At a recent lunch meeting with one of our outstanding young Kentucky Baptist pastors, our discussion turned to the Cooperative Program and the sacrificial generosity of the church he serves. It was a great opportunity to thank him for his leadership and to thank the church for its financial investment to advance the gospel.
I gave the pastor a document showing how their resources had been distributed and shared that their Cooperative Program giving had increased significantly under his leadership. They had gone from 6 percent of undesignated receipts to more than 8 percent going to CP. I asked if that was intentional, and he said that it was and in fact, he is leading them toward a goal of 10 percent.
I asked what it was about the Cooperative Program that he and the church cared about most. He answered that it was our international mission work. This church has several connections with International Mission Board missionaries, and he values that work. He shared also that he values the connections and support he enjoys with his state convention.
When I ask other pastors this same question, I receive different answers. Some place a high value on church planting in North America. Others are most grateful for our seminaries and the work they do to help us hold the line on biblical fidelity. Others would mention Disaster Relief or the work of one of our state agencies and institutions.
This begs the question. What does the Cooperative Program fund anyway? Here are a few things:
1. The Cooperative Program helps start new churches in North America. New churches in North America are being used by God to reach people who are lost and separated from God. I recently read about one of our SBC church plants in Detroit that saw more than 200 professions of faith through their ministry. All Southern Baptists can celebrate those salvations because of our work together through the Cooperative Program to fund that church plant.
2. The Cooperative Program helps train men and women for gospel missions and ministry. By God’s gracious design, Southern Baptists have six world-class seminaries. Those seminaries are training thousands of men and women who have answered God’s call on their lives. Many of our IMB missionaries, our NAMB church planters and chaplains, our state convention team members and our SBC church pastors and staff have either been trained or are being trained through our SBC seminaries. Those students are able to receive a top shelf, highly rigorous, biblically faithful, theological education at half the normal tuition cost because of the sacrificial giving of Southern Baptist churches through the Cooperative Program.
3. The Cooperative Program funds state convention ministry. State conventions were started by Baptist churches who wanted to partner in their state to plant churches, fund schools, care for foster children, respond with disaster relief and much more. In many cases – Kentucky being one of those – the state convention has been around longer than the Southern Baptist Convention. State conventions – along with local Baptist associations – a re part of the glue God has used for decades to help Southern Baptists stay unified around the Great Commission.
4. The Cooperative Program helps fund Christian agencies and institutions. Kentucky Baptists have decided to invest Cooperative Program resources to fund gospel work that ranges from caring for needy and neglected children through Sunrise Children’s Services to reaching students with the gospel through Crossings Camps to other significant gospel advancing work through Clear Creek Baptist Bible College, Kentucky WMU, the Kentucky Baptist Foundation and Oneida Baptist Institute. Kentucky Baptists have discovered that some of our greatest gospel-advancing impact is happening right here in our own state through these faithful agencies and institutions.
5. The Cooperative Program funds international missionaries. While CP is not the only source of funding for the work of our International Mission Board, it is nonetheless a significant one. When those missionaries and their partners saw more than 20,000 churches planted and more than 100,000 baptisms last year, each Southern Baptist who is part of a Cooperative Program giving church had a hand in that work.
My friend Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, has been heard saying that Southern Baptists have one mission — the Great Commission — and one program — the Cooperative Program. May God be pleased to continue using Southern Baptists as we work together to advance the gospel here at home and around the world.
Dr. Todd Gray 