Editor: William Thornton is the SBC Plodder and a keen observer of SBC life. This is a repost from his site It follows up on the discussion of the previous article he posted here, “SBC Presidents and the Cooperative Program.”
A 2007 survey yielded the unlikely statistic that 87% of SBC pastors were “generally satisfied” with the Cooperative Program.
Come on, 87% of SBC pastors will not agree that the sun rises in the east…but there you have it – SBC pastors happy with the CP.
So, why is it dropping like a rock, a trend over three decades long?
We may have more mental angst over baptism statistics but Ed Stetzer says that the trend line for baptisms over the past 60 years shows no “discernable pattern.” While baptisms may be the figure we love to tout or, lately, the one that is the subject of our jeremiads, it isn’t the most serious trend.
What’s dropping like a rock is the percentage of undesignated church offerings that is given through our venerable Cooperative Program. Check these figures:
Cooperative Program as a Percentage of Undesignated Church Offerings
1978-79…..11.130
1987-88…..10.323
1997-98….. 8.13
2007-08….. 6.082
2008-09….. 5.868
From the lusty 11.13% the year I was called in to the Christian ministry to the 5.868% for the last year for which I have statistics there is a staggering 47.3% decline. Here in 2011 we may already be at or past the 50% point.
Any way you slice this churches are sending about half of what they did thirty years ago through the Cooperative Program. If the CP were cereal, a corporation would declare it to be a dying brand and manage it accordingly, maybe putting the boxes on a lower shelf and moving on to newer and fresher products that catch the buying public’s interest.
Unfortunately, we don’t have a better plan or product than the Cooperative Program. Even though it has declined, it is still a huge funding engine and will surely continue to be the major denominational funding plan. No other plan makes as much sense.
So, how low can it go? I dunno. While I am certain that there has to be a floor to this drop, I don’t knows what it is.
Two salient questions:
1. Why the steep drop?
2. What can be done to arrest or reverse it?
I’d guess, I’d hope, that Frank Page, every state convention CEO, all the seminary presidents, Kevin Ezell and Tom Elliff arrive at work thinking about the Cooperative Program decline and what they can do about it. They cannot afford not to.
I read that Frank Page and the Executive Committee have retained an image consultant to see if the CP can be “rebranded.” I can’t pin it down but the idea of “rebranding” makes me recoil a bit. Regardless (alas, they didn’t check with me about this), we’ve now got this consultant and also a “consortium” of state convention stewardship specialists aggregated into something called the Stewardship Development Association (and I have a blog article on that).
The image consultant is a funky-haired, goateed forty-something hot shot who may have some new ideas that will help but I’d bet good Georgia dollars that every one of the state convention CP people are over fifty with most over sixty who probably don’t have many new ideas beyond, “Hey, how about you churches sending us more money.” Sorry to be so blunt but I’ve paid attention over the past 30 years to this stuff.
If this were a business you might have this conversation:
- “Hey, look at us, we’ve got “specialists” who work in the area of stewardship and Cooperative Program development.”
- “Great! How’s it working?”
- “Well, we’ve got a decades long decline in our major funding plan.”
- “Huh? Maybe we ought to get some new specialists.”
- Or, at least have them grow goatees and muss their hair…or even come up with something new.
I do think that it is important that the SBC arrive at some equilibrium on churches giving to the Cooperative Program and hope some fresh, new thoughts come to the surface.
What is behind the steep drop and what will arrest and reverse it, I don’t know but will speculate in subsequent blog articles.
By way of full disclosure my first two churches gave around 7 to 10 percent to the CP, though in my present church we have some rather serious financial challenges and will do well to give 1% this year. After evaluating what we can do, the church made a decision to give sacrificially to the IMB (we will end up with a Lottie Moon offering of about 3-4% of our budget) and maintain support as best we can to the association, state convention, NAMB and several local ministries. Plodder recognizes that he will not be in line for any denominational jobs or appointments with that low percentage but has accommodated himself to that reality.
I did not realize the drop was so precipitous
Has anyone prepared a ‘survey’ and sent it out to the Churches to discover ‘why’ this change has happened ? If the ‘survey’ is well-designed, it might yield some valuable revelations about what is troubling CP giving. AND, if the survey is diagnostic enough, honest voluntary responses to it might point the way to some practical solutions for the future.
