Lost, swamped, overwhelmed by white hot discussions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, by debate about whether or not elder rule practitioner and SBC Pastor’s Conference invitee James MacDonald made a proper apology for calling congregational governance “satanic”, and by other weighty matters is this little item that directly affects tens of thousands of Southern Baptists in ways other than triggering social media explosions: Our beloved Cooperative Program is up 2.49% for the current fiscal year.
Baptist Press: CP 2.49% ahead of projection at mid-year point.
Year-to-date contributions to Southern Baptist national and international missions and ministries received by the SBC Executive Committee are 2.49 percent above the year-to-date SBC Cooperative Program Allocation Budget projection, and are 2.10 percent above contributions received during the same time frame last year, according to a news release from SBC Executive Committee President and Chief Executive Officer Frank S. Page.
“This report marks the first time since 2008 that CP contributions have increased over the previous fiscal year’s mid-point,” Page said, “and is the highest mid-year total since March 2012. This should drive us to our knees in gratitude to God and is truly a cause for celebration.”
Credit the SBC Executive Committee for prompt, accurate, and specific reporting about CP giving. They do so at the first of each month and reports may be accessed online. They even report the numbers by state convention, showing how much each convention has send to the EC in the previous month and whether or not this was more or less from the same month a year ago.
This may be the first year in many that the CP shows a significant increase, significant being a percent or two over last year. That might not sound like much but what it may be showing is that the long, slow decline of the CP as a percentage of church offering plate dollars has reached a floor and may even bump up slightly.
What SBC churches will find to be a reasonable percentage of their undesignated offering plate dollars to devote to the Cooperative Program has been somewhat of a mystery. It used to be over ten percent. Currently, it’s about 5.5%. If five percent or so is the floor then most SBC leaders will be privately celebrating. I know of no credible plan that shows promise of moving the percentage back up to any significant degree.
So, if the CP is up a little at the end of this fiscal year, what would that mean for the seminaries and mission boards?
Nothing much, frankly. If the CP is up 2.5% over budget allocations for 2014-2015 then the International Mission Board would have an additional couple of million on a budget of $300 million, not pocket change but not enough to move forward with any major new initiatives. Same for the seminaries and NAMB. We are hopeful of maintaining the level of CP support at the SBC level, not terribly hopeful of any significant infusion of money. Any of our entities that have major new thrusts are looking elsewhere for the money, not that they don’t appreciate the CP income stream.
Any way you slice it, though, staying where we are and not declining, maybe even inching up a bit is a good thing.
Could this bump be happening due to the Mega Churches increasing their giving? I really think a lot of Churches are holding steady in their CP giving, or even going down. But, I know that some of the Mega Churches have vowed to increase their percentages. Ronnie Floyd was one of them. So, if a Mega Church increases their giving from .05% to 1%, then that would result in a lot of money being given. Would it not?
I don’t know. Just thinking out loud.
David
Don’t know about that, David. I’d guess the economy and some states that bumped up their percentages for the EC would be the best guesses. I don’t see a megachurch trend here.
William,
I do agree that some of the bump is due to the state conventions increasing their percentage to the SBC. In my own state, TN, we are heading towards a 50-50 split.
Of course, what’s going to happen is that the different state ministries are going to start asking more churches to help them out…due to their budgets being cut. And, a Church just has so much money to go around. Some Churches may possibly start cutting their CP giving, in order to help fund the ministries of their State Conventions, which are dear to their hearts.
David
I’d be interested in how you or any of the pastors who read here would balance these things. Does your church review your CP giving and consider cutting it and giving the amount cut directly to state or other ministries?
William,
My Church gives 20% to the CP. We also give to many other offerings…Lottie, Annie, State offering, local Association, TN Bapt. Children’s Homes, local food pantry and clothes ministry(We Care), Hunters for the Hungry, the Gideons, and some others. We also pay for our people to go on volunteer mission trips.
I’ve had people talk about cutting CP giving, but my Church believes strongly in missions. So, the talk doesn’t get very far.
David
I don’t see how you do it, David. That’s stellar.
Now how many of those items are budgeted by percent of offerings like CP and how many are specific designated offering like Lottie & Annie?
