In the wake of Monday’s release of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Task Force report, the Kentucky Baptist Mission Board on Tuesday approved a strong resolution supporting the Cooperative Program as the “essential avenue of support for missions and ministries” for Kentucky Baptists.
Passage of the resolution came near the end of the Mission Board’s regular two-day May meeting at the Cedarmore Conference Center near Bagday, Ky, and followed by just a day the GCRTF’s report that suggests adding a giving category known as “Great Commission Giving” to recognize aggregated designated giving in a way similar to Cooperative Program giving.
Kentucky Baptist Convention President Don Mathis had expressed concern earlier in the meeting that creating the new category could harm support of cooperative giving among Baptists and urged the group to “be wary” of “any effort to place the Cooperative Program in a group of missions giving.”
“My opinion is that it will be the destruction of the Cooperative Program, and when the Cooperative Program is destroyed, it will remove the effectiveness of our special giving because CP is the foundation of what we do,” Mathis said in speaking to the board on Monday morning.
The remark came prior to Mathis seeing the final GCR report, which was released at 9:30 a.m. EST Monday, but he added on Tuesday that after reading the task force’s final draft that he would “still prefer an even stronger statement of the Cooperative Program as being foundational to the way we support missions around the world.”
The KBC president, who serves as staff evangelist at Eastwood Baptist Church in Bowling Green, said he feels the real solution to missions funding issues in the SBC is to have “CPR — Cooperative Program Resurgence.”
“We don’t need to be arguing over the pie, we need to be increasing the size of the pie,” he said.
It is relatively unusual for the Mission Board to pass resolutions but the Mission Board’s Administrative Committee prepared the resolution following its meeting on Monday night. It passed without opposition by a show of hands in Tuesday’s session.
The Mission Board is made up of Kentucky Baptist pastors and lay leaders from across the state who are elected by messengers at the annual meeting to carry out the business of the Convention between annual sessions.
Here’s the text of the resolution:
Resolution of Reaffirmation of the Cooperative Program
WHEREAS, we believe that God providentially led Southern Baptists in 1925 to create the Cooperative Program as its funding methodology to support a wide array of Great Commission ministries and missions; and
WHEREAS, the genius of the Cooperative Program has been its broad scope of funding for worthy Baptist causes regardless of emotional appeal via a strategic partnership between the state conventions and the Southern Baptist Convention; and
WHEREAS, the Cooperative Program moved Southern Baptists away from a societal approach in order to bring more stability in funding these missions and ministry endeavors and to reduce the constant appeals to churches for support; and
WHEREAS, Kentucky Baptists are rightly proud of the Kentucky origins of this cooperative effort which was modeled after a unified giving plan first developed by H. Boyce Taylor in 1900 and used at the First Baptist Church of Murray, Kentucky; and
WHEREAS, in 1915 the General Association of Baptists in Kentucky (now the Kentucky Baptist Convention) met at Jellico, Tennessee, and adopted a budget plan for the support of all denominational projects throughout the state and convention; and
WHEREAS, while we gratefully acknowledge the tremendous generosity of Baptists in faithfully giving through the Cooperative Program, we also acknowledge, with regret, the growing trend away from faithful support of this funding instrument as demonstrated in consistent decreases in the percentage of undesignated gifts going from the churches to missions through the Cooperative Program;
THEREFORE, BE IT NOW RESOLVED that we recommit ourselves to leading our churches to wholehearted and increased support of the Cooperative Program through the giving of a percentage of undesignated receipts, and through the education of our members, especially the children and youth, as to the wisdom and value of the Cooperative Program; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we, as Kentucky Baptists, dedicate ourselves to finding the resources to reinforce the Cooperative Program as the essential avenue of support for missions and ministries; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that we give our best efforts to raise up, train, and elect leaders who strongly demonstrate a sacrificial commitment to the Cooperative Program (cf. Mark 12:41-44).
Wow! I love the Cooperative Program and I believe that it is a good program, but I am also completely aware of the fact that it is a PROGRAM. The issue is not the program it is change. Friends, what we are doing IS NOT WORKING!!!!! Change is necessary!! It is not about saving a PROGRAM it is about SAVING THE LOST!!! If we are going to elevate the PROGRAM above the souls that we are to be reaching then I am of the opinion that we are missing the target of what God has created us to do and to be. We are to be about the business of reaching people, baptizing them, discipling them and training the to obey the Commands of Christ Jesus. If we become obedient to that Commission I would submit that our money would be the least of our concerns. As a matter of fact should not our money be the least concern when it is compared to the souls that are lost and without Jesus Christ?
Humbly and In His Name
Hi Derek, thanks for the comment. I don’t think anyone is interested in defending a program for a program’s sake. I think what the Kentucky Baptist Mission Board members were getting at today is a concern that the GCR proposal would unintentionally return us to a societal form of giving which didn’t work very well for us in the past.
