In Part One, I explained that despite its worthy intentions, the One Percent Challenge does not satisfy the test of a specific and measurable goal, advocating that Southern Baptists pick a number high enough to meet our ministry obligations and promote it so our churches might measure themselves against it and determine if they are paying their fair share. I also dismissed the notion that setting such a true target (rather than a minor directional change) would in any way violate the autonomy of any local church. In Part Two, I separate Cooperative Program giving goals from leadership requirements and expose the fallacy of pitting missions dollars against missions percentages.
Let’s Not Make This Personal
I confess that I used to think Cooperative Program percentages should be a litmus test for leadership. Why follow someone whose church is not a model for others? Why reward with a leadership position someone who is not acting in a way that, if emulated by the rest of the convention, would result in a healthy denomination? Specifically, why elect a megachurch pastor whose church gives 1-5% through the Cooperative Program? That percentage is below average. If every church followed his lead, we would decline even further than we already have. Why send such a message to our convention?
The first reason is that we may not have much of a choice. With a convention average of about 5.6%, some leaders will be above that threshold, but many will fall below. My hope and prayer is that those whose Cooperative Program giving is bringing down our average would not justify themselves, but agree that setting a higher, specific and measurable goal is a worthy endeavor. Who among us would be so small as to set only such specific and measurable goals as we ourselves are already achieving? I admit my church is two percentage points off my own proposed goal for SBC Church Budgeted CP Giving in 2014 with plans to be one percentage point off in 2015.
The second reason for separating this percentage goal from leadership positions is that a Pastor is not a church. Congregations vote as a whole on their budgets. Perhaps there is a Finance Team in place controlling that amount. Perhaps the church carries major debt from a previous minister’s tenure that must be retired. Perhaps there are local ministries that have been temporarily prioritized. Perhaps a major business has closed and the church is facing a financial crisis of severe proportions. Perhaps, in the case of megachurches, there are unusual overhead costs associated with expansion, or there are specific mission projects being funded in a societal manner. Whatever the case, it is unfair to hold one man responsible for the missions support level of the entire church.
The third reason we should avoid linking a denomination-wide Cooperative Program Church Percentage Goal to leadership qualifications is the most pragmatic of all. Like it or not, the Southern Baptist Convention has a long standing tradition of electing our leadership from the Pastors of our largest churches. Our best known ministers have name recognition and preaching skills inspiring trust and confidence. Lesser known leaders have generally proven unelectable. Thus, if this strategy to fix the Cooperative Program is to have any chance of success at all, it absolutely requires one thing—a Megachurch Pastor big enough to admit that his church’s CP percentage is too small.
Rather than merely promoting a direction (“Give a little more, folks!”) he must have the courage to pick a number and say, “All of us should follow my example and commit ourselves to increasing our Cooperative Program giving until we reach (fill in the blank) percent!”
I can forgive a leader for falling short of a truly God-sized goal. I cannot forgive him for setting a goal so small that its achievement would not solve our problem anyway.
The Language of Dollars and Percentages
Another needless distraction in this debate concerns the pitting of raw financial data (expressed in dollars) with comparative financial data (expressed in percentages) as if these were two different concepts rather than the same concept expressed in differing units. One might commonly hear this unfortunate claim: “We don’t pay for missions with PERCENTAGES—we pay for missions with DOLLARS!”
Pitting dollars against percentages is illogical, for dollars are units of measure while percentages are numeric expressions. In the following verse, Jesus clearly prefers the use of numerical percentages over the use of numerical figures when it comes to comparing the offering of mites: So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.” (Luke 21:3-4)
Although the wealthy gave larger gifts when measured in raw numerical terms, Jesus considered this woman’s two mites to be of considerably greater value than the gifts of the rich. Please note that Jesus never contrasted percentages with mites. He contrasted percentages of mites with raw numbers of mites. The mites are present in both cases. “All the livelihood that she had” (which is to say, 100% of her livelihood) is not contrasted with “mites” but with the unspecified offerings of the rich out of their abundance. The widow with two mites gave one hundred percent of her mites. Whether we speak about numbers of dollars or percentages of dollars, we are still talking dollars.
