Consider me to have a bit of a deficit in denominational nostalgia. I don’t apologize for it.
A lament heard often in our SBC circles is about the halcyon days of ten percent Cooperative Program giving, the fictional harmony among various groups that made up the SBC back then. That lament includes despair for the days of ever growing statistical measures, chiefly money, that gave state conventions and the other SBC entities the optimism and verve to engage on endless staff hiring sprees, build magnificent buildings, and dream of ever greater sums to fund denominational dreams.
The ten percent days are a generation and a half in the past and few people among us under the age of fifty have a memory of such levels. Perhaps that is why some SBC graybeards among us get a glazed over look and begin a wistful chant that begins with, “If SBC churches gave an average of ten percent to the Cooperative Program like we used to, we could…”
Better to leave that brother alone in his requiem than to administer a dose of reality.
But I’m one of those who wishes for the clean and simple approach to SBC international missions that was (at least to my limited, youthful understanding of the time) present 35 years ago:
- Churches gave heavily to the CP, over ten percent on average of their undesignated offerings.
- The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering was universally promoted in churches each year, yielding growing sums.
- Individuals felt a call to serve overseas, responded, were appointed, and spent a lifetime serving.
- Travel to distant places was out of reach of the average church member, so energy and funds were unlikely to be spent on short term mission trips that had limited value and little overall direction and strategy for reaching the world.
Things have gotten rather complex.
- The CP has steadily declined and accounts for less than one-third of our International Mission Board’s budget.
- The LMCO has been stagnant for years, actually declining in real dollars.
- After continuing to spend as if revenues would suddenly and permanently surge by tens of millions, the IMB is on a plan to severely pare down missionaries and support staff.
- Churches spend tens of millions on short term missions, a routine budget item that looks like just another program, and less on support of IMB through CP and the LMCO.
- SBC churches are more open than ever to an endless stream of parachurch organizations, independent mission lone rangers, and alternative, non-SBC, mission sending agencies.
- In some cases IMB has an unusual arrangement in which they work directly with some SBC churches to facilitate those churches own personnel in certain mission endeavors.
- The IMB is proposing “partially funded missionaries” raising questions about how the unfunded portion will be funded. The obvious question about whether or not SBC churches will be approached for direct funding of the remainder has yet to be answered.
- Many churches eschew the LMCO in favor of a generic global mission offering, only a portion of which might be forwarded to the IMB.
- Churches have created funding programs for retiring missionaries who are taking the IMB voluntary retirement incentives and remaining on the field. Some of these are devoting a portion of the LMCO to this purpose, direct funding of retired IMB personnel.
- Individuals have declared their intent to take what they would have given to the LMCO and send it directly to a ‘retiring’ IMB worker.
- At least one organization is utilizing the term “Lottie” in promoting the above.
This is complicated to think about. Give me a minute to indulge my own wistful reminiscence of previous, simpler days.
OK, I’m over it.
If I were beginning as a pastor in 2015 (rather than in 1982) here’s how I think I would look at and prioritize things:
- I’d try and lead my church to 5% or greater Cooperative Program giving. That’s about average. Above average would be good but below would be unacceptable.
- I’d do my best to give heavily to Lottie Moon, perhaps by building into the church budget some level of monthly LMCO giving, that in addition to the heavy emphasis at Christmas for the LMCO as an ‘over and above’ offering.
- I’d communicate as best I could to the congregation why IMB is cutting numbers and why our response should be to step up our LMCO giving. I’m not sure doubling the offering would be the best goal but I would point out that some churches are attempting just that.
- I’d attempt to stave off the inevitable requests for independent missionary funding, some friend/relative of a member, and exclusively support the global strategy of our own IMB.
- I’d do short term missions as long as they folded in with IMB strategy and did not negatively impact regular CP or LMCO giving.
- I’d presume that the IMB’s announced strategy of utilizing fully funded, partially funded, and unfunded overseas missions personnel is worthy of support but also of scrutiny.
- I’d think long and hard before I acquiesced to any IMB program that had candidates making direct, personal appeals to churches for dedicated funding.
I think I’m solid in asserting that we will never go back to past systems in SBC international missions.
I see nothing that will restore the Cooperative Program to former, double-digit percentage levels of the past.
I doubt those who respond to a call to overseas missions in the 21st century will have as long an average tenure overseas as previous generations of IMB workers.
I suspect that strategies will be employed that shift personnel to and from certain regions of the world and to and from certain people groups.
While I may be flummoxed by all of the above, I remain certain that our International Mission Board is worthy of our highest level of support. I would be preparing my church for the most vigorous 2015 LMCO promotion that I could get away with.
The SBC is a vast, noisy, rambunctious herd of independent operators, proudly so, which leads me to ask, “How do you look at all this?”