Before 1925 when the Cooperative Program was begun, individual missions and ministries groups had to go from church to church asking for support. Churches were inundated with requests and the allocation of dollars tended to be based on who had the best speakers rather than on the worthiness or needs of the various ministries.
Baptists began the Cooperative Program as a way be be more effective in their missions giving and it has proven to be a much better way to go. As the KBC president indicated, the solution isn’t really so much in reallocating declining gifts but to inspire greater faithfulness so that all worthy Baptist causes have adequate resources to be effective in their part of fulfilling the Great Commission.
Derek,
Amen!
I am concerned by a call to a CPR as if CP = Great Commission. That is alarming to me.
What we are doing is NOT working. CPR is calling for more/better of the same structure that has been in decline for 25 years. Sure it served us well in the past but times have changed. Are we going to adapt to keep up with the change or pine for a past “golden era”?
This resolution upsets me a little b/c it asks for people/churches to do more but it isn’t challenging the KBC to do more. Why not also say that we are going to return to the ideal under which the CP was started, 50-50 split in CP funds?
Robert,
You say that no one is interested in defending a program, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. A call for a CPR?
Sure societal giving didn’t work well, so we changed our structure. Just doing the same thing we’ve been doing isn’t working now, so why not consider changing the structure?
Is the allocation now based on the “worthiness or needs of various ministries?” The IMB needs more money to send missionaries that they are having to keep at home, while we continue to spend millions in the places with the most churches/Christians.
The question again that begs to be asked is, “Why is CP giving declining?” Several pastors have gone on record saying they are decreasing b/c CP doesn’t prioritize missions.
So, we can call for more giving but that doesn’t address the concerns of these churches. Neither does saying don’t discuss how we divide the pie. That says to these churches and pastors we don’t care about your concerns just give us more of your money like you’ve always done. How is that the answer?
Perhaps reallocating the pie will inspire more giving! If churches see that missions is the priority then perhaps they will give more. That is the cry of the GCR.
I don’t see how criticizing churches that give directly to SBC missions causes (around the CP) is going to “inspire greater faithfulness.” I don’t even see how simply saying “give more” will inspire that either. We need to put a face on the CP that says missions to underserved and unreached peoples is our priority. I believe that vision would inspire greater faithfulness.
Here are the 2 visions being set forth in the SBC:
1. GCR- Allocate resources (people and money) to the places of greatest need in our country and the world, and greater missions giving will follow.
2. CPR- Give more money so that resources (people and money) will continue to fund what we are currently doing in the south and more will trickle out to the places of greatest need in our country and the world.
I pray we choose the former.
Jon
I am grateful that we have had the opportunity to partner with churches in giving through the CP so that missions can be accomplished at home and around the world. We cannot do by ourselves what we can do together. And if our world is not being reached it is not a matter of a lack of funds it is a failure in obedeince. To have a resurgence of the Great Commission we need a resurgence in obedience to God’s word. My obedience to God’s word takes care of my going and my giving. And where there is one that is lost without Christ is the place of greatest need.
Tony
Hi, Jon. Thanks for the comment. I didn’t understand the Board to say that they equate CP with the Great Commission, just that they are concerned that the new giving category may unintentionally lead to a return to an old system that didn’t work well in the past.
Sure, we have to constantly be evaluating missions and ministries to determine how best to allocate our dollars but I believe we can best do that by working cooperatively together. There is no KBC apart from the churches so the call for action must be with the local church. Collectively, the churches of the Convention have been working for several years to steadily increase the amount sent to SBC and this year will be no exception. The KBC also has its own Great Commission Task Force that is looking at how we in Kentucky can do even better in this regard.
Stay tuned in the days ahead. You are a part of a Convention that is working hard to strengthen churches, meet needs at home in Kentucky and still send more and more on to the unreached areas of North America and our world!
Tony,
I am grateful as well for cooperation and partnership together. The genius of the CP is that we can do more together than apart.
I agree that this is an obedience issue. The question of the GCRTF is how we can cooperate together effectively in the GC, in obedience to Christ’s command.
The disagreement seems to be how we define the Great Commission and how we should go about partnering together.
I am glad Paul didn’t define greatest need the same way as you stated above, otherwise the Gospel would have never advanced beyond where it started.
I grieve over lostness in my community and state. That’s why my church is there. But I grieve also over thousands of people groups who have no churches. Are we really going to say the need is as great in KY or GA as it is in places where they have zero access to the Gospel?
Again, I’m glad others didn’t think that way or I wouldn’t have heard the gospel.