If a rich man from a rich church with a twenty million dollar budget says, “We gave one million dollars through the Cooperative Program last year,” his one million dollars is five percent of the dollars. If a poor man from a poor church with a fifty thousand dollar budget says, “We gave five thousand dollars through the Cooperative Program last year,” his five thousand dollars is ten percent of the dollars. Since ten percent is greater than five percent, the five thousand dollars is greater than the one million dollars. Since Jesus looks at the percentages, we should do the same thing. Yes, dollars pay for missions, but higher percentages of dollars pay for a greater level of missions.
To whom much was given, of him much will be required. (Luke 12:48) The concept of “equal sacrifice, but not equal gifts|” is well established. We do well to honor this principle with our actions, rather than undermining it with our rationalizations. When we place greater value on raw figures than percentages, our practice is clearly not the same as that utilized by Jesus.
In Part Three, I take issue with two divisive practices—direct societal appeals by our agencies and support channel circumvention by our churches. Such approaches cut off at the knees the very missions funding strategy rightly considered to be our greatest Southern Baptist contribution. Simply put, they attack our cooperation by excluding the smaller church. While every SBC church can participate in the Cooperative Program, only the largest can participate in certain special projects. Although such practices are not uncooperative, they are nevertheless non-cooperative. It is not that they are failing to do anything at all. It is simply that the manner in which they are doing what they do necessarily excludes smaller churches who are willing but unable to cooperate in that manner. For the sake of a common strategy and approach, let us abandon practices that we cannot do together in favor of practices that we can.
If you in one statement speak of a “fair share” for all churches in support of our entities and of a proportionate share of a church’s budget that should be our common goal and then draw back from saying that entity leaders, trustees, and elected leaders should be held responsible for that ‘fair share’ or percentage of their own church’s budget you fail to be consistent in applying your own cooperative principles.
We had megachurch, low percentage leaders because they drove the CR. We no longer need that type of leadership. It is counterproductive to put in place trustees whose churches fail to exhibit a minimal level of CP support. What we need is a little backbone here. If a megapastor is offended because we believe that churches that provide leadership through trustees or employees should show a 3, 4, or 5% minimum CP support, then perhaps we should recognize that such churches are not an asset to our common work.
While I respect and even admire those small churches that give large percentages, dollars pay bills, not percentages. They always have. They always will. You are expectorating in the wind here. So why is this a problem if you have already absolved the leader of such big dollar/low percentage church of having any responsibility for such church policies?
“What we need is a little backbone here.” Agreed. I do not consider your 5% minimum threshold to be backbone, but to be jelly. I do, however, consider my 10% goal to be backbone, since ten percent will actually get the job done. Why go with 5% when the fact remains that if everybody gave at that level, we would not solve the problem anyway? It’s a proposed “minimum threshold leadership goal” that does not lead us where we need to go in paying all our Southern Baptist bills.
“Dollars pay bills, not percentages.” Balderdash. I could easily pay all my bills with ONE HALF OF ONE PERCENT of the income of Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Percentages pay bills because they are percentages of dollars. Percentages are numbers. It’s like saying, “Numbers don’t pay bills—dollars pay bills.” There’s a number and there’s a unit. The old line about “dollars pay bills, not percentages” is a red herring.
“So why is this a problem if you have already absolved the leader…of having any responsibility for such church policies?” I am not trying to work primarily through the Pastor to pay our Cooperative Program bills. I want to tell the people in the pews who understand that our mutual work requires equal sacrifice that what we have been doing lately will simply not cut it.
It’s the difference between “churches measuring themselves against the ‘fair share’ standard” and “convention voters measuring candidates against a ‘minimum threshold’ standard” that won’t get the job done anyway. I’m asking that Megachurch Pastor to have the backbone to say TEN PERCENT. It requires more backbone, more percentages and more dollars, but it fixes the Cooperative Program.
