William Thornton is the SBC Plodder and always has an interesting take on the happenings in the SBC
South Carolina Baptists are doing something that ought to raise at lease a single eyebrow around the Southern Baptist Convention.
They are taking a significant portion of their Cooperative Program receipts from the churches and sending it directly to the International Mission Board thereby bypassing the Executive Committee, all of the seminaries, the North American Mission Board, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
I am unaware of any other state convention taking this course.
The Baptist Courier has the story, carried here by Baptist Press:
The direct allocation to the IMB was boosted from $400,263 to $583,768, while the amount of Cooperative Program funds to be forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention remained unchanged at $11,685,000.
State conventions are autonomous, just like churches, and may direct their funding any way they wish but if they choose to take the traditional route of taking Cooperative Program receipts, keeping a portion for in-state use (the SCBC keeps about 59%, below the average for state conventions across the SBC), and forwarding the remainder to the Executive Committee, the International Mission Board would receive 50.2% of that amount.
A simple way to express this is to say that the SCBC gives about 5% of their SBC allocation directly to the IMB, that portion not being diminished by funds taken for the seminaries, Executive Committee, NAMB or the ERLC.
Under their policy of direct giving IMB, S.C. Baptists allot about 2% of the CP gifts from churches to the IMB. What this does is effectively double their giving over what it would have been if it was routed through the Executive Committee and half of it diverted to other SBC causes.
If the usual route were followed, church to state convention to Executive Committee to SBC entities, a church in SC that gave $1,000 to the CP would understand that about $206 ends up at the IMB. Under the policy that adds on a direct giving component to the IMB, a church in SC that gave $1,000 to the CP will understand that $220 goes to the IMB.
What the SCBC is saying is that International Missions has higher priority in their CP allocation and they are taking steps to accelerate IMB support.
I like the concept.
The Cooperative Program is our main channel for missions support, a mammoth funding engine. Here is what I see happening:
1. Churches are giving less of their offering to the CP. This is a trend a generation and a half long.
2. State conventions are moving to keep less of the CP dollar in their states. This trend was initiated mainly by the Great Commission Resurgence report. Many state conventions are making tentative moves from keeping 60% or more of the CP dollar to a 50/50 split. This is a very slow process that only marginally helps the IMB.
3. State conventions giving directly to the mission agencies, bypassing the Executive Committee, seminaries, etc. So far as I am aware, only South Carolina is doing this but if other states follow it would be quite significant and sufficient to be felt, mainly by the seminaries and NAMB who lose potential funding in this process.
SBC life is interesting these days. There are few firm ground rules.
Having formerly served in SC, I am familiar with things there but I do not recall hearing any reaction from SC Baptists on this nor can I find any discussion of it. I’m curious if there was any reaction.
All of the percentages get confusing in this and I admit to being messy with all the figures above. Here is another way to describe what the SCBC has done with their CP giving relative to the IMB:
“The SCBC is multiplying their support of international mission by routing the $573,768 directly to Richmond. Under the usual CP allocation formula for SC and the SBC, SC Baptist churches would have to give about $2.8 million to the CP to net that much for the IMB.”
The article wasn’t completely clear, but it seems reasonable to infer that the SC Convention has been giving directly to the IMB for quite some time, and are merely increasing the check now as part of the GCR. In effect they are saying, we like the GCR but only insofar as it means increasing the IMB and not in furthering the other national entities (there is no planned increase in general CP giving):
“The increase in the IMB allocation reflects South Carolina Baptist messengers’ decision last year, in adopting the state convention’s Great Commission Resurgence report, to increase supplemental funding to IMB by 21.95 percent over three years in order to achieve an amount that reflects what the missions entity would receive if the SCBC split its Cooperative Program gifts 50/50 with the Southern Baptist Convention.”
I’ll repeat the same question you did – are there other states that have taken similar action, either in the past or recently?
They started last year’ as I recall|
http://sbcplodder.blogspot.com/2011/11/getting-serious-about-missions-sc-bapt.html
I have found that the general (majority) population of the church have no idea what happens with cooperative program funds. Most that I speak to are under the impression that the majority, if not all, of the CP funds end up supporting missionaries on the field. They are shocked when I break it down for them this way. Our church gives approximately 200,000 dollars a year to the CP. 62% (124,000) stays in the state. Of the remaining 76,000 dollars, 38,000 dollars goes to the IMB.
This is not a problem if that is what you intend to be done with what you are giving. The problem is that almost everyone I run into has no idea that only 38,000 dollars is going to the IMB.
How many people in the churches realize that any of their money goes to other work? People are familiar with the special offerings (something the missions agencies receive and state conventions may have special offerings for the convention but that generally leaves out any additional funding for seminaries and other entities) but how often do they realize that a portion of their regular offering goes to support other SBC work?
I have been convinced for some time now that we have sent the wrong message throughout the SBC. We have elevated foreign missions above all else that we do. We feel that it is so important that we take up a special offering and we educate our people about how we do missions as SBC. No problems there. What is unfortunate is that our seminaries are not seen as being just as valuable in evangelizing the world. We debated about creating a special offering for our seminaries several years ago. We were going to call it the W A Criswell offering for Christian Education. It never got out of planning. My seminary experience was wonderful and very expensive. I wish every God called preacher in our convention could go to seminary with no financial pressure. That is not happening. For a convention to bypass our seminaries by designated giving is perfectly legitimate but I’m not sure its wise.
I think this may be another nail in the coffin of the SBC’s Cooperative Program. Whether that is good or bad, I don’t know. But as the process of designation spreads in churches and state conventions, the CP as we have known it suffers, and is likely going to fail.