Surely there is cause for concern, and of course some introspection is warranted,
but ‘an image consultant’???? Oh no. (groan)
The first link in my piece above is the Baptist Press article on LifeWay Research’s last CP survey of about a year ago. You can go from that to LifeWay Research and find the actual survey results. I just used one result. There were a good many questions surveyed.
But I don’t think it was all that helpful. I mean, how can 87% of pastors be ‘generally satisfied’ with something in light of the steep decline?
As a resident newbie Southern Baptist (just 4 years in), I can honestly tell you I have no recollection of ever hearing about the CP, even conversationally, other than here at SBCVoices. Maybe once…maybe.
In fact, I’m going now to look it up.
Well, there you have it. If the thing doesn’t get some marketing, some shelf space, in the churches, why would anyone buy it? To be fair to the stewardship specialists, they can trumpet the CP to the heavens but they canno make a single pastor use their CP promo stuff in his church.
Speaking of promo stuff, after I went to the website to read up on it, I did recall seeing their latest “WE > Me” brochures at church…I just never picked one up.
I have a church full of people who have no clue about the CP. But I’ve tried to instruct them about the advantages of the method. They get Annie and Lottie better!
We use the weekly prayer guide readings during our church service to talk about the CP, but that is the extent of our promotion outside of Annie and Lottie, at least for now.
This is what I was saying in my post on the SB and being relevant. We are not doing in our churches today what was done to educate the church in the area of missions giving, and the cooperative program. It’s something that needs to be emphasized in a way that doesn’t bore folks to death. One thing you could do is find out a particular person (seminary student), pastor’s church, missionary program that was directly helped from the amount of money your own church contributed. Let them know it was them who helped make it happen. Preach on missions at least once a quarter. Talk about how the churches of Macedonia gave abundantly from their lack to help the church in Jerusalem. They don’t need to be beat up, just informed. When I first learned the depth of what missionaries do through those little brochures, I was deeply touched. Have someone come up and carry on a conversation with someone in the front of the church and pretend they are just discovering what the brochure says and wants to know what his church is doing about it. Then the pastor or another could share exactly what is being done through the CP. See if you can get a real live missionary to cut you a video of the work they are doing.
It’s exciting just thinking about these ideas to encourage churches to give more. selahV
selahV,
I agree with you. We are working toward being more intentional about a great many things in our church and talking about the CP will be one of those things. Using the prayer guide during our worship service to tell the story of different IMB and NAMB missionaries was a fairly easy first step. There are plenty more that we plan to make over time.
good for you, Jeff
In my previous pastorate, I was trying to do that. The deacons asked me to stop, as it was boring and nobody cared about such things.
This church, people already understand how the CP works, but I keep them reminded anyway. It helps us stay focused.
William,
I do pray for Dr. Frank Page as he leads the Executive Committee. His pastoral leadership in the area of CP was refreshing to our convention when he was President.
A number of years ago, as the switch from HMB to NAMB happened, Associationalism seemed to be devalued — that was and is the preception of many that I served with, especially in new work areas.
An entire division was let go and it’s only gotten smaller. Not enough people in the SBC understand the importance of the local Baptist Association in SBC Life and the role DOM’s have played in linking young pastors and members to the importance of SBC Missions through CP, etc. DOM’s represent 1100 boots on the ground. As the historic role of the Baptist association has been called into question … could it be that many DOM’s and associational servants have felt back-handed. When you feel de-valued … the question arises: Why work so hard in teaching and training about things beyond my local association?
Now … a sense of devaluing is being felt by state conventions and their leaders. These servants represent many more boots on the ground.
What we have been slowly loosing is a grand sense of trust and a healthy respect for the autonomy of each level of SBC Life — local church, association, state convention, and national entities.
Everything has existed on trust and without it there can’t be too much cooperation.
I pray that it can be regained!
Hale is 100% right on the heart of this issue! “What we have been slowly loosing is a grand sense of trust and a healthy respect for the autonomy of each level of SBC Life”
I have watched (and warned) over the past 6-8 years that the Cooperative Program was going to suffer because of the actions of a few powerful personalities in the SBC who were using their positions as Denominational Leaders to advance their own personal opinions and beliefs… and in doing so were stepping on the “autonomy” of other Southern Baptist who did not share their personal opinions and beliefs.
