About a month ago the CP was reported by Baptist Press to be significantly lower than the previous year. Someone even wrote an article about it. After December’s CP receipts were reported by the Executive Committee, all is about the same as last year.
National CP .04% above last year’s first quarter
Give my colleague and fellow Georgian William Maxwell of the Tennessee Baptist Convention credit for his observation last month that advised ““Pay[ing] no attention until the end of the first three months.” It simply takes that long for the calendar to work itself out and the trends begin to appear.”
He was right. Someone ought to tell the CP alarmists among us to relax, chill, have some eggnog in December and wait until January before getting exercised over CP giving.
I’m still predicting that Lottie Moon will be lower than last year.
It appears that the month to month report on the Cooperative Program depends on the date of the last Sunday of the month. For example, if the last Sunday of the month falls on the 31st, then a lot of churches will send in their gifts in the next month. So, the level of giving in the previous month will be lower, and the level in the current month will be proportionally higher. I’m a retired missionary, so I hope you are wrong about the Lottie Moon Offering; however, I fear you may be correct. Last year, a lot of… Read more »