Our venerable Cooperative Program now in its tenth decade and while somewhat diminished in percentages and sums from earlier times, is still a mammoth funding engine without which the SBC at the state convention and national levels would be unrecognizable. In my several decades of pastoral hacking and plodding in the SBC hinterlands I have concluded that almost all laypeople and many, perhaps most, pastors lack the most basic understanding of the CP, that is, that it is mostly a state convention program, and that most of the money given by churches in a particular state will never leave that state.
Take for example a statement by former SBC president Bryant Wright a few years ago. He said something to the effect that when his church’s laypeople found out where most of the CP money goes (it doesn’t go anywhere but rather stays right here in Georgia) they felt compelled to give less to the CP and more to causes that support missions beyond our deep south state borders.
So, how did states come to be the primary beneficiaries of the CP rather than the mission boards and seminaries?
It was so designed 90 years ago.
The current issue of SBC Life, the Executive Committee’s publication has a very good article about this. What would be the ideal division of a CP dollar between the state convention and the national entities? Roger Oldham, VP of Convention Communications and Relations for the SBC Executive Committee makes this statement :
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Fifty percent was the ideal goal in 1925. Almost a century later, after seeing many state conventions achieve mammoth growth, is 50/50 still an ideal split? The answer to that should be deferred at least until a little more is learned about the CP.
When most state conventions talk about a 50/50 division they do not mean 50 cents of every dollar is sent to SBC national entities through the SBC Executive Committee. What they mean is that after a portion of CP revenues is skimmed off the top by the state convention for “promotional expenses” the ideal division of the remainder is 50/50.
Here in Georgia, ten percent is offered as the amount traditionally taken off the table before division. Thus, a 50 percent share of gross CP revenues means 45 percent of the total amount. If we are moving to a 50/50 split here in Georgia, what state convention leaders mean is that we are moving to a 55 (state)/45(national) division. This is part of the reason that states, mainly the deep south legacy state convention states with tens of thousands of churches, millions of church members, and hundreds of millions in CP revenues, keep about 62 cents on every dollar leaving 38 cents to be divided ten ways among national SBC entities.
Oldham, in the article linked above, notes that many states are making strides in this direction. Iowa and Nevada have dispensed with any “shared expense” category and 50/50 means fifty cents of a CP dollar dropped in a church offering plate stays at home and fifty cents goes to Nashville to be divided among the national entities. The newer Texas convention is better than 50/50, giving the national entities the greater proportion of a CP dollar without skimming off the top and the newer Virginia convention is phasing out its shared ministry category with the goal of giving 51% to the SBC national entities.
That some state conventions are moving towards an authentic 50/50 (or better) split ought to be encouraging and perhaps it is. Viewing the overall picture of SBC funding doesn’t reveal much that could be called drastic changes. We are, and pardon the well-worn cliche, just rearranging deck chairs.
The problem for the legacy state conventions is that it is very difficult to be weaned off of percentages and accounting that work to their advantage. Incremental movements where the states reduce what they keep from 62% to 60% or 58% barely move the needle if the goal is to address lostness in the world.
Consider my state again. We have a sparkling new $43.5 million state convention headquarters building where most convention employees, good people and wonderful servants, are based. Our centralized base is an office building. The ministry done is mostly done around the state in the field, in churches, in schools, in associations. An honest assessment of other GBC infrastructure, two conference centers, three schools, and various other things, are out-of-date, some are deteriorated to the point of being unimpressive even embarrassing. Is it proper that the places where front line ministry is being done (schools, rehab centers, student centers, conference centers, ministries to children and the aged, church planting) are shabby while our centralized office building is sparkling? The juxtaposition of these has been a problem for many Georgia Baptists.
No one sat down and designed it this way but according to the budgets we have been spending more on debt service than church planting.
Our state keeps about 60 cents of every CP dollar, a 60/40 split. The average across the SBC is a little worse, 62/38. We are moving in a more positive direction and there is talk of “reassessing” things.
But let’s look at the overall, SBC-wide, big picture of the Cooperative Program. It’s 2015. Is the ideal 50/50 split still the best use of a CP dollar?