As I have said many times in the past… “Decisions have Consequences…”
Grace for the Journey,
Does anyone else get the feeling the rest of the story is not being told? When we have large churches that have huge influence that give 0.01-3 percent then we have a problem. Our leaders smile and tell us how great the cp is but then show us they do not trust it by bypassing the cp. I applaud the missions giving but something stinks. I would love for some of our mega church pastors just be open and honest about why their churches give the way they give.
There are a number of reasons for the drop. One has been the tremendous struggle over the issue of Scripture. I can remember why I voted for the Conservative view, namely, because many of the Moderates would do everything they could to hinder one held to a strong view of Scripture from getting a church. Also there was not a single verbal inspirationist that taught at the Seminary I attended, and I was told emphatically be the dean and a professor that they could not have sch teaching there whic meant I would never be able to teach there. At that time there were Conservatives who were trying to carry out their mission for the Lord outside the normal parameters of the CP which was the onely way they saw to work according to their beliefs. Then there were those who were elected, generally the megachurch pstos who could easily go outside the CP to do mnsitry and get away with it due simply to their size. Unfortuntely, they did not see any value in propping up a program that had discriminated againt their vies (at least as they saw it). Then there was the legalism that the more independent minded brought to their involvement in the SBC. There was also the problem of great economic changes beginning to take place, that of jobs vanishing according to a plan and to a reality (the reality being robotics, computerization, and automation). When you can automate a Burger King and put 38 people out of work out of 400 and keep the thing runing on its regular 24/7 schedule and have on two of the 20 be highly paid technicians and the other 18 as clean up crew at minimum wage, you simply don’t need workers. Also the planning was to move the jobs overseas and th treaties for trade and everything behind it had been planned circa 1906. O yes, I forgot to mention inthe past 20 years here in North Carolina we saw the main employers of Baptists vanish, that is, tobacco, textile, and furniture employers ceased for various reasons. Environmental and health reasons explain the end of tobacco (they also got rid of the subliminally seductive advertisements that were a key factor in the sales of that product). Textile and furniture factories moved overseas to take advantage of cheaper labor, and the government helped them move by providing tax and othe incentives to aid the process. Then North Carolina had a great influx of new jobs and new people, jobs requiring more extensive and technical education (Computers, Medicine, Electronics). The Baptists did not really have the time to make the transition, and the jobs were taken by employees coming here from northern and midwestern and other states and from other nations. Guess where that leaves your average John Doe Baptist?
A failure on the part of Bible believers to address the intellectual aspect of the Bible also contributed to the decline in commitments, giving, etc. I am now reading a book about the success of a ministry in NYC. Imagine reading where irony can be a means to winning people to Christ. Who knows about irony being one of the highest arts of communication? There is more, but I must desist due to weariness. The intellectual challenge facing us in the Age of Information is perhaps one of the greatest we have ever faced, and, sadly, we lack that real grounding in the word of God as an intellectual book which reflects the depth of wisdom of the omniscient Being who inspired it. I often wondered why God had me study such things, when all I wanted to do was preach. Now I am beginning to comprehend the whys and wherefores of years of research and reading in the history of biblical teachings and how they influence human behavior and in the intellectual history of America.
The CR is reaping what it sowed by electing presidents that did not care about the CP. The SBC is following their leaders.
I’m surprised it took this long for someone to play the “Blame the CR” card. Isn’t that kind of opportunistic – like Obama blaming everything that is wrong with the country on Bush?
Simplistic and convenient.
Kind if hard to dispute facts when they stare you right in the face. It would be interesting to put the corresponding SBC presidents church CP giving year by year to compare to the drop in giving.
Another reason I believe we have seen a drop is that programs like WMU, GAs and RAs were essentially done away with at larger churches, smaller churches followed that lead resulting in less of a missions atmosphere.
Then we have the debt load that so many churches have. They can’t afford the buildings and staff so they cut back on CP
I think the “Another Reason” is the key: we have lost a huge portion of missions education, even in small churches.
This is hurting us in every aspect: missions, funding, growth. We tossed out those activities, focused on Sunday School and making it fun, and now are reaping the decline.