The only way we can increase IMB funding, which I think we should until Jesus comes, is to DRASTICALLY rethink what the SBC is. There is a lot of redundance in the SBC, with SBC entities, State Conventions, local Associations and even SBC megachurches competing with one another for attention, $$ and personnel. With our polity it is virtually impossible to dictate what State Conventions, local Associations or churches can do. SO we need to dismantle the SBC. How? like this: 1) Get rid of NAMB. I am not advocating combining it with IMB. Just get rid of it. As… Read more »
1)Lifeway gets no money from the CP.
2)Which 2 seminaries? “Way too many pastors”, “a glut in the market” seems like you have a strong bias against the calling and equipping of young pastors.
I choose Southwestern and Southern. …you asked! State Conventions can ‘adopt’ the others if they want to or let them compete with other evangelical seminaries for students. They are not even totally seminaries any more. They are now also colleges competing with Baptist state colleges. I am all for young men called of God to be equipped to pastor. But ask Seminary placement offices what percentage of their graduates actually find a church to pastor….the number of churches in our convention is not growing rapidly enough to keep up with the number of seminary graduates….Most grads want to go to… Read more »
FYI: Lifeway has sold their downtown Nashville campus for $125 million. http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/real-estate/2015/11/24/lifeways-15-acre-downtown-campus-sold/76342092/ With the $125 million, they could very easily be spun off as a for profit company as you have suggested. However, since they are not going that route, the question comes up, “What will be done with that $125 million?” Obviously, some portion will be spent on their new HQ. They are looking at several sites in downtown Nashville for a smaller facility. However, they won’t spend the majority of that $125 million, so will they donate some of the excess to the IMB and or the Cooperative… Read more »
I like some of your thoughts but will save those discussions for later. Your idea is to alienate about every SBC constituent group and move forward from there. Won’t work at your scale but all of the ideas are sound at a lesser degree.
Immediate help for IMB will come from elevating IMB in church priorities.
Probably true…but the SBC is a dino that is becoming a millstone. To elevate the IMB and get them more $$ Lottie Moon is the only vehicle we have….perhaps asking churches to give their extra 1% directly to the IMB vs through the Cooperative Pgm? I know that will sound radical too. But today in MO, if I give $100 to the Coop pgm only $40 or so goes to the SBC and perhaps $10 of that goest to the IMB? Increasing Coop pgm giving only creates more SBC problems by giving other entities more $$ to squander in our… Read more »
Ah, an SBCer who knows the math and makes the logical and most efficient choices. I like it.
2 Reactions to Allen’s Post:
1. “Oooh, I like this guy!”
2. “William is right, It will never happen.”
I say, with all the immigrants coming in now, we have our hands full evangelizing those in our own backyard, let alone going out into the world to try and evangelize them. What provision is being made to evangelize the incoming immigrants/refugees? It seems to me there is a big challenge busing through the Catholic and Muslim monoliths.
William, as always, I like your thinking. Many church mission trips are really missio-tourism. Mission trips can be useful on the foreign field, but many are not. (I write from the perspective of a retired IMB missionary.) My wife spoke at a missions conference held by a big SBC church. She told me that the IMB received no priority or extra recognition or promotion. The IMB was just one of 20 missions organizations that the church supported. This absolutely was not the case when my wife and I were appointed by the FMB in 1975. Sometimes I feel like Rip… Read more »
One point on short term trips: When IMB appointees are asked “how many would say they were there as a result of a short term trip”, at least at this last appointment group it was about 90%. That’s unofficial just looking around the room. So I do see a benefit to short term trips, although I realize most M’s dont like them. Also I write from a M pastor perspective. Ours are not Mission Tours. We target UPG’s in places few want to go, so there are some churches out there seeking to fulfill the GC to the ethnos of… Read more »
I attend a small SBC affiliated church in California. Founded and grew during the post WWII baby boom, declining since the early 1980s, now by God’s grace experiencing a revitalization. We are discussing our future affiliation with the SBC with respect to missions giving. We give a small percentage to the CP. Our new pastor is committed to missions, particularly unreached people groups. He supports New Tribes Missions due to their focus on unreached people groups. We are not against the CP or the IMB, but we are interested in supporting missions in the best way we can, and it… Read more »
Better to ask them. They will answer. Definitions matter in UPGs. I’m sure you will find considerable resources and personnel working with UPG.