My current church has increased the 3 main offerings(Lottie, Annie and for us California Mission Offering) by 85% over the past three years but I have been unable to lead us to increase our CP percentage.
I know that some churches give Lottie & Annie a specific budgeted amount but I prefer the offering method.
I do not think the increase would be due to states increasing their pass along percentages, because CP dollars are those dollars given TO the state conventions not those dollars given to THRU the conventions to the EC. Right?
So the increase here is in a) church giving and b) church passing it along to CP.
The Executive Committee’s monthly CP reports give totals and figures only for the CP money received in Nashville, not the total received by the state conventions. The increase reported is in CP dollars received by the EC but it surely implies an increase in CP gifts by churches to their state conventions. This is not meant as criticism of you (and perhaps my article was written poorly) but if pastors as well-informed as you are unsure or confused about reported CP figures, then one can see how simple it is for state convention administrators to spin CP data so that… Read more »
Honestly, I pay little attention to what or how EC reports CP.
I guess I was thinking of end of year reports on the ACP. That would include all the money.
The EC always releases a story through BP immediately after monthly books are closed. Good or be, up or down, they tell what the CP has done. Would that other entities did the same.
I’ve not been around much to comment, but this is very much good news.
I like the simple 1% increase per year in CP giving by each church that Frank Page advocates. It can add up a great deal over time and should not hurt a ton if you do it that way. That said, I struck out trying to lead my church to do it. I am a lay member by the way. Take more churches accepting the 1% challenge, add in more states going to 50/50 splits and then all these church plants pitching in and we might have something going. Brother Platt in a recent chapel sermon at SEBTS said that… Read more »
What Platt didn’t say is how he plans to get to 100k. I suspect we will be hearing soon and I’d bet that the CP (which is about 30% of IMB revenues) is not seen as a potential source of significant revenue growth.
My conjecture is that new IMB methodology and funding arrangements will have a high liklihood of causing churches to decrease CP giving.
But I join you in appreciation of Platt’s outsized global vision.
He made his vision know in relation to a story he related about meeting with some IMB personnel. He mentioned that one person asked what they could do to maintain the current level of missionaries and he said that it hurt him to hear that asked. He stated that we are not here to maintain but to get the gospel to the millions who have never heard of Jesus. He said that based on a more realistic number of actual members of the SBC that we should strive for not the current <5,000 missionaries but 100,000. He did not mention… Read more »
I’m trying to pay attention to IMB stuff. Part of any solution will be more direct partnerships with churches where churches pay personnel, their own people who have been vetted and have training and administrative support from IMB.
NAMB has had two near meltdowns in the past dozen or so years which didn’t help it’s image. They’ve lurched around doing a thousand things. Lottie has always been more popular. Fifteen years ago Annie was about 40% of Lottie. Now its about 37%.
Interesting. After reading your percentages, I was curious to know what the percentage of my personal AAEO giving is in relationship to my LMCO giving. It is between 36 and 37 percent. The church I pastor’s AAEO giving is slightly lower than that at about 30% of our LMCO giving. I think part of it is a recognition that the rest of the world combined is a lot bigger and a lot more people than North America. It is also a recognition that the gospel is already much more available in North America than some of the more unreached corners… Read more »
Interesting article at B21 yesterday. http://www.baptisttwentyone.com/2015/04/cp-giving-rises-in-5050-states/
Perhaps our resident expert in all things Iowa Baptists can speak to this.
I’m sure he will speaketh in due time. The new IBC CEO is one of my favorites.
I read the B21 piece earlier. The larger, legacy state conventions…well…we need a little bit of a track record before we know how this will work out.
The question I would have….is it not easier for mission states like Iowa and Nevada to jump like that? I mean, a couple of Churches could increase their giving to the CP, and it would cause their percentages to show a significant percentage jump….right?
I would want to see this happen in the states with a much larger population of Churches, before making such a statement.