Jon
Robert,
I apologize for miscommunicating. I didn’t mean that the board equated CP giving with the GC. Don Mathis’ comment comes off that way when he calls for a “Cooperative Program Resurgence.” (His comments also seem to show that he’s against thinking thru re-allocation).
The CP is not the GC. It is a tool that aids in the GC. Too much of the rhetoric in this discussion sees the salvation of the CP as the ends (not as a means to the GC).
Again, my question is why isn’t the current system working? Why is CP declining? Why are we having to suspend ISC and Jman programs?
I agree that we need to work cooperatively together, but I think we need to think thru new strategies to get that done other than what we’ve always done. Instead of paying for so many ministries in state why not partner churches that do something well with churches who want to learn how to do that thing (i.e. Sunday School, evangelism, etc.)?
I agree that there’s no KBC apart from the churches, however, I’ll go on record again saying that I don’t believe the avg member of a KBC church knows where their money goes or how much is kept in state. When I told my congregation they became furious.
I think there needs to be more awareness and that falls to the pastors, and greater participation in the meeting and that falls to pastors as well. I hope this leads to more voices calling for less in state spending and more for frontier mission fields. Again we have about as many KBC churches as they have believers in Turkey, and it’s a country of 70 million…
I will watch the KBC task force with great interest. I pray that they courageously call for bold moves.
Jon
Jon,
I am not in any way saying that we should not do all we can to take the gospel to those who have not heard because the call is to go into ALL the world. We not only give to CP but also go as a church every year to other nations to share Christ and start churches. And the need is great in all areas. The area where I pastor has more unchurched people than those that are churched. So we are seeking to do the work from Jerusalem to the uttermost parts. I pray that we can find a way to work together to get the work accomplished.
Tony
Tony,
I rejoice in the efforts that your church is engaged in. Amen!
I too pray that we will rally together around the Great Commission.
My only concern is to get more resources (people & money), many more, to areas where there is zero/little access to the Gospel instead of using the majority in places where, although there are many unchurched persons there, the majority of our Christians/churches are already there.
Indeed the need is great in all areas, but the need is greater in some areas than others. This is not in terms of degree (b/c lost is lost) but in terms of access. I praise God for the work of your church in an area where there are many who are unchurched but I also recognize that those unchurched people have a Bible believing/Gospel-preaching church in their area so that they have access to the gospel. My concern is for the billions who do not have this blessing.
I pray that we will see the call of Acts 1:8 is not programmatic but about Gospel advancement. Acts starts in Jerusalem but it ends in Rome.
I love the SBC and love cooperation. I just want to see our cooperation centered on areas where people cannot hear the gospel instead of places where there are many unchurched people yes, but they could walk down the street and choose between 3 churches to attend.
I pray God’s blessing on your ministry.
Jon
Hi Jon, I truly appreciate your passion for reaching the lost both here and abroad and appreciate all your church is doing to reach people in our Louisville community. We share that even if we don’t always agree on the specific approach.
I think that as you read more about or even get to meet Don Mathis, you’ll agree that you won’t find a more passionate evangelist of the Gospel. He loves the Cooperative Program as a means to the end of reaching the world for Christ because he has seen it allow Baptists to be so much more effective than other denominations that do not have a unified giving approach. He would be the first to agree with you that CP is not an end in itself, however, and he is active in his role as KBC president this year and as a member of our Great Commission Task Force to look at the best ways to allocate resources so that we can get more to unreached national and international mission fields.
I personally feel that the Cooperative Program is working. I see it at work every day as Baptists reach out in an incredible array of ways to a lost and hurting world. The fact that we — me, you and other Southern Baptists — are not reaching as many people as we should be is not necessarily a function of the particular funding mechanism. Many factors are probably at play including generational issues, culture shifts toward liberalism, the impact of wealth on people’s understanding of their need for Christ, etc. We MUST find ways to be better and more effective, though, and I think this GCR discussion we are going through is part of that process.
I think the reasons some churches are giving less of their undesignated funds through CP are varied and complex. If they were only concerned about the amount going to international missions, for example, we would be able to simply track all of the shift in giving to IMB. Instead, I think it has a lot to do with the local demands felt by individual churches in many cases. On one hand, we see some churches shifting money to fund mission trips for their members or to fund a particular endeavor they feel is worthy in their local area. Other churches struggle with the rise in health insurance and other costs related to personnel or local facilities and see slicing a percent or part of a percent from cooperative missions as a necessity for those reasons.
I think your ideas about partnering with local churches are good. We do a lot of this (as well as partnering with associations) already but there are probably areas where we can do even more. The issue still often comes down to funding, though, because whether a church is leading in an area or the state convention, it still has to be funded. We are always interested in specific suggestions.