A 10% goal is not backbone but fantasy. Who is interested in more than doubling the amount of funding that the various state conventions receive? Hardly anyone. I appreciate a challenge as much as the next guy but I’ve been around long enough to recognize that unrealistic goals are not goals at all.
Here’s a salient point: We do not need to double CP giving to pay the bills. We are already paying the bills. We need an additional sum to put personnel on foreign fields but why ask churches to give another dollar so that we can put twenty cents of it toward that and spend the other 80 cents on things that aren’t nearly as important. This illustrates the great flaw in the CP.
The CP does not have any additional appeal to churches by just saying that we need more money. It’s tough to visualize any improvement in overall CP giving if all that is done is as for more money. We’ve been doing that for decades. The very first year I was a pastor, 1982, the XComm had a grand ‘give us more money’ program that called for churches to increase their CP percentages by .5% per year.
I’d bet Georgia peaches or pecans or peanuts that convention leaders would accept a 5% floor for the CP if one could be guaranteed rather than a 10% goal.
…but I appreciate your fantasy plan over those who favor eliminating the CP.
Rick, I’m going to have to affirm William’s point. If the leaders of the mega-church have led their churches to become “mega” they could just as easily have led them to give to the CP “mega”. I think the only caveat would be if a pastor came to an existing mega-church and consistently and immediately sought to increase giving to the CP. As this would be easily documented that pastor, IMO, would meet William’s criteria.
And to William’s other point, while I agree wholeheartedly that small churches are probably giving higher pcts (on average), the fact does remain that dollars (the sum of all the dollars) is what drives our programs. To whom much is given, much will be expected.
I guess what I’m really saying is that we need to grow a backbone and tell the mega-church leaders and celebrity-pastors that they will be judged by the company they keep (their congregations and their giving to the CP). So, I do agree with you about percetages.
The “ten percent is a fantasy” notion is defeatist and inaccurate. THOUSANDS of churches—even today—give ten percent through the CP. We can do this.
I used to believe we should hold our leaders to such levels as well, but your pragmatism actually got to me: (a) there are too many leaders who will not reach that threshold, (b) the leaders are not always the ones in church of their finances, but rather the entire church is, and (c) since those megachurch leaders are going to get elected anyway, we need them to “buy into” the logic of what we have called our “greatest Great Commission channel.”
We need a Megachurch Pastor big enough to admit his CP is too small.
I believe Ronnie Floyd has done this. Check his CP between 2006 and this year.
It’s not that there hasn’t been a clamor for 10% giving. It just has not worked for a number of reasons, mainly that no one sees any sense in doubling the money that goes to state conventions.
One thing that could help the Cooperative Program is to stop presenting it as a way to get money to the international mission field.
The IMB Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is for that purpose.
The Cooperative Program is a way to get money to all mission fields, state, national, international.
We need the state and national (and Associational) to keep a strong base to continue getting money to the international mission field.
It is unfair to judge the CP solely by how much gets to the IMB.
http://gulfcoastpastor.blogspot.com/2012/01/cooperative-program-not-intended-to.html
David R. Brumbelow
Excellent observation, David. We’ve done so much CP promotion highlighting what God is doing in the uttermost that we have neglected all that He is doing through our state conventions in our Jerusalems, Judeas and Samarias. And we wonder why people don’t have an appreciation for the state conventions. CP promotion needs to focus on ALL mission fields. You are absolutely right!
It is a bit of irony to note that state conventions often emphasize the overseas use of CP funds and neglect the more mundane uses. Any time there is a discussion like this one I read people who make this point. We cannot exist without the CP which ties all the pieces together. They are all important; however, there is strong appetite for adjusting the split and the allocation formula, a virtually impossible task.