My view is that it is not, even if we could ever get there. But for now if states stop the funny accounting (a longstanding practice, not a recent invention) and get to a true 50/50 split, I would be pleased. That is probably as challenging a goal as I have a right to expect in my lifetime.
Everyone cheer-leads for the CP. But state conventions will always suck up most of the revenues and most of that in the legacy southern states. What made good sense when our denomination was being built a hundred years ago might not make good sense today. I commend the states that are dispensing with the funny accounting (Iowa, Nevada) and a commend the two new state conventions (Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia) that are at a true 50/50 or better split. I also commend the South Carolina Baptist Convention for budgeting money that is directly sent to the IMB as a way of getting to 50/50 and I commend the other states, mine included, who are making incremental moves to give fractions of percentages more to the national CP and keeping less for themselves. All this is positive.
My fear is that these moves will be seen by autonomous churches as too little, too late and they make their own decisions to cut CP and do direct funding for NAMB or IMB. Already we are seeing our two main entities, IMB and NAMB take what looks like steps to provide for direct funding of their work by individual churches. I don’t see a lot of print or talk on this but I am aware it is happening. Maybe IMB and NAMB leaders have looked down the road and have seen that the CP, while an important part of their funding system, is never going to get them to where they can carry out their mission of reaching lost people in North America and around the world.
The days ahead should be interesting.
If I were a state convention exec in a legacy convention, I’d send my budget committee out throughout the state to association after association, church after church. I’d have them take a budget worksheet to the churches and ask them to fill it out. Let the averages of that exercise guide the budgeting process.
Because the problem is a breakdown of our polity more than anything else. Churches don’t go to the meetings. Those who do don’t take an active role in making budget decisions. That’s what has to be corrected.
Amen Bart. I have been in SBC churches all my life (32 years) and I’ve never heard a pastor or anyone explain to the church what the CP does and how it works. I really believe that one reason people don’t give more is that they don’t understand what they’re giving to. And in the case of the legacy states, perhaps they would take a hint that they need to rethink their budget if all the churches actually started giving directly to the mission boards and seminaries. I’m not saying we should abandon the CP though, but if it’s going to work our churches need to play an active part and it would start with simply informing their people.
While I like the concept, a “legacy” state convention by definition has considerable vested interests. It’s tough to mess with anyone’s budget or job. That’s a cynical view but I’ve never seen my legacy state convention substantially change any budgeting unless forced to by declining revenues.
By the way, what’s this about a “new” convention in Texas? Hopefully that’s not too dumb of a question – I just feel kind of behind on my current events.
The older convention is the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT). They give about 30% of their Cooperative Program mission offerings to the national SBC.
The newer, conservative (agrees with the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, and in agreement with the conservative direction of the SBC) convention is the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention (SBTC). They give about 55% of their Cooperative Program mission offerings to the national SBC.
David R. Brumbelow
New Convention = SBTC vs. the Old Convention = Baptist General Convention of Texas. As a Texas boy and Baylor grad, these two get a long a lot better than they did before. David Hardage (BGCT ExDir) is a good guy with a solid staff. He was kind enough to send a hand-written note when our daughter suffered strokes last summer. I’m a fan, if for no other reason than that he cared.
Am I the only one who sees one pic (kinda small and fuzzy) in the preview on the main page, but sees only a CP logo in the post? I’m kinda curious as to what that other pic is about…
(also, for some reason, the site resets me back to the main page whenever I try to comment from my phone… anyone else having that problem?)
Mike,
I too see different pics.
I’m not sent to main page when I comment from my phone.
The first graphic is from:
http://www.sbclife.net/mobile/wrapper.asp?ref=http://www.sbclife.net/Articles/2015/03/sla1.asp
It shows CP stats. I replaced it because it didn’t have sufficient resolution. Something I did caused both to be used. The SBC Life article is linked in my post.
Thanks, William!
From that graphic, it looks like they’re saying each SBC church member gives ~$30 to the CP each year and ~$11, so approximately 1/3, makes it to the national level. (of course, that doesn’t adjust for realistic member numbers, etc.)
