.

Having CP funded personnel on the field makes our work more effective.  We work in many locations and it would be difficult for us to master all the cultural norms that would make us most effective without the training and guidance provided by our field personnel.

BAPTIST PRESS – October 5, 2016

NASHVILLE (BP) — The Southern Baptist Convention ended its fiscal year $9.23 million over its 2015–2016 budgeted goal and $6.57 million over the previous year’s CP Allocation Budget gifts, according to Frank S. Page, president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee.

The SBC received $195,730,508.04 in Cooperative Program Allocation gifts for the year. This amount is $6,570,276.63, or 3.47 percent, more than it received during the last fiscal year, and is $9,230,508.04, or 4.95 percent, more than its budgeted goal of $186.5 million.

“Our Southern Baptist churches have responded powerfully to the call for missions support and ministry support through the Cooperative Program,” Page said.

“I would say two factors are present here — sacrifice and strategic decisions,” he noted. “We thank God for the sacrifice of thousands of churches who truly believe we can collaborate together and do more for the Gospel than we can do alone. This sacrificial giving will minister on the mission field, in theological education and other areas stronger than ever before.

“We are also thankful for the strategic decisions of many of our state conventions who are forwarding more and more to the national level,” Page said in written comments to Baptist Press. “We have just finished five years of increase [from the states], only the third period of time in our history when national CP forwarded from the states has reached or exceeded 38.75 percent. We are thankful for our state partners and thankful for the strategic decisions that many have made.”

In designated giving, the fiscal year’s total of $204,671,725.92 is 4.95 percent above the previous year’s $195,013,412.58. Of this designated amount, $204,135,367.21 was disbursed to IMB and NAMB through the seasonal missions offerings and Global Hunger Relief. The balance was designated for other SBC entities or the SBC Operating Budget. Combined designated gifts to SBC causes and CP Allocation Budget gifts showed a 4.22 percent increase over the same time last year.

The convention-adopted budgeted amount was distributed as follows: 50.41 percent to international missions through the International Mission Board, 22.79 percent to North American missions through the North American Mission Board, 22.16 percent to theological education, 2.99 percent to the SBC operating budget and 1.65 percent to the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Of the amount received that was over the budgeted goal, IMB received a full 51 percent of the $9.23 million overage, while the SBC operating budget received only 2.4 percent of the overage. Other SBC entities received the same percentage of the overage as the allocation formula in the 2015–2016 adopted CP Allocation Budget.

“We believe the Acts 1:8 strategy includes local, state, as well as national and international ministries, and we are thankful for our state partners!” Page added.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow. While we give thanks for the strategic decisions and the sacrifice of God’s people, the heart of the issue is always stewardship,” he said. “We need to continue to call upon our people to be diligent in fulfilling the biblical tithe and going beyond so that we can truly see our world touched for the Gospel.”

September gifts through CP totaled $16,569,490.69, while designated gifts were $4,681,908.00. Monies include receipts from individuals, churches, state conventions and fellowships for distribution according to the 2015–2016 Cooperative Program Allocation Budget and to SBC causes as stipulated in designated gifts.

The CP is Southern Baptists channel of giving, begun in 1925, through which a local church can contribute to the ministries of its state/regional convention and the missions and ministries of the SBC with a single monthly or weekly contribution.

Month-to-month swings in the amount received through the Executive Committee reflect a number of factors, including the timing of when the state conventions forward the national portion of Cooperative Program contributions to the Executive Committee, the day of the month churches forward their CP contributions to their state conventions, the number of Sundays in a given month, and the percentage of CP contributions forwarded to the SBC by the state conventions after shared ministry expenses are deducted.

CP allocation budget receipts received by the Executive Committee are reported monthly to the executives of the entities of the convention, to the state convention offices, to the state Baptist papers and are posted online at www.cpmissions.net/CPReports.

Is the Cooperative Program relevant? My answer has always been YES because of the way I view two words: Cooperation and Capacity.

I said YES as a church planter – when I realized the missiological efforts of our core group were being fueled by funds from the Tennessee Baptist Convention and the North American Mission Board. I clearly understood that we could plant a church near a public-housing development with many low-income (or no income) residents because Southern Baptists across this nation were partnering with us. That same understanding led our church plant to continue supporting the Cooperative Program, even after we were no longer receiving NAMB and state convention funding.

I said YES as a pastor when I led a fifty year-old congregation into Southern Baptist (and Kentucky Baptist) life. The Cooperative Program and the “Southern Baptist” way of doing missions were new to these Christians. During this transition, I explained many things to our congregation, but the training and ministry-preparation events provided by our state convention and LifeWay sold that congregation on the benefit of cooperative missions giving.

Also, during this time, I benefitted from theological education at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, which was a fraction of the costs charged by other Bible-believing seminaries  (By the way, it feels quirky justifying the CP to a pastor that has been educated in a CP-supported institution).

As an African-American congregation new to Southern Baptist life, that church became one of the leading CP churches in our state.