As to blaming the CR: the primary criterion used to evaluate leadership in the CR was inerrancy. This was good. However, did the CR possibly push high-profile inerrantists that weren’t big CP folks rather than risk lower-profile people who were inerrantists and big CP givers that might have lost? If you were there, you might know. I don’t.
I’d venture a guess that it’s not really a blame, it’s an unintended consequence: the doctrinal issues were set right. Now we’ve got to address the structural issues. And maybe the new SBC is going to be one that exists on a 5% CP base and we’ll have to cut what we do down to that level.
I would venture to say that “A” reason why the CP is failing is due largely to the size of the SBC. Or rather not necessarily size alone but rather the inability for the many different sub-groups within the SBC to get along with one another.
Take for example the realm of church planting in the SBC. First lets look at “We’ve been here forever” Baptist Church. Their membership is in decline. Back in the 50’s they were hitting 500+ members, but now they are lucky if they have 50 on a Sunday. And are lucky if they get 2000 in offerings a week. Over the past few years they have cut the staff positions until now it is just a part time secretary, and a bi-vo pastor. To keep the bills paid, they have had to cut their CP offerings. After all of this, the NAMB, State, and local assocation come in and plant a new church 2 miles down the street from “We’ve been here for ever” Baptist Church. This new church gets all the help, all the attention, financial support to get up and going and to reach all the people in the area. As a result 20 of the 50 that attended the old church up and leave. I ask you, How do you think the old church feels about the SBC and its “duty” to the CP?
Now move forward a few years. “We’ve been here forever” Baptist Church has shut its doors because they just could not pay the bills. BUT, “New guys” Baptist Church is having problems of its own. You see, “New Guys” decided to informally partner with “That one Reformed leaning networking group”. They still were SBC and (enter state name) Baptist Convention through and through, but they wanted to work with other churches beyond just their own state and association. Well…(enter state name) Baptist Convention does not like the “That one Reformed leaning networking group” one bit, and decide to withhold all support from any church, including “New guys” Baptist Church, that partners with “That one Reformed leaning networking group”. So i ask, why should “New Guys” Baptist church continue to support the SBC, (enter state name) Baptist Convention, and the CP after they way they were treated?
So, what was the end result of this little story? Well, TWO churches cut funding to the CP because of the way they were treated. And I would argue that this is proto-typical of how the SBC operates. The SBC has NEVER done a great job at unifying and trying to work through problems, rather it is full of division and conflict. And when both sides of a conflict feel neglected, BOTH cut their support!
Making it personal, as a soon to be SBC seminary graduate, looking for a small church to serve as God leads, why should I push my church to give to the CP, IF I feel that the SBC, the state, and association is all but ignoring my church? If a church I serve ever gets to the point of having our missions/evangelism budget being 50% of the whole budget, but we dont send anything to CP, is that wrong? And if so, what area ministries would you have us cut to give to the CP? Just food for thought.
Why?
1.) Because the CP is the hand that has fed you, since you aren’t paying anywhere near the full cost of your education. Or should you be among the last to reap that blessing from the hands of SBC churches?
2.) Because the SBC doesn’t exist to help your church. The SBC exists to jointly fund the efforts of churches to reach the lost. You fund the CP because the missionaries need it, not because your church benefits.
3.) Because the CP funds go to ministries/missions that are in agreement with the doctrines your church claims to hold. When you go seeking other ministries, you’ve got to evaluate their doctrinal statements and practices.
4.) Because with CP-funded work, your church has representation on the boards that run the work. With other agencies, until you’re one of the ‘big’ givers, you don’t get a vote or a say in what they do. With the SBC, while it’s a difficult sometimes, you have definite names to call and ask questions.
5.) Because your autonomous church isn’t being ignored, it’s being independent. What do you want? Someone to come in and tell you what to do?