Check this article on IMB’s site. It deals with an CA church involved with a UPG in Mexico: http://stories.imb.org/americas/stories/view/you-and-your-church-can-take-the-gospel-to-the-ends-of-the-earth?cid=82836
Great thoughts, William. I agree with you 100% on #6. I’ve spent time as both an IMB missionary and an independent missionary in the Philippines. The IMB takes great care of its missionaries, covering so many things beyond the basic salary (medical, travel, education for children, and the list goes on). The trade-off is you are expected to follow their directives for your ministry (this includes ministry strategy, where you live, etc.). Here’s a good example: the IMB had a few people teaching seminary at the seminary in Baguio when I first arrived in the Philippines (2002). Within a few… Read more »
To follow up on Mark Terry’s comment, several years ago I spoke to a missionary who was invited to Charles Stanley’s church while he was SBC president. It was a mission’s conference with over 30 missionaries invited. He and his wife were the only IMB missionaries there and they were only allowed to speak to one Sunday School class. Others were featured in the main service. This is a pattern than has been going on in many of the super churches for years. In recent years we have stopped sending missionaries to the World Mission Conferences where we would go… Read more »
Point well made. The IMB is becoming more and more faceless…IMB missionaries on furlough need to be more proactive about getting an audience with more churches of all sizes.
Ron you are not the first person I’ve heard this from (re: field missionaries having more say in the past).
Ron, small churches have no trouble getting a missionary to come speak to their church if they desire to have one. We are a small church of less than 100. We have a relationship with an IMB missionary who was in our church last December. I contacted IMB a couple months ago and we are having another missionary in our church this December. Churches can’t sit back and complain about not having missionaries come speak if they are not being proactive about inviting them to come.
“Perhaps that is why some SBC graybeards among us get a glazed over look and begin a wistful chant that begins with, “If SBC churches gave an average of ten percent to the Cooperative Program like we used to, we could…” Better to leave that brother alone in his requiem than to administer a dose of reality.” William, when you say such things as the quote above, you are doing some things I do not think you intend to do. 1) You are stating that those who encourage greater CP giving are ignorant of reality, which of course is not… Read more »
PR, I always appreciate your responses. Please remember that this is an opinion blog. Mine may be accepted or rejected. I think I have a decent grasp of the data and the system but if you think I am missing something critical, I’m all ears. At my age, I have no interest in anything other than SBC missions. I’d like to see them thrive for generations. I’ve seen and heard so many (mostly) state convention staffers and leaders get into the “if only we gave to the CP like we used to” mode that I feel that my paragraph above… Read more »
If we have a crisis in international missions giving through the local church is not a realistic solution. It is seen as a 1st century mostly local ministry funding scheme. These same churches are recalibrating to manage dropping member support levels and at the same time furiously searching for relevance in 2015, for something, anything that will engage their members. Are we not already educating enough potential IMB workers at all these Sunday Schools, plus the several other discipleship ministries that Christians support? Increase your offerings to your church and church ministries suck up the majority of that money. Makes… Read more »
Not your best stuff, Bart. You usually have no difficulty in addressing the relevant issues in any particular discussion…but everyone gets to take a few days off.
It’s sarcasm, but it is designed to make a salient point: None of your arguments against the Cooperative Program actually amount to any good reason to abandon it. All of them apply equally well to things that none of us are prepared to abandon.
If someone comes up with something better, I’ll consider it. But the “let’s abandon the CP movement” is not a tide I want to see rising. I think I’m with Bart on this one. We may be dwindling, but the only way the average stays at 5.5 is if some of us aspire to go a LOT higher. We can’t really join the increase right now, but I’m sticking with 12%. I’ve been in ministry for nearly 3 and a half decades and this church gives the LEAST of the churches I’ve served to CP – at 12%. I’d love… Read more »
FBC Farmersville is going up from 10% to 11% in 2016.
Maybe you and Dave could find someone who argues that the CP should be abandoned. After that, find any SBC leader who is planning for the future of their entity by projecting a significant CP increase. Let me know what you come up with. Sarcasm is fine, especially when one doesn’t want to bother with an argument. I do it sometimes myself. The closest I’ve come here to arguing “against” the CP is asserting that solving the IMB crisis by raising CP giving is a bridge too far. It would take voodoo economics to get the numbers needed. I’ve never… Read more »
I commend Bart (for upping his %) and Dave for more than double the CP average. I’d vote for either of you for something.
Our Church(Bethel Baptist Church) gives 20% to the CP. So, I don’t think we will be raising ours either. But, I most certainly do hope that our giving will go up from our offerings going up!
It’s time for Lottie Moon giving again. I hope every church is about to take up a record offering! Sadly, I’m afraid that some SB churches don’t even know what Lottie is about; not really.
David
Nathan, to answer your question, as of six months ago, 68% of our IMB missionaries worked with Unreached People Groups, and 75% of the requests for new missionaries were for missionaries to go and work with UPGs. Now, the 68% statistic will probably change because of the 600-800 missionaries who have accepted the early retirement offer the IMB made.
