Your reaction to the title might be, “OF COURSE we own the Cooperative Program. What’d you think, that we had sold it to the Methodists?”
Or, perhaps, you might react by saying, “The Cooperative Program is not a THING to be owned. We own the entities. We own the assets. Nobody owns the Cooperative Program.”
But I’m using that word in another sense altogether. When President Obama first entered office, every problem with the economy in every speech that he gave he blamed on the Bush administration. But now, all these years into his presidency, that’s a lot more difficult for him to do. President Obama “owns” the economy now. In other words, to whatever degree a president can actually affect the economy, Obama’s policies have more to do with it than do Bush’s, and he’ll have to take responsibility for what becomes of the economy from this point forward in his administration. He owns it.
In like manner, you and I, fellow Southern Baptists, OWN THE COOPERATIVE PROGRAM. It is what it is in 2014 because of the decisions we made in 2013 about our budgets. It will be whatever it will be in 2015 because of the budgetary decisions that many of us are making right now.
- There is no inexorable hand of statistical trending that will “push” the Cooperative Program one way or another. The charts and graphs are not forces in and of themselves; they are merely reports about the decisions that our churches make every year when they adopt their budgets.
- There is no historical voodoo that gives the Cooperative Program a “shelf life” and makes it obvious or unavoidable that it must outlive its popularity and die.
- There is no generational shibboleth that requires you, based upon the bracketing of your birthdate, to support it or abandon it.
Rather, there is only this simple truth: THE COOPERATIVE PROGRAM WILL BE WHAT WE MAKE OF IT—we…you and me…this year. Our predecessors no longer own the Cooperative program; we do. What will we do with it?
Whatever we do, do not blame the leaders of past generations. Do not blame national leaders or state execs. The Cooperative Program is yours…it’s ours. Use it wisely.
It’s a good reminder, Bart. The CP is about the choices we make – individually as givers, corporately at churches. Great reminder.
True in many ways. But the Cooperative Program is a big ship. And although my small church owns maybe a small nail of that ship, it’s not enough to change the course of the CP one quarter of one degree. I like the Cooperative Program. It’s one of the best ways we work together as Southern Baptists. And I think you’re absolutely right that we (collectively) “own” it. Sure, it can be improved some, but we all have different ideas as to how it should be improved. And unless we can overwhelmingly agree on how exactly to improve it, it’s… Read more »
Well, of course, one church doesn’t “own” it. The topic you raised had to do with proposing changes. And on that topic you’re right to say that no one church “owns” the CP. That is, if nobody else agrees with you, then no, you can’t change the budget. And yet, if you provide leadership and you propose something with which people DO agree, you can change the Cooperative Program. Let’s say you’ve got a great idea. What would happen if you went to a number of key pastors in your convention and said, “I’ve got this idea. Let me know… Read more »
Yeah, I know that you’re right. I guess I just see that as more work than it’s worth. Especially since I think the CP is as good as it is. So instead I tend to try to trust that the leaders in my state association are making wise and godly decisions regarding our CP dollars, which I think they mostly do.
Chris: Regarding your comment, “Although my small church owns maybe a small nail in the ship, it is not enough to change the direction of the CP . . .. ” At least here in Oklahoma, that is definitely the case. I did a spreadsheet where I sorted a list of the CP giving for all of the 1769 SBC churches in Oklahoma. I knew from antidotal evidence that the larger churches had a disproportional effect of CP giving. But the actual results were shocking. Here are actual results for CP giving here in Oklahoma. This data is obtained from… Read more »
Excellent work, Roger. Here in GA the state convention did a similar analysis of the top 100 CP giving churches but refused to share the data with me.
Sorry — antidotal should be anecdotal
We are talking about information obtained informally — not taking some type of medicine to cure a disease.
I guess I should proofread better.