Dave,
I agree with you, this is another nail. It represents a trend back to “societal support for foreign missions.” In at least some cases, it probably represents a bit of “selfishness, or at least provincialism.”
I personally have no problem for a larger share to go to the IMB. If I understand history, and I have not read a lot about it, support for missions was the impetus for the Cooperative Program.
Then, provincialism (well-intentioned) began to raise its head.
Modifying the Cooperative Program may be somewhat analogous to trying to be a “little bit pregnant.”
I’m not sure the CP can withstand much designated giving no matter how well-intentioned.
Yep.
The talk of the Cooperative Program’s demise is, forgive the cliche, seriously premature. I would at least wait until receipts fall below several hundred million dollars spread around the states, colleges, seminaries, mission boards, etc. The CP may be long in the tooth and not without difficulties but it is still the envy of other denominations.
And when I hear talk lamenting the “return” to societal giving, would it be too brusque for me to say that we never left societal giving and that we have always had a mix of societal and cooperative giving? Count the special appeals in your state. I’d bet there are quite a number.
My opinion is that there is a general belief among those informed about CP giving that allocations need to be weighted less to state conventions and more to national SBC work, and of the latter, more to the IMB. The SCBC just chose the quickest way to accomplish this on a state convention level.
After all, we went through the most thorough examination of SBC work in a generation and found all of about an additional half of a percent we could free up and give to the IMB for global missions – Great Commission resurgence indeed. The Cooperative Program is nothing if not highly resistant to change; however, churches and state conventions have options and are exercising them.
And let’s not forget that the seminaries have two significant funding sources apart from the CP: they can raise tuition and work their alumni base for contributions. They also have long recognized that the CP allocations alloted to them depend on student counts; hence, instant undergrad programs to get the FTEs up and along with that, dollars.
I don’t know if other states will do as the SCBC has done but if a proposal were made here in Georgia I would support it.
“And let’s not forget that the seminaries have two significant funding sources apart from the CP: they can raise tuition and work their alumni base for contributions.”
Keep in mind what that means:
1. Raising tuition for people training for ministry, making it more difficult for ministers to receive this training. The question for the SBC is, how much do we want an educated clergy?
2. Most of the alumni are preacher types who aren’t exactly swimming in the kind of money many other universities and graduate institutes can expect to find among their graduates.
#2 does present a unique problem.
I recognize, Chris, that tuition raises are undesirable but am merely observing that seminaries have this option that is unavailable to the mission boards which cannot by trustee fiat generate greater income. Seminaries can and do.
William, the IMB owns property and assets around the world generating income beyond the CP. Check out our assets in the Pac-Rim. I believe we all love and believe in missions. However, I am of the opinion that we need to make sure our seminaries can equip the best people to put on the mission field. Our seminaries are hurting financially. I am also of the opinion that if the SCBC would serve the kingdom better to defund its church music department and give that money to missions than to cut money to seminaries.
I am aware that the IMB has investment income. Last time I checked it contributed around 5% to their budget. They cannot merely vote and raise revenues from them, not to mention that sometimes investments lose money. Again, seminaries have the power to increase income by mere trustee vote which they have often done, do now, and will do in the future.
It’s not the subject here and I see no possibility of anything substantially different (the seminaries are untouchable due to vested interests) but we have six legacy educational institutions – six admin structures, six physical plants, six faculties, etc. The six seminaries add up to what, around $150m total in annual income from all sources, a figure about 30% greater than NAMB’s budget and almost half of the IMB’s? Why isn’t that sufficient to provide an educated clergy suitable for our denominational needs?
The key word, “six.”
Cut it down to “two” — one on each coast, or even one great seminary. The savings would be massive and the effectiveness unmeasured.
Chances of this ever happening: something about a snowball and hell.
Frank, I am willing to defend the seminaries spending practices against the IMB’s and most certainly against the state conventions who are keeping so much of the CP dollar. However, I do not believe this needs to be a seminary or IMB proposition. To say that a seminary’s total income is a certain amount can be misleading. We do not use investment income to pay for normal operating items. That would be disastrous. I will say goodnight by reaffirming my belief, our seminaries that produce our men and women of God are just as valuable in soul winning and missions as our mission boards.
Dean. No big argument from me. I attended two seminaries. Benefitted from both.
I don’t think seminaries will be the key to training pastors in the future.
Online Ed is going to make brick and mortar obselete.
The church will become the new seminary.
Change comes with a price. Great Commission Resurgence thinking was purported to be based on a desire for greater input to international missions. Look deeper into the message, however, and it codified a belief that we are not going to be a greater force for change as a Convention in the future, but a lesser force. We will not have the resources that we have had, so we need to make sure that more of the lesser resources reach the places we consider most important. There was a time of confidence in the Lord and and who we were as Southern Baptists that we believed we could expect greater resources to do everything we feel called to do. That time has come…and gone.
On line training is the wave of the future. It will further weaken our corporate identity. It is hard to feel the same loyalty to a place where you pay for a class and sit in your study than to walk the halls, know your colleagues and be overwhelmed by the passion of your professors.
Perhaps Dave would find someone willing to examine our seminary system and generate discussion specific to that. Topics would include, (1) our mid-20th century geographic model, (2) the morphing from exclusively graduate education to a combination of that and undergraduate, (3) the level of funding, (4) the resistance to change, (5) duplication of services, and other topics.
The action of the SCBC to fund IMB directly and cut out the seminaries from that portion of their spending was driven by a desire to put more money in their highest priority, not by any criticism of seminaries, or NAMB, or ERLC.
Not an area of my expertise, but I would be very interested in such an examination, if someone is willing to do the work.