David
I guess those legacy states would have to move to a 50/50 allocation percentage before we could see if it would result in the same effect. Our church was giving 15% to CP prior to the pastor who immediately preceded me. He led the church to reduce that to 10%. The church was also in a giving plan through the state convention (BGAV) that only forwarded 34% to SBC (the most generous to SBC of the 3 giving plans offered). But since our state convention allows us to customize our giving plan, he led the church to move into a… Read more »
“Percentage Change” is an important metric, particularly for those whose giving is sub-par, but it does not really take into account very clearly the starting point of the giving organization. For example, a church with a $500,000 budget giving only 1% through the CP ($5,000) might see a 400% increase by jumping to 5% CP giving ($25,000). The exact same size church, already giving at a healthy 10% CP level ($50,000) might see a minor reduction in receipts while continuing to maintain the 10% commitment, thus giving perhaps $98,500. There is neither a percentage increase nor an actual amount increase… Read more »
* $98,500 in example should be $48,500.
Mmmmm, a little sensitive is my Alabama friend. I agree with you that looking at dollars and percentages might help one compare churches, or state conventions; however… 1. When you say “sub-par”, you cannot mean a church’s giving, since neither you, nor I, nor Frank Page may set par for how a local church decides its CP giving. 2. Alabama’s budget graphic shows that the state with around 3,200 churches and over a million members needs to keep more of a CP dollar (56.7 cents) than Iowa with around 100 churches? Yeah, I understand legacy ministries that must be funded.… Read more »
Not intending to be chippy, William. I suppose whenever the topic of this state/national split comes up, all I hear is the broken record of GCR “bloated bureaucracy” all over again. Alabama is indeed adjusting percentages to send as much as possible to both national and international causes, but not at the expense of the mission we started in 1833–twelve years before the SBC existed–which is to reach Alabama for Jesus. I guess it would just be nice if someone were to say, “Hey, Alabama, you know what? Your state convention leads the SBC in total CP giving. You don’t… Read more »
Chippy…schnippy. We’re all friends here. It looks to me like every single Executive Committee or national SBC leader or spokesperson always commends states for whatever they give. A lot of voices are questioning the split percentages. I’m not convinced that any legacy state can justify keeping over 50% but all the ABSC needs to do is convince Alabama churches, not me. In my view the dozen or so legacy state conventions, the ones that receive and give most of the CP money, have a tough job selling their mission in 2015. I appreciate all the personnel in my state convention… Read more »
Adam, You said, “The 5% that was cut from our CP giving is now used for direct partnerships with other missions efforts.” I’m assuming by ‘other missions efforts’ you mean other than the IMB. If that’s not correct, please tell me. Just a quick question–and with no judgment implied at all. I ask only out of curiosity as part of the IMB. In those places you partner with other missions efforts, is there an IMB unit in the area with whom you could be partnering? Or are you in places where we aren’t–or doing things we don’t? (We don’t build… Read more »
Thanks for the question. The mission effort that receives the largest amount of those funds is a Wycliffe Bible Translation project in Vanuatu. We were also directly supporting a church plant here in the states with some of the funds. They are now self-sustaining. We are hoping to find another plant to support now. Only a small portion of the money goes to support a couple doing work similar to what IMB does. That couple will be working among unreached people that IMB is not presently working with. I understand your question, but you should not be alarmed by what… Read more »
Thank you, Adam. That answered my question. And I’m sure I speak for all IMB personnel everywhere when I say we love our friends at Wycliffe. Amazing folks doing unbelievable work. We have worked with UUPGs with no Bible in their language and seen Wycliffe’s work up close. And I wasn’t at all worried about what funds went to the IMB. Obviously, I’m pro-IMB and ask everyone here to give to Lottie Moon and CP and help support what we do, but we work along so many organizations doing great work, and I really wanted some insight into how SBC… Read more »
Rick said: “And, by the way, thanks for picking up the health insurance for those former Alabama/NAMB missionaries when their families were cut off in the layoff restructuring.”
It was, maybe still is, impossible to know the NAMB/State Conv. funding arrangements since the agreements were kept secret. Do you know what portion the ABSC funded of joint ABSC/NAMB personnel?
No. I just know that when the hundreds were laid off at NAMB, Alabama picked up health insurance for a lot of people who all of a sudden had none. There were some casualties in turning NAMB into NACPO–the North American Church Planting Organization. I agree those old arrangements were confusing.
Great to hear that the CP is up. I know Arizona has slightly increased the CP amount that goes out of state this year. Also thank you to William for the link in your article to find that giving information online.