Whether it is “backbone” or “jelly” or “fantasy” or “spitting (a good Montana word) in the wind” I do not know but 10% is reasonable and achievable if we fix some of the brokeness of the CP, namely waste.
I grow weary of the discussion as it relates to who gets elected to what, which is a discussion of power. I don’t know how to fix or change that but I do know that if we get stuck on how people are put into positions of power, the world is going to go to hell around us. Let’s get it fixed, God is not required to work with only SBs. He may move on to other groups while we squabble.
“The slow and relentless decline” of giving to the Cooperative Program is good, but the truth is that this might be the calm before the storm of implosion. After all, in North Carolina three of the major forms for employment for Baptists have been removed, namely, Tobacco, Textiles, and Furniture manufacturing. The first deserves no comment, but the other two, Textiles and Furniture, sure do. Mass employment, assembly line employment is a thing of the past due to automation, computerization, and robotics. Add to the problems created by the processes just mentioned the idea of moving jobs South of the Border or overseas. Now they are beginning to bring those jobs back, but guess what? They don’t need all the workers anymore. A picture in the Charlotte Observer spelled it out for us. It showed a long line of textile machinery with just a few workers here and there. A big change from the past, to say the least.
What we are really watching is a well-planned and deliberate effort to remove one of the underpinnings of American Democracy…even in its Republican forms as well, namely, the Baptist churches. Other denominations with but a few exceptions have also been removed or nullified by the power behind so-called Liberalism (really skepticism, an intellectually idiotic morass that will land the followers in solipsism).
Behind the Conservatism of today is an aristocratic viewpoint which is about to come to the fore, and we shall once more find ourselves under the heel of absolute monarchism, of government by the elite, who are really the wealthy vying for control. The same force is behind the so-called Liberalism also. We are being subjected to a Marxian dialectic designed to bring us to despair and to giving up. The pressure and stress on our church members as well as the decline in job opportunities is going to become greater in the future unless we wake up to what is happening.
Just think what the hole in America created by the abortion of 55 million babies, the future of any nation. But we still have people here taking their place, illegal immigrants, etc. Some are, of course, legal, but note their religious view points. We also have an educational system designed to churn out agnostics and atheists as well as skeptics of one kind or another. Pretty soon our denomination leaders will be out of a job, and few will be willing to pastor our churches due to the threat of law suits, the pressures to compromise, and the unwillingness of superficially converted people to suffer for the cause of Christ (cf. our Lord’s statements about the seed that fell on stony ground).
The answer is lies in a Third Great Awakening, but we have people praying for it who have no idea of what such a visitation involves. We need ministers who know Jonathan Edwards’ Humble Attempt which called on Christians to unite to pray for the spread of the Gospel to other lands. Thus, in 1785 William Carey, Andrew Fuller, and others began to pray for what would become the Great Century of Missions or the Modern Missionary Movement. Seven years later Carey would go to India and become the Father of the Modern Missionary Movement. What was his theological viewpoint: It was Sovereign Grace or Calvinism as some are wont to call it, mistakenly identifying the teachings of Scripture with a man’s name, a practice encouraged by those who want a ground for defeating a biblical viewpoint noted for its emphasis on liberty and a world vision, one that determines to win the whole earth and every soul upon it for a thousand generations and upon a quadrillion planets as mankind goes to the stars. As Ben Rich, the head of the Skunk Works at Lockheed said to the graduating class of UCLA in 1993, “We already have the means to go to the stars.” Really? Well, if so what have they done in the past 21 years? Wake up Southern Baptists.
Our theology is really more than equal to the task of keeping our people, preserving for them their religious liberty, etc., but it will take some suffering and a lot of defeats before we gain the day. But we will gain due to God’s great promises which Edwards recorded in his Humble Attempt.
I hope it is not lost in this discussion of fantasy goals and defeatism that I admire Rick Patrick for many things I have read over the past few years. I just don’t think he is realistic or credible here.