Here is where everything you just said falls flat…MY calling is to serve the “We’ve been here forever” Baptist Church’s. I am called to be bi-vo as I continue my education and eventually (God willing) become a History Professor at some college/university. I want to serve these small rural churches (or maybe old urban churches( that have been around since the 1800’s. I already have had the privilege of serving some of these churches as a pulpit supply preacher. And my example that I showed…Of “WBFBC” being ignored while NAMB, State, and Local associations planted a “NEW” church right down the street, I HAVE SEEN THAT! When we have churches struggling and DYING out there, and all our focus is on NEW churches, some even right down the street, what does that say to the older churches? It is the SBC saying “WE DONT CARE ABOUT YOU AT ALL!” You say the SBC does not exist to serve the churches but rather to “work together” to reach the lost. Well if that work comes at the expense of churches that have been around since darn near the formation of the SBC, or at least for longer than most of us reading this have been alive, I want NO part of that denomination, that system, that CP. Reaching the lost does NOT mean ignoring the saved. But then again that is the problem in Baptist life isn’t it. We baptize our children when they are 8, 9, 10, and then ignore them for the rest of their lives even when they are falling into major sins, saying “well they were baptized!”
Also, as I will serve in churches likely under 100 members, those churches I serve will NOT have a say in any of the SBC’s boards, as those trustees are nearly entirely from “mega-churches” or “maybe” occasionally a 250ish church. But never from below 100.
As far as independent vs help….Again, when the SBC plants new churches down the road from old struggling ones, that is not allowing the old church to be independent, it is directly signing the death certificate! NAMB focus SO much on planting, but almost NO effort in revitalization of existing churches. We will plant a new church to reach the lost in a town, but why not strengthen the EXISTING church to reach those lost people FIRST!
As for what I “owe” the CP…Actually the “low” price of tuition thanks to the CP has actually been more of a curse to me than a blessing. I still am paying 180 cr/h now that might seem low, until you realize that there are very VERY few scholarships, grants, Fellowships, Graduate Assistants, ect to help defer THOSE costs. Plus, the school likes to give the implication that one should not be working in secular work while attending seminary (to focus on the classes), and that there are hardly enough open positions in the metro (or even extended area) to provide positions to all the students. Also, as a single student, I dont have a wife that has a job and can pay for our living expenses. Thus, I have a good deal of loans. THAT is what the CP has done for “ME”.
Smuschany
I would like to address some of your assumptions you have in your response to Doug if I may.
First of all, if you believe God is calling you to serve the smaller, bi-vocational churches, I say go for it. We need men who are willing to serve faithfully where God has called them rather than continually looking for the next “bigger” place to serve. If God has called you to a revitalization or refocusing ministry to existing churches, then go for it with your whole heart. Small does not equal bad and large does not equal good.
In you post, you paint the SBC, NAMB, State Conventions and Associations with an extremely LARGE brush, lumping all in the same bunch. That is not nearly the case.
I will speak from past to present, as to the future I have a little more worry about but, it remains to be seen.
Most state conventions and associations that I have served in and leaders I know care deeply for reaching the lost, discipling believers, starting new churches and assisting existing churches. They have always tried to keep a balance in doing them all. Realize, that depending where you see the emphasis as needing to be put, you will tend to view whatever is done from that perspective.
For example, in your illustration to Doug, you have taken the side of the existing church and against the idea of planting a new church “down the road”. The person working with the new church start would probably take just the opposite view as they look at the existing church. Unless you ask far more questions of both groups, you probably do not have the knowledge base to make the call on either group. Let me illustrate this further…
As you talk with the existing church, have you found out what they see as the reason for their decline over the last number of years? Does what they perceive measure up to the realities around them? Seeing some of their reasons for decline, what are they willing to do about it? Will they adapt, change or stay the same? Have they sought help from the association or state convention? It is one thing to say they are ignored and another thing to have never asked for help. Every church being autonomous does not allow the state or association to come in and mandate that a church change its ways. Do they see the new church down the road as a threat and if so, why?
On the other side of the situation is the new church start. What is the target group of the new church start? Are they targeting people from the existing church or are they targeting a segment of the population that is not being reached by the ministries of existing churches? Is this area “over churched”? Are the existing churches trying to reach the lost or are they content with a family chapel type of situation where it is “us four and no more”?
Bottom line is both can be right and both can be wrong, depending on motivation and reality of the situation. No state or association I know of intentionally wants to see a congregation die. The health of existing congregations directly affects the ability to start new congregations. One trend is to use existing congregations and their facilities to start new churches in the same building but, this takes willingness and a lot of work.
