Good point about people looking at a chart from SBC or a chart from KBC and maybe not getting the whole picture. That’s definitely something we need to work on doing better. I’m not sure if you’re from here in Kentucky but one of the things we make available for churches is a little report that can be used as a bulletin insert that shows specifically in dollar amounts how that church’s gifts are divided and distributed. Maybe there are other things that we, the SBC and individual local churches can do to better inform members as well.

In regard to your point about being willing to recalibrate as needed, Kentucky Baptists do this pretty regularly. We had a Mission Study Committee whose work in 2003 led to the setting of specific goals and objectives in a plan we call Kentucky Baptists Connect. (The first five years of that plan have just ended and it has been renewed for three more years with additional and adjusted goals.)

Kentucky has also been incrementally increasing the amount it sends for SBC missions and ministries for the past several years. I expect this to continue at an even greater pace as Kentucky Baptists hear the cries of the lost people of our world.

Right now, in fact, our state has its own Great Commission Task Force which is looking at everything we do in light of Jesus’ command to reach those both across the street and across the world. Our task force will bring a set of recommendations to convention messengers at our next annual meeting.

I think one of the things you are rightly hitting at is the differences in understanding about the purpose of the Cooperative Program. I’ll be spending more time on this in an upcoming post but part of the disconnect seems to be with realizing that CP was created to provide funding for a wide variety of Baptist causes and not only international missions. That’s why CP gets used to support Christian higher education, children’s homes, work to strengthen churches, seminaries, etc. in addition to direct mission work here in the United States and around the world. This doesn’t diminish our responsibility for state, national and world missions though which is why the special offerings — Annie, Lottie and state missions — are layered on top of CP. Because CP is there providing foundational support, 100 percent of those dollars can go to their appropriate missions causes.

Just because this is the way the system has been set up to work certainly doesn’t mean it can’t be changed, though, if that’s what Southern and Kentucky Baptists feel God is leading them to do. It’s why I feel the current GCR discussion is helpful to all of us.

I do believe that, until recently, many people did not realize how few of their dollars actually made it to the international mission field. This is largely a result of the separate accounting between state and SBC. The casual observer sees the SBC chart and think, “wow, 50 percent to the IMB, I guess that’s good.” It doesn’t occur to the average guy or gal in the pew that that is 50 percent of 3.5 percent of 6 percent of what they give to their local church.

While accounting and process are not in question, there is a growing concern with the seeming lack of desire to reassess and recalibrate our allocation/strategy. Our allocations are a reflection of our theology. Disciples are made in thriving local churches – we should invest accordingly.

It is not 1925; yet we are not even meeting the allocation goals that were stated nearly a century ago (50/50). We need to embark upon a deeply introspective reassessment of our CP allocations on theologically-grounded, Great Commission grounds. No one is disputing there is great lostness in KY or the south. What is in question is why so much $ is spent in the south and, comparatively, so little is spent to reach the nations. On a per capita basis, we, Southern Baptists, spend 37 times more to reach an American or Canadian than we do to reach an African. That number is even greater when you just look at the south.

Because state conventions in the south have been doing good Great Commission work in their geographic territories since 1925, there are now thriving theological churches among lost people where none used to exist. Sadly, this is not the case in many places around the globe. Our Great Commission investments should reflect this reality. Currently, we invest most heavily where there is the greatest access to the gospel. It is right and good to ask if this should be the case. One ought to be able to ask this without being accused of being non-cooperative or seeking to dismiss the value of state conventions altogether.

Because state conventions in the south have been so successful in establishing thriving churches in their state, there should be a decreasing need to retain as much of the CP $ given in the state. As the thriving local churches they have nurtured take ownership of their Jerusalem and Judea, more funds may be confidently sent along to the SBC for churches to be planted among those who have little or no gospel access.

We have a great opportunity at present to think about the gospel and reflect the heart of Christ in our CP allocations. This is more than an allocation issue. Every preacher who has ever urged a congregant to examine his checkbook to see where his heart lies recognizes this is the case.

For more about the CP budget allocations in Kentucky, check out the posts in my series on Kentucky CP giving at: http://www.greatcommissionkentucky.com/category/series-kentucky-cp-giving/

These are two separate questions. Transparency and allocation. I have found by direct experience that the average, busy Southern Baptist is not aware that, on average, 62 percent of their CP $ stay in their state. I have also found (by direct personal interaction over the past 10 months) that they believe this should change dramatically – particularly in states which already have thousands of good churches in which the gospel is being faithfully proclaimed while many people grousps wait in darkness for even one such church.