Roger
Bart: Rather, there is only this simple truth: THE COOPERATIVE PROGRAM WILL BE WHAT WE MAKE OF IT—we…you and me…this year.” Actually, this is not a simple truth, and such is complex for practical and political reasons. To the extent that one has his or her voice heard, one has the potential for facilitating a preferred outcome, but such is impractical given millions of members, thus by far most of us only indirectly participate where the highest level of power resides and functions. We vote for representatives that we perceive will act in the best interest of the system as… Read more »
Norm, I understand Bart’s generality (as I think you do also). The big difference, which you also point out, is how long it would take to affect real change. Because we have moved from a grassroots convention of small churches to a large convention of boards and trustees, it takes much longer to affect change. The Moral Majority realized this same phenomenon in American politics and so seized upon local opportunities like school boards to affect change. If your post is accurate, and I think it is, the result of the control moving further and further away from the local… Read more »
Jack: “Thanks for the thoughtful post.” Norm: Thanks, Jack. Can’t really take credit for anything, however, especially the third paragraph, which is basically a restatement of Simon’s work on decision making. Both you are Bart are correct; that is, in the implicit argument that leadership tends to seek its own ends, and from time to time it needs to be reminded, in the most civilized of ways, of the basis of its power. Let’s hope when that time comes, that that which checks or checkmates the power of leadership is not just another system with sufficient support to seek its… Read more »
Norm said: “”a mature realization that we live in a complex world,”” Complexity is nothing new for political dialogue. Socrates entered upon a time much like ours: culture weakened by war; economic instability, moral decline, and politics of power. The ancient arguments of Socrates saved Athens and by extension saved the Western world as we know it. Civil dialogue driven by principle and delivered with passion and commitment will find solutions where none currently seem to exist. Interestingly, Socrates did not formulate complicated arguments like many of his predecessors and contemporaries. He looked for the simple answer–the “one thing.” He… Read more »
Greetings, Jack. I don’t advocate introducing complexity where it is not needed, in terms of explanation or description, nor do I advocate underestimating an issue to make it (deceptively) comprehensible; stated similarly as Einstein once asserted, and I paraphrase, make it as simple as possible. Granted, Socrates dealt with novel situations in his day, as we do today; differently today, however, is not technology as a tool, but the type of technological tools at our disposal that may have wider, more immediate, and existential consequences. I think we sometimes fool ourselves in thinking technology shields us from issues such as… Read more »
Good point about technology.
Many smaller churches like and participate in the CP and the State convention activities because it is a good and efficient way for them to be connected. There is often a cultural affinity there. Many larger churches have other options for ministry and programming and prefer to do those. Also, large urban churches often have a different cultural vibe from the programming that comes out of state offices. Those issues will have to be addressed in order for many larger churches to become enthusiastic about giving more money to state conventions. In many cases, changes at the state convention level… Read more »
William:
The action of the GA convention in not sharing that information with you is awful. If I lived in GA and went to a Baptist church there, the GA convention response to you would make me not want to give one dime to that convention.
I was not going to say anything about “sources of information” but since it has come up I’ll reveal my “patented trade secrets”. I have never asked any state convention or the exec committee for any info. I don’t know what their response might be. One hypothetical thing I would ask for is an EXCEL spreadsheet with 46,125 entries. Each line in the spreadsheet would have name of church, state, total offering that the church receives from members, CP gifts, LMCO, AA, number of members, average number attending all worship services on Sunday, etc. I doubt if I asked the… Read more »
Roger:
Thanks for the explanation.
But I have a question.
Why would a non profit such as a Stste convention or the SBC not willingly share that data with churches that contribute or bona fide members if those churches.
I understand the need not to be run ragged by people answering requests etc.
But the attitude that I pick up from your responses is that they feel the information is secret or something.
Louis: Today for the first time, [October 6] I have enquired to an agency asking for a copy of their database for the Annual Church Profile. My previous comments should not be interpreted as saying that any of my requests were denied because I didn’t make any requests. Today I called Lifeway. I asked the Associate Director in Ed Stetzer’s statistical area if he would send me a copy, possibly purged of any church identifiable information, of the ACP database. It could be “blind” data that only contains the “CP giving amount”, “Total Offerings Received” for any given church, and… Read more »
You are so far beyond me on this I don’t even know how to ask questions but I am very interested in establishing contact with you regarding SBc data and would appreciate your emailing me at sbcplodder@gmail
Thanks
Roger:
Wow!
Keep working.
I do not in any way begrudge an agency for not compiling and crunching numbers the way you have.
But I do find it unacceptable that agencies would have data they would not share.
Louis:
Could I enlist you to help me to get ACP data? I think you are in Tennessee. I have not yet looked into the situation of obtaining the TN ACP data. It could be as simple as just picking it up off the internet. Or it could be as hard as having to do heavy duty negotiation with the TN state convention IT guys. I don’t know.
My Email is rksimpson1@cox.net