The Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee met in mid-February in Nashville. While we heard several reports, one was incredibly convicting. We had just heard about the “reset” for our International Mission Board.
We were confronted by the reality that hundreds of our missionaries were leaving the field because of multi-year shortfalls in budget receipts. Thankfully, no debt was accumulated in the process of spending down the reserves to keep missionaries on the field as long as possible. But still, a reduction of 20 percent?
I know how David Platt feels because we just released and retired people we love and care deeply for at the MBC.
The SBC executive committee was just about to pray for the missionaries in transition. In a pregnant, sober pause before he prayed, an IMB leader told us the story about two women in a high security nation where there is a religious liberty clause but the government violates it every day. The authorities arrested these two women because they were mending the clothes of the poor without charge.
When asked why they mend the clothes of people without charge, they responded, “We do so in the name of Jesus.” So, off to prison they went.
How many of us would be so bold as to humbly take needle and thread and mend the clothes of poor people without charge, knowing the cost would be financially and socially devastating? How many of us would be willing to experience inconvenience to make Christ known in a city with millions of poor people?
The statement that pierced me was that while we are cutting our missionary force, billions live in darkness without hope of hearing the transformational message of the gospel.
For just a few dollars more (the price of a Happy Meal) from each follower of Christ who belongs to a Southern Baptist church, we could have avoided the “reset” and averted this recent crisis. Are we willing to be inconvenienced for less than the cost of a Happy Meal?
Here are the facts:
• Pew Research discovered that the average Christian gives 2.17 percent of his income to the local church. Whatever happened to the systematic giving process we call “tithing?” It is what some of us were trained to do early in our walk with the Lord. The goal was that one day our grace giving would exceed what we can afford to give by a rising tide of generosity proportional to our faith. Pastors, as we train our people to walk by faith, we must once again teach our people the whole counsel of God about their finances.
• In 2014, the top 2,083 CP giving SBC churches gave 50 percent of the Cooperative Program dollars. Furthermore, the top 8,701 CP giving churches accounted for 80 percent of all CP funds.
• In most state conventions (including Missouri), a larger allocation of the total CP dollars received from our churches is moving in the direction of national and international missions and ministries. Each time Missouri Baptist churches exceed their budget goal, we immediately send 50 percent of the overage to SBC. At the same time, we recalibrate the next year’s budget to increase the percentage to the SBC national and international missions and ministries by the percentage we received over budget. It is a great plan to help us move to 50/50 early in the next decade.
How is that possible? We can do this because of the cooperative vision and mission of our MBC churches. The standard for most churches not too many years ago was 10 percent to CP. I would encourage our churches to make a run at that goal.
There are hundreds of our churches that give above 10 percent. My prayer is that the Lord blesses their generosity. Along with 4,422 other SBC churches, some churches may want to accept the “1% Challenge. ” Go online to MoBaptist.org/cp for details.
Sunday, April 10, is a celebration of the Cooperative Program. Since 1925, the Lord has trusted to Southern Baptists the mission and theological funding process called the Cooperative Program. CP is the conduit for the most sustainable, multi-generational, multi-faceted mission funding method in Christian History.
It all starts with the individual giving to his/her local church and the local church giving to CP through its state convention, which forwards more than 40 percent of its funds to SBC missions and ministries.
Check out the resources (videos, special CP Day bulletin inserts, book marks, and more) for your church at MoBaptist.org/CP.