I said YES when pastoring a large SBC church. I pushed for increased CP giving even in challenging economic times. In a larger church, with the capacity to do many ministries and support individual missionaries, I was reminded of Pastor Johnny Hunt’s words regarding a church’s “stewardship of influence.” First, no church, regardless of its size, can do as much as they might do when locked up with other churches for missiological impact. Second, in light of the interaction between churches in the New Testament, I would encourage churches to view a “lone ranger” approach to missions as inconsistent with New Testament models.

Besides my experiences, let’s think about the two words: cooperation and capacity.

First, cooperation. Southern Baptists have said, “At the center of our funding stands the Cooperative Program, which since 1925 has served to mobilize the stewardship of Southern Baptists for worldwide missions and ministry” (GCRTF Report). That is not simply a “We’ve always done it like that” statement. Instead, it reflects an appreciation for the consistent funding stream that has allowed Southern Baptists to attempt many (not a few) great things in the area of missions. [Read more…] about Cooperation and Capacity

The overflow crowd crammed into the small room and spilled out into the street. You needed to be early or fast to get a good seat. Neither of those are an option when you can’t walk. Late arrivals are relegated to the farthest reaches of the human sea …and a long way from hope.

That is unless you have friends committed to doing whatever it takes to get you to the Savior’s feet. Jesus sees your faith. He speaks to you. Seconds later, you get up and walk – possibly for the first time ever – through the astonished and parted sea.

But that never happens if not for a shared vision brought to fruition by the tangible commitment of four people each grabbing a handle of your stretcher, cooperating for your spiritual benefit.

Of course the story is from Mark 2 where the paralytic man’s friends dig a hole in a roof to lower him to Jesus’ feet. I believe there are billions of people today across Tennessee, North America and around the world just like the paralytic man. They are in need of spiritual healing and are in desperate need of friends who will do whatever it takes to get them to the feet of Jesus.

Southern Baptists must be those types of friends if we are to share our life-altering message of hope. Fortunately, our Baptist forefathers created the Cooperative Program to ensure Southern Baptists could lay hand to the pallet and usher the lost to our Savior. That legacy of cooperation rooted in the doctrine of missions is 90 years old and is still the tie that effectively binds us in our Great Commission cause.

There is, however, a tug across our denomination away from cooperation. I believe the tug is born out of a genuine commitment to spiritual urgency. However, I also believe our well-meaning efforts to focus only on our individual part of the missions effort positions us to eventually pull against each other. The result would be detrimental to our local churches, our denomination and most importantly to the world’s spiritually lost. The proverbial “roof top” will be full of millions who will never make it to Jesus’ feet.

Here’s our reality: By any measure our churches have generally plateaued in growth or are declining. Nothing new there; people have said that for years. We’ve spent a significant amount of time camping in that macro-level conversation. Unfortunately, less time is spent at the micro-level, the church health level, identifying the root of the decline. I believe there are many contributing factors but one that rises to the surface is a failure to teach and embrace our historical Baptist distinctive of missional cooperation exorcised through the Cooperative Program. [Read more…] about Are You Grabbing a Handle of Cooperation?

At our dinner table last night, our 13-year-old guest turned to me and asked abruptly, “Do you know why I’m glad my sister is here?” Our guest comes to visit once a week. She is working her way through a residential treatment program, trying to recover from years of abuse and neglect. The question caught me off guard and, knowing at least some of what she and her little sister have endured, I wasn’t sure what she would say next, but I wanted her to understand she was free to say whatever was on her mind.

I simply replied, “No. Why are you glad?”

Her sister was three when she came into the care of Sunrise Children’s Services, the James 1:27 ministry of Kentucky Baptists. Fueled by the Cooperative Program, Sunrise ministers to more than 1,000 hurting kids in Kentucky.  Fueled by the Cooperative Program, Sunrise ministers to more than 1,000 hurting kids in Kentucky. With more than 8,000 kids in our state’s care, Kentucky Baptists feel we are only scratching the surface even though we are the largest private provider.

When Sunrise contacted us about a three-year-old, my wife Michelle and I were a little hesitant. We had been foster parents for a teenage boy for a year, and, although he had recently been placed with another family, three-year-olds had never been on our radar. With two kids in college and one heading into middle school, a three-year-old didn’t seem like a “good fit.” But the scriptural mandate to care for orphans doesn’t say much about which kids fit our life-stage or lifestyle, so we took the plunge.

Now, at our dinner table, her 13-year-old sister is about to break my heart even though I don’t know it yet.

“I’m glad she’s here because I’m glad she has a father.”

I knew our foster daughter had no memory of a father, so I wasn’t at all that surprised when, in a matter of hours, she was calling me daddy. But what broke my heart was the 13-year-old celebrating that her little sister now has a father even though she doesn’t.

These two precious girls are among the 400,000 kids in foster care in the US. Thanks to CP ministries like Sunrise, many of those kids are finding foster homes and some are finding forever families. I’d call that relevant.

How relevant is the CP funding model in fueling Southern Baptist missions and ministries? I believe it is not only relevant; I believe CP is essential and irreplaceable.

If CP disappeared today, so would a significant portion of the ministries and mission work of Southern Baptists. Even the ministries and mission work that somehow managed to continue to exist would be significantly crippled. Let me explain why.

[Read more…] about The Role and Relevance of Cooperative Missions and Cooperative Funding Across the SBC