If SBC leaders were to ask for the 10%, several hundred additional millions for the CP, the first question by the churches would be, “Where is this money going?”
The answer would be, “We’re going to give most of it to your state convention, with much lesser amounts to IMB, NAMB and the seminaries.”
Churches would immediately recognize the folly of doubling the GBC or Alabama BC budget while letting NAMB and IMB get far less. Makes no sense at all.
I certainly admire William Thornton as well, but simply disagree that our 5.6 can never again become 10.
I think the first question among our churches would be, “If we sacrifice a few luxuries and bring our gifts to 10%, will our seminary presidents stop calling our state conventions “bloated bureaucracies” and quit fighting amongst themselves? Will we be able to support EVERY layer of our mutual missions work– in the process paying ALL the bills AND getting the missionaries to the nations? If we pay like we used to pay, can we achieve like we used to achieve?” And to all that, I say, “Yes.”
The people in the churches I have served have gladly given to support the state convention.
Both Rick and William have advanced good arguments for their respective positions. One last comment from me tonight. Ten percent can be attained, but more compelling arguments must be put forth to accomplish that number. It will have to start with the states saying that they are going to eliminate waste, delete meaningless positions, and constantly study cost effective methods.
Ten percent can be attained through a combination of direct giving to the mission boards and seminaries by both churches and state conventions. This isn’t quite cooperative giving but it better fits the reality on the ground in the SBC.
There is no possibility of the CP reversing course and moving to 10%+ average church giving as it was thirty years ago. None.
For those who believe that it is possible to retool the CP to satisfy all those who believe the proportions are out of balance. That was essentially what GCR was about. You can see the results. Very minor changes. The CP looks just like it did prior to that little exercise.
When I read those who advocate moving to 10% or some other, higher figure, I recognize that we are never very far from finger pointing at those low percentage churches that have evaluated their mission goals and believe they are obeying God by giving as they do. No amount of shaming, cajoling, or whining about them will cause them to change.
In fact, the trend is for our entities to work with these churches, the larger ones with considerable financial resources, to create and carry out special projects that meet both the IMB’s strategy and goals and also the church’s. Like it or not, this is the direction we are headed.
Rick,
Thanks for the articles on CP. I’m looking forward to the third. I agree that the convention needs to pick a number as the goal that should be shot for. The 1% challenge is good, but as you indicate in the last post it is not a true goal.
Unfortunately, I agree with William Thornton on two points. I don’t foresee a 10% goal being attained any time soon. In some ways I’m afraid that ship has left. The reason unfortunately being societal giving. Not just to our entities. Today our entities must compete with other parachurch organizations. As churches and individuals have given to them, they have diverted funds away from CP. This leads to our entities appealing directly for funds as individuals wanted to give directly to a cause not an organization. Again this resulted in funds being diverted from CP. I think churches can increase what they give to CP, but the parachurch orgs will continue to siphon money away. Thus I’m not sure 10% is still attainable. I wonder if something more in line of 8% would be seen as reasonable. I would hope also to commend those churches that go above and beyond by giving 10% or more.
Second, I agree with William T. that change has to come to the state conventions. It becomes harder and harder to defend CP when you know that most of the money stays in the state. Two examples: In my previous pastorate I pastored a church that gave 15% to CP. (We talked CP and emphasized CP constantly.) One Wednesday night we did a study on CP starting with me telling them how much money (the actual dollar figure) we gave to the IMB through the CP. They were shocked and our treasure thought I had made a mistake as they knew we gave far more money to CP. They didn’t realize that 2/3 of it stayed in the state. Second example is my current church. The budget had gotten out of balance prior to my arrival. We had to cut, and we cut many church programs. CP dollars were tempting throughout the process. It was hard to defend them, again knowing that much of the money stayed in the state. In the end they reduced the CP by one percent (we’re still above 10%) while in executive session that I was excluded from as they discussed salaries.