I explained to one of our young adults one time that one the one hand while we talk a big game about missions, reality is only 12% of our church budget goes to mission organization (6% association; 6% CP). Most of the association is operating cost; as for CP, estimating for MO, 40% onto the SBC, then 75% of that to IMB and NAMB. So, I told him, for direct missions work out of every dollar he gives only 1.8 cents goes directly to missions.
We talk a big game, but we don’t put our money where our mouth is.
As to your point in your article about shiny new ministry buildings, yeah it’s an issue but isn’t that how we trained ourselves to operate? I mean with a lot of churches if the building needs roof repair, you can call for a capital campaign and get $10,000 or whatever quite fast; yet when we put out the call for Annie or Lottie, we seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.
In our culture instead of having little carved birds on our mantles that we give ourselves to, we have large brick structures with stained glass and steeples.
We haven’t directly taught our people to venerate our buildings, but whenever we have a building campaign we’ve indirectly encouraged it. So goes our money so goes our hearts, and missions gets a heck of a lot less than most other things… 🙁
So what would you say is an ideal split in the smaller Midwest state conventions or still smaller “pioneer” Conventions of the Northwest and Northeast?
I don’t know but Dave’s convention went to 50/50, true 50/50. If a smaller conv. wants to be considered dependent on keeping 80% or so of CP gifts by their churches they can convince themselves of the rightness of that forever. It might be better, my wild conjecture, for such states to see themselves as participating heavily in CP global missions rather than being a heavy CP user or keeper.
One thing for sure, if Iowa can get by with 50%, why can’t Georgia, with millions an millions more in CP revenues get by with 50% rather than the 60% we keep for ourselves?
William,
It seems to me that you and other GCR proponents come down pretty hard on the convention split issue, especially laying a pretty heavy guilt trip on the Legacy State Conventions. On the other hand, you do not seem to come down all that hard at all on the megachurch 3-5% CP giving churches. If we’re going to criticize percentages, I think it’s only fair to do so throughout the entire money chain. There really is a relationship between these two stewardship matters.
If one accepts the true premise of “shared ministries” then the Legacy State Convention splits actually look more like this: 45(5) / 45(5). The only way you can make it 55/45 is to take BOTH sides of the “shared ministries” and force the states to pay for the unfunded mandates of things like CP promotion (for both) and health coverage for former NAMB missionaries whose medical needs were cut off by the national board and then graciously picked up by the state board.
I just think if they truly are “shared ministries” then the responsibility should be shared by both sides of the equation. This may not so much be a matter of “fuzzy math” as it is a matter of “fuzzy responsibilities.” I don’t see why the states should have to pay for all of the line items that used to be NAMB’s responsibility.
I don’t want this to be a broken record, but barking up the autonomous Legacy State Convention tree does not seem to me to be a successful strategy. Is the GCR guilt trip really working? Is there a major shift or a slight pushing of the needle? Legacy State Conventions have been slashing their budgets and growing leaner for years. You can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.
Time are financially tight for Southern Baptists. I think we have to go to the source of the money trail if we are going to make a genuine difference. When the megas route their money around traditional CP channels, Legacy State Convention leadership is simply forced to act in a manner that will preserve their excellent missions and ministries. Such tactics by the megas do not produce any more income. They simply reroute the giving channels.
Bottom line…I think we’ve been a little hard on the Legacy State Conventions and a little soft on the megas.
Rick, my views on this preceded the GCR.
There are many questions but the one you don’t address is this: “Why should it be a given that states are entitled to 50 + 5 or so percent of every CP dollar.
We went through the discussion of why NAMB should raise money for reaching NA and then satisfy every legacy state convention in the south who has a hand out for kick backs. That hound didn’t hunt.
Also, churches are king so a mega that gives 5% need not convince any denominational employee of their policy (although expecting their people to be on boards etc. is another question) whereas there exists no inviolable concept relating to the state or national level.
I like my state convention. I don’t think a compelling vision is being offered that demands 60% of every CP dollar.