SBC Cooperative Missions
SBC Cooperative Mission Program
Messengers to the 2007 Southern Baptist Convention approved the following definition of the Cooperative Mission Program:
The Cooperative Program (CP) is Southern Baptists’ unified plan of giving through which cooperating Southern Baptist churches give a percentage of their undesignated receipts in support of their respective state convention and the Southern Baptist Convention missions and ministries.
In 1845, messengers from local Baptist churches organized the Southern Baptist Convention to obey the Great Commission.
From the beginning, the unique identify of Southern Baptists has included three components: theology, polity, and missiology. Baptists with a common theology and polity united to do missions more effectively. These Southern Baptists had already formed mission organizations known as state conventions. They added a Foreign Mission Board and a Domestic Mission Board.
All these mission entities used the societal method of support. Each mission entity employed representatives to raise mission funds to support the missionaries and their work. Consequently, competition for funds, overlapping campaigns, and continuous “emergency” appeals led to serious debt among the mission entities and fatigue among the supporters.
Southern Baptists attempted to raise 75 million dollars from 1920-24 for all mission entities: state conventions, foreign, and domestic. Although contributions fell short of 75 million, the concept of a unified mission funding system captured the attention of Southern Baptists.
In May of 1925, messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Memphis, Tennessee adopted the Cooperative Program and the first Baptist Faith and Message statement. Southern Baptist polity led to a statement of theological confessions and a unified system of worldwide mission support.
Each Southern Baptist congregation determines how much of its tithes and offerings will be given to the Southern Baptist Cooperative Mission Program. Every Southern Baptist congregation sends it regular Cooperative Mission Program contributions to their state convention.
Messengers to the annual meetings of the state conventions vote on their mission budget which determines how much Cooperative Mission Program funds from the churches will support mission work in the state and how much will support the worldwide mission work of Southern Baptists. Based upon their approved budget, each state convention forwards a percentage of the Cooperative Mission Program funds (40.25% in Ohio) to the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Similarly, messengers to the annual Southern Baptist Convention approve the worldwide mission budget of the Southern Baptist Convention. Based upon this approved budget, the Executive Committee forwards approved percentages to the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, the six seminaries, and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Individual Southern Baptists give and determine the direction of the mission funds through a polity that supports a worldwide mission system with theological parameters.
The Cooperative Mission Program of Southern Baptists is one of the most effective and efficient missionary support systems in the history of Christianity. With minimal administrative costs, Cooperative Mission Program funds support over 11,000 missionaries all over the world. Through the Cooperative Mission Program, every Southern Baptist congregation can share in taking the gospel to their Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Let’s press toward that mark.