Terry, thank you for this information.
A couple of thoughts from a Southern Baptist millennial: 1. My husband and I are currently in the process to be appointed as IMB missionaries in the North Africa/Middle East region. We met in the Middle East where we were both serving 2 year terms (I was a journeyman and he was sent through his SBC home church). The call on our lives to reach Muslims for Christ in that part of the world is not short term. So while your comment that many of our upcoming IMB missionaries will not serve as long as their predecessors may be partly… Read more »
I hope your appointment process is smooth and service long and fruitful.
I know of no outfit that has a more thorough appointment process than IMB and I trust them to do this task. That average worker tenure is much lower than in previous years says nothing about any specific individual. The shorter tenure is just one of many facts that we have to wrestle with these days.
Since we’re going down this road, let me add something. In Bart’s state (TX) the newer state convention cleared the decks of a lot of accumulated funding constituencies and started semi-fresh and keeps only a minority share of CP revenues. In Dave’s state (IA) the state is far from the strength numerically of the legacy southern state conventions and just cut their CP percentages to 50/50 with the Executive Committee. For most (fact check me here) Southern Baptists a CP increase means putting most, about 2/3ds of the money in their legacy state convention, something that manifestly hasn’t generated a… Read more »
It’s true—it’s much easier to be happy about the CP when you’re in the SBTC.
But whenever this conversation arises, I always make it a point to note this: A state convention’s budget—including the in-state / beyond-the-state split—is set by a vote in the convention’s annual meeting. If the churches who wanted a better split would organize and go to the meeting, they could change the split. There’s absolutely nothing (but apathy) to prevent that from happening.
And I always point out that the path of least resistance, clearly preferable to individuals who have concluded that their state convention is under the control of an oligarchy of vested interest and their allies, is to simply put some of their mission dollars elsewhere. In your state the pathway was to jettison the entire legacy convention and start over. SC leaders can always blame critics for their failure to propose and achieve desired changes. The ‘losers’ can shrug and decrease CP giving. Thankfully, some SC leaders recognize that their future depends on more than winning annual session votes. In… Read more »
It is only not a sensible solution… 1. …if one presumes that going back to the wild west will add no costs in terms of greater fundraising competition. But this is a nonsensical assumption to make. The great contribution to Southern Baptist efficiency that the CP made is that entities don’t have to pester churches continually in order to raise funds entity-by-entity. Those fundraising events and fundraising personnel cost money. Yes, every entity does a LITTLE of that now, but when you look at the fact that, industry-wide, it is commonplace for organizations to spend more than 30% of their… Read more »
What Bart said!
My favorite Bart Barber comment ever. He wins the internet for a day!
I agree with Bart that the reason the shift to 50% that many SCs say they want is our desire not to make the waves that would make it happen more quickly. But I really do not know if that is enough. Perhaps the CP does need to be abandoned and replaced with direct % giving to the SC, the SBC and whatever SBC entity is near and dear to the heart of the church. This puts the church more in charge of who deserves their $$. It also allows churches to diversify their missions $$ giving the emphasis they… Read more »
Just some facts to add as you make your assessments. The SBTC was not created so much as a response to CP allocation that was deemed unacceptable. It was created more because of a sense of doctrinal slippage in the BGCT. Even with the BGCT taking a HUGE percentage of the contributed CP before and after the SBTC was created, and the SBTC giving a HUGE percentage to the SBC after it was created, it was not until 2-3 years ago that the IMB got more from the BGCT contributions through the CP than it did from the SBTC. This… Read more »
I would not want to fund individual missionaries instead of a credible and experienced missions board like the IMB. The ONLY exception I might be willing to make is a person called to missions from our own church who may or may not go through the IMB. I really do see the CP as a great thing. I have not always been a Southern Baptist. When I learned as a Baptist layman how the CP worked it made a lot of sense to me. It still does. But I believe it needs to be fine tuned, just like the SBC… Read more »
The TN Baptist Convention is moving towards a 50/50 split. It will take a few years to get there, but we are moving that way.
In my Church I tell the new members in our NewMembers Class about the CP, and what our church gives. I stress to the that 20 cents out of every dollar they put in the offering plate goes to support missionaries. And, that our church gives more than that…to support other mission work. I think it is really important to educate our people in the pews about the CP.
David
In a discussion among CP supporters one, while pondering the complicated world of SBC international missions, says that the IMB crisis will not be fixed by promoting a CP increase plan. Another says that it will. In another generation he may prove me wrong.
We’ve always had a dual funding system: societal and CP. Both have yielded declining portions of SBC church budgets for some years, although the former has declined slightly slower. I favor continuing the system we have had for the last 90 years.