JEFFERSON CITY – A new bulletin insert from the MBC helps Missouri Baptists better understand how their support of the Cooperative Program benefits the local church.
The Cooperative Program (CP) is the funding process Southern Baptists have used since 1925 to carry out the Great Commission at the state, national, and international levels. CP is designed to give every church member, and every church, an opportunity to invest in missions activities in Missouri, across North America, and around the world.
Even so, there are benefits that come back to the local church.
How CP comes home
The are seven ways the Cooperative Program helps MBC-affiliated churches, according to the brochure:
1. CP enables your church to work with other like-minded churches. Some 1,800 Missouri Baptist churches and 47,000 Southern Baptist churches work together through CP for the sake of the gospel. You vote on your church’s participation in CP. And your church’s messengers decide where and how CP funds are invested by voting at the MBC and SBC Annual Meetings.
2. CP makes every church member a missionary. While God has not called most of us to full-time vocational missions, He instructs us to pray for and financially support those who are called in this way. Through CP, you’re a true partner in global missions.
3. CP equips your church to financially support state, national, and international missions. Your gifts through CP support more than 9,000 full-time missionaries around the world, plus those serving as Missouri Baptist missionaries.
4. CP gives your church an efficient channel for missions. Your church’s CP gifts are combined with the CP giving of thousands of other churches. Administrative costs to collect and distribute CP gifts are kept very low so that more funds go directly where they’re needed.
5. CP ensures your church of an equitable share in a large program. No single church – no matter how large – is big enough to send out all the missionaries needed to fulfill the Great Commission. At the same time, no church is too small to make an impact. The Cooperative Program gives every church the chance to make a difference for Christ.
6. CP heightens your awareness of mission causes. When you understand how CP works, you see how it promotes evangelism, church planting, disaster relief, hunger ministry, Christian higher education, and much more. It even encourages many Southern Baptists to engage in short-term mission trips where they see first-hand how their CP giving is transforming lives and communities with the gospel.
7. CP comes back to you. Your church receives a wide variety of free or low-cost resources: training in disaster relief, VBS, and other ministries; access to statewide evangelism and discipleship events; assistance in the wake of a disaster; and personal consultations with MBC missionaries tailored to your church’s needs. But that’s not all. For pastors and eligible non-ministerial staff, the MBC provides complimentary life and disability insurance – even supplementary contributions to your pastor’s GuideStone retirement plan.
So, while CP gives you and your local church an opportunity to be part of something bigger than yourself, it also brings benefits back to you.
To order printed copies of the new brochure, or to download and print copies, go to mobaptist.org/cp. Or send an email with your request to cdowell@mobaptist.org, or call 800-736-6227 ext. 303.