As to the future, especially as it relates to NAMB, I do not know. Dr. Ezell has said that NAMB wants to have a “laser like focus on church planting”. It remains to be seen what that will look like and how that will impact the care and training given to existing congregations. He has also said that one of the components of this focus will be “church health”. This may have a larger impact in new work states more so than the rest of the convention. I believe (and I could be wrong) that Dr. Ezell sees NAMB’s focus being largely on the planting end with the states and associations having a larger responsibility towards existing churches on the church health end. Pray for Dr. Ezell and all those involved as they go forward that whatever is done will have the greatest impact possible for Christ and His Kingdom.
In my opinion, we must have a both/and strategy or we will be but half a body.
As for you, be failthful to your calling.
Smuschany,
I understand you ideas of church A (wbf) and B (ng). Most times you will find chruch A still a strong giver because they will understand CP goes beyond themselves.
As to chruch B this (although in another form) takes place many, many time. The deal is they want NAMB, State, Assn CP money when they are starting out and then when the funding declines, they cut thier CP giving, even though it was that funding that allowed them to get started and pay the bills and now all of a sudden it is irrelevent.
Allow me to share a real situation that maybe illustrates this from a different perspective. Church C is a mega chruch. Church C wants to start another church (yea!-not sarcastic). Church C goes to State D and asks for financial assistance. State D works with Church C to secure funding thrugh NAMB even though what they are asking for is not the norm by NAMB standards. The chruch starts. A couple of months later, pastors (of large churches) around the state start getting calls from a staff member at Chruch C saying they want to start their own “chruch planting network” because State D is not willing to help them in thier chruch planting plans. Church C give token support to the CP. What do you think? Should state D continue to support their work? Is it ethical?
You showed perhaps a bigger part of the problem in you last paragraph more than at any other point in your post. How many time did you use the word “I” or “my”? To many times the decisions we make are based on I, me or my feelings rather than His church, His will. One of the great things about the CP is the fact that is about something far bigger than ourselves.
I have known a church that gave 50% of its income toward missions. While I admire greatly the giving of that church. The fact is it gives through independent mission organizations and that great giving will never be able to touch as many lost people as the money that a chruch gives through the CP. (side note-this chruch is not an SBC chruch)
You say you are preparing to graduate from an SBC seminary, who enabled you to attend the seminary at the price you paid? Did you pay the non-sbc rate? (even that is in part subsidized by the CP) If you did not, then all the churches who give freely to the CP just paid the large portion of your education. Now, if you are willing to take the CP portion of money that has paid for your education and then turn around and not support that same program is that a double standard?
I think you bring up a really good point.
Reformed SBCers would naturally be drawn toward something like Acts 29 which plants churches more in line with their own theology. Southern Baptists with, say, a more charismatic bent would lead that way.
We are such a varied community. The temptation is for each of us to align ourselves with groups that more closely reflect our viewpoint.
Is this bad? It is certainly bad for the SBC.
” . . . the NAMB, State, and local assocation come in and plant a new church 2 miles down the street from “We’ve been here for ever” Baptist Church. This new church gets all the help, all the attention, financial support to get up and going and to reach all the people in the area. As a result 20 of the 50 that attended the old church up and leave.”
has this REALLY happened?
. . . if it has happened, wow . . .
‘cooperation’? . .
sounds more like setting up ‘competition’
. . . and ‘sheep-stealing’ within one’s own denomination.
I think the problem is that the previous generation that gave over 11% did a poor job passing their reasoning for such giving, onto the next generation. New generations have continued the trend. I think this is the biggest problem with Southern Baptists; we are terrible at passing anything onto the next generation. If you ask Southern Baptists today that give over 10% to the CP, “why” they do, many will have difficulty responding beyond “This is what we’ve always done.” Youth don’t care about “what we’ve always done.” They need a logical reason; and many today–praise God–need a Scriptural reason.
I’m just a hacker and plodder pastor but I suggest 18 reasons why the CP has been steadily dropping. Many of those reasons are in some of these comments. Perhaps some can be fixed but some cannot.
But I will say that whatever the flaws of the CP, it is a program that has one indisputable advantage: it just makes sense.
It makes sense to give a single dollar that we know will be sliced up in thousands of pieces to cover all the stuff that we need.
It makes sense not to depend on 44k autonomous churches to provide direct support to all the things that are important in our work.
It makes sense to bundle our giving and get higher ‘buying’ power as a result.