Also, some of the big areas of Baptist work in the state (our colleges, Bible college, Christian high school, children’s homes, etc.) are very complex and specialized in and of themselves. In these cases, Kentucky Baptists are getting a very big bang for the buck in the sense that while CP may fund only a very small percentage of the budgets of these insititutions, Kentucky Baptists elect 100 percent of the leadership that sets the direction for their work.
We try to share as often as possible about the work of Kentucky Baptists and the way their money is used. Every year we use brochures, bulletin inserts, Web sites, articles, advertisements, and speaking engagements at every church to which we’re invited to tell Baptists about how their gifts are being used. Again, let us know if you have ideas about other ways we can share more effectively.
Individual Kentucky Baptists and churches can have a tremendous impact on the direction of their convention. I always encourage people to get involved and participate in the work of their local association and state convention, to make it known that they are interested in serving on committees and on the Mission Board, to actively attend association and the state convention annual meetings and to keep up with what is happening within the convention through the Western Recorder newspaper, blogs, etc. The churches are the convention so decisions about priorities and resources get made by those who participate.
Robert,
I appreciate your passion for the work in Kentucky. I am grateful for all Great Commission work that is done in KY.
I regret if I communicated in any way that I doubted the evangelistic passion of Pres Mathis. From all that I’ve heard about him I know that he is passionate about sharing the gospel.
I’m sure that if he was pressed he would not call the CP an end, but a means. The issue is rhetoric. Is what we are really after a CPR? Or do we want to be more faithful in the GC?
One of the major reasons we are in a crisis in the SBC is b/c CP has allowed us to consistently farm out missions to a select few. We write the check, sit back, and pat ourselves on the back b/c we are a part of the missions process, but few ever ask if they should actually go as a missionary.
Then, in the SBC, those who give lower % to CP but are involved heavily in direct hands-on missions are criticized and called “not missions minded.” That is a tragedy.
Agreed that there is a complexity of factors as to why CP is dropping. But at least one reason is b/c many churches, especially those led by younger pastors, have lost confidence in the CP b/c they see it allocated to the places with the most churches and funding ministries that many believe we shouldn’t be funding. Bryant Wright is running for president of the SBC and he has said that they decreased CP giving b/c GA is keeping too much in state.
I am grateful that we have GCRTF in KY. I do pray that they work hard and come up with courageous recommendations that will allow us as KY Baptists to get greater resources (people and money) to the areas of least access to the gospel.
We would disagree that the CP is working. I don’t think most people will be convinced that we should go on business as usual b/c the status quo is working. Most everyone agrees that we are in a crisis in the SBC and need a real GCR, even if they disagree with the GCRTF recommendations. If the CP is working so well why are we in the crisis?
Again, the GCR is not about reaching people in terms of salvation being dependent upon us, but rather reaching people in terms of sowing the seed, preaching the gospel (God is responsible for the harvest). The problem is not that cultural liberalism or whatever is causing us not to reach people (though I think you’re right about those factors blinding people to the gospel). The problem that is being highlighted is that millions in our country and the world live without much access (or any) to the gospel. The problem is that we continue to use the majority of our resources (people and money) in the areas that are most saturated with gospel-preaching churches. We can change that at half percents per year for decades or we can get serious about focusing our energies on places where there is the least gospel witness.
I agree that we “Must find ways to be better and more effective..” The GCRTF has given us some ways to do that. They’ve at least given us some ways to see more resources go to the places of greatest need.
Yes, the reasons for decreased giving is complex. However, some have directly said it’s about missions. At Highview we give less to KBC b/c KY is saturated with churches, so we give thru Indiana that is not. We think the 2400 churches in KY should be responsible for reaching KY w/ the gospel. Also, we want more of our money going to the mission field than a place that has as many churches as believers in Turkey. But, as you said, factors are many. We also want to help our people get on mission rather than just farming it out to others and us writing the check. We want to raise up career missionaries in our church so we send many on short term trips.
The GCRTF is trying to save missions in the SBC not “devastate” it. They recognize the shift that churches are making to more hands on approach to missions, so they’ve recommended accordingly. This is not b/c they are against the state conventions, associations, etc. but b/c they are for them and want to help them adjust before pain forces the adjustment in a decade.
I am glad that you like my idea about local partnering. If there is needed funding for that it would be minimal and most church staffs would do it w/o any additional pay. I know ours would. Plus, materials are rampant for free or nearly on the internet. It’s a new day. Funding for consultations if done thru local churches networking would not cost in the millions like we spend now.
I completely agree that we need to become a part of the process. I encourage everyone I meet to do so, and try to be at as many meetings as I can.
Thanks for the dialogue,
Jon
Good discussion, Jon. I appreciate the fact that you think deeply about your positions and then articulate them passionately. I don’t think we disagree on the destination we want to get to at all but maybe about the methodologies. I’ll try to address some of your concerns in future posts over the next week or two.