Finally, I do think we need to reprioritize CP giving. I agree with you that we need to talk about percentages not just dollar figures. However, I also agree with William T. that we’re going to have to change the messaging. We have to connect CP giving to the causes that folks want to give to and emphasize to them that they are giving to these causes not to a program or a bureaucracy. We also are going to have to reprioritize how giving is done at the state level as I do believe it has a major contribution to churches diverting funds elsewhere. Its not the only reason (church programs and direct giving still play a much greater part), but its still a major reason.
WC wrote, “One Wednesday night we did a study on CP starting with me telling them how much money (the actual dollar figure) we gave to the IMB through the CP. They were shocked…”
This is a story I hear often. States have an incentive not to be completely and aggressively straightforward about CP distribution because it is in their interest that churches believe more of their CP dollar actually goes to missions overseas.
“Shocked” is the term I have most heard when laypeople finally find out how their CP dollar is distributed.
No one is lying about the matter. It’s just a Byzantine system not easily grasped.
I still grapple with cause and effect as it relates to CP. The reasons set forth in this thread explaining why the decline are not new. We have always had waste, para-church organizations, economic downturns, and disputed distribution. This was true 35 years ago as it is today.
Hence I ask myself, “why the decline”? “What has changed”? One major difference between then and new is the internet. Could it be that advanced communication and the internet has expanded the knowledge to a larger base including laymen? It has always been there, but now more people know about it.
That is a question. I would be interested in what you think?
The ease of communication and connections has made mid-levels of our institutional life less relevant and necessary. This has meant that state conventions are no longer needed for many of the functions they fill. Both state conventions and associations have been put on a position of having to justify their existence to the churches.
A site like this one (SBCV) far better fills the need for discussion and interaction among SBC pastors and laypeople than a ministers conference or even a state wide meeting. It’s easy to relate to whatever affinity group you prefer and geography is mostly irrelevant.
William
Thanks for the response . You make a definitive argument. I will need to “chew on that” a little
What seems to be fantasy and defeatism is really the assessment of years of study and facts known, practically, before they came to pass. Consider an item I wrote for the Director of Vocational Education in a county school system. She asked me to evaluate some papers which she had obtained at a Jobs in the future conference which I did. Basically, the papers indicated that there would be no jobs in the future for our children due to computerization, automation, and robotics. The evaluation was written circa Jan. 1991. Already even a fast food place in New York had automated. Formerly, it employed 400 workers and was a 24/7 operation. After automation, they hired a Lazar cooker operator from Germany for 90/hr. and his Japanese assistant for 60/hr. The rest of the work force, 18 people, was a cleanup crew, working for very low wages. Think of the savings to the corporation, but then think of the 380 people who were unemployed. I could mention several examples, including two auto factories in Japan which employed multitudes. They required a crew of technicians – about 70 – to keep the machines running.
As to spread to the stars which seems like fantasy, the head of the skunk works would hardly make a statement like that to the graduating class of UCLA with knowledge to back it up. A little study on UFOs on the internet plus some theoreticians from the late 80s and early 90s as well as one back around 1900 will indicate that they have some very good ideas that have been and are being put into practice. Electromagnetic propulsion systems apparently can go much faster than was previously thought possible. A Mexican theoretician in the early 90s was talk about a bubble effect riding a photon wave that could go faster than the speed of light.
Intellectually, as to the Bible, one must consider that it is inspired by the Omniscient God and that it must reflect the depth of wisdom, etc., that is commensurate with that kind of origin. I have been looking at the Bible from that perspective for years (about 40 some odd years) along with considerations from the world of counseling as it concerns shock therapy and therapeutic paradoxes along with other therapies like reframing events, etc., I must say it is utterly wonderful to consider the depths of biblical wisdom. God is not noted for wasting words, if one will consider I Chron.16:15 along with the promises recorded in Edwards’ Humble Attempt. Consider also that his work inspired the Second Great Awakening and the launching of the Great Century of Missions/the Modern Missionary Movement.