It makes sense to support a plan that can have an overall, global strategy for missions because no single church has the ability to do that.
The one result of the fracturing of our SBC will be the end of the largest mission force in the history of the Protestant/Baptist Faith. This has been the desired goal of some, perhaps many, outside the SBC. Fracture the last remaining great missionary effort, and there will be no one on the national scene to maintain the cause of freedom as well as the cause of the Christian Faith in the public forum with any thing like the numbers required. Of course, it might be a Divine purpose to win the rest of the earth by the martyrdom of multitudes of God’s people. The last long lasting one was a 1000 years in length. The ones in the 20th century were more intense and focused and short-lived for the most part.
This is not that hard to explain. Just ask a few questions:
1. Consider the financial situation of churches and people today.
2. How many SBC churches see the CP as the primary means of doing missions vs. local causes, direct funding of missionaries, other parachurch causes? I suspect that most churches enjoy giving to other things, too, and there are lots of options.
3. What is the state of denominational giving in other similar Protestant denominations? I suspect they are all down.
Denominationalism continues to decline in popularity. Many strong churches would rather be known for their commitment to Christ, to solid doctrine and actual ministry instead of denominational affiliation. I know the two are not mutually exclusive. But many churches consider too much denominational affiliation and involvement as a barrier to reaching all types of people. That’s why many new churches do not put “Baptist” in the name. That attracts people who are looking to join a Baptist church. Many poeple today want to attend a church that is active, effective and faithful to Christ, and they fear getting too involved in a denominational program.
I don’t think that these negative trends that affect the CP giving percentage are going to change. The religious world, and the world of ministry have changed – and will continue to change.
4. Has the denominational leadership been effective in using resources and presenting itself to the world? I personally believe that the national leadership at the SBC has done much better than other denominations that have not been faithful to Christ in some fairly open and public ways. Those denominations continue to hemorrhage members.
There is also the state leadership to consider. When we started our church in 1992 we were not impressed with the state leadership. We did not want to send $1.00 to them to have them skim off $0.68 to keep in the state.
So, we sent most of our money directly to Nashville. Well, that money is NOT counted as CP giving.
The State leadership has changed recently, and it has improved, but the programming is old, stoggy and not doing what lots of our people want to do. For example, I NEVER read the state Baptist paper. They could shut down the entire operation for all I care. Do any of you on this blog who are not pastors read your state paper?
I doubt that we will start giving all of our money to the CP through the state. We give money to the State, much more to the SBC directly, fund our own missions projects, fund some missionaries directly and give to local ministries.
In fact, if the SBC developed today, I doubt that there would even be state conventions.
I would say that our church is not atypical, especially among churches that have been founded in the last 20 years.
The national leadership of the SBC has done a good job of returning us to solid biblical teaching in the seminaries and taking biblical positions at other agencies. There have been times when we were not wise about handling things, and that does hurt in the PR world. The media is not keen on any religious group that holds to orthodox theology to begin with. But the SBC is so big and came back from doctrinal slide, and has such colorful people, that we are often an easy target. We should recognize this and be circumspect.
Also, there are pockets in the SBC that have momentum and are doing well. Go the 9 Marks meetings at the convention this year or the Baptist 21 meeting. They are great.
To suggest that we would have done better under the old moderate leadership is laughable. Look at the CBF, the Alliance of Baptists, and all their related groups. Their decline is even more preciptous. The leadership of the people that lead those groups would have taken the SBC down much faster, especially as biblically faithful people and churches would have left in droves.
I heard Adrian Rogers say in 1979 or so that if things did not turn around, he was not going to continue to fellowship with liberals in the SBC. Can you imagine if Bellevue and First Dallas had pulled out of the Convention in 1985 or so? That would have started a pull out of mammoth proportions.
That’s basically what Mid-America seminary was about. Establishiing a conservative seminary in SBC life as an alternative to SBC seminaries. With the resurgence, the possible envisioned split never came to be.
So, I don’t look for the trend to change any time soon. But I don’t worry about it either.
We should do good work, make sure that the churches and people understand what is being done and why, and manage our insitutions well and project a positive image consistent with biblical fidelity.
Let the numbers take care of themselves.
Let’s stop the idolatry of self-flagellation, which Baptists really seem to enjoy – all in the name of truth telling.