CP Reduction - What Happened?
By Tim Boyd, Digest Editor
September 2010
On the front page of the Digest, you saw a letter from our KNCSB President, Ron Pracht, informing you that we have had to reduce our Cooperative Program percentage for this year from 32% to 22%. As one who actively supported the Cooperative Program for my entire ministry, I am deeply saddened that we have come to this dilemma. How did we come to this place?
Very simply, there are two factors that have brought us to this difficult decision. We are in a unique economic situation that has impacted our whole nation and it has impacted a number of the churches of our convention. Churches, whose income drops dramatically, can’t give as much money as they did in the past. This has had a definite impact on our ability to carry on the ministries of our associations and our convention.
We could weather the economic situation without making such a drastic cut. We can’t deal as easily with the other factor. A new phrase has entered the Southern Baptist vocabulary. It is “Great Commission Giving.” At the annual meeting of the SBC in Orlando this year, the convention endorsed this idea of direct missions giving outside the Cooperative Program. The SBC encouraged churches to do this kind of directed giving above and beyond their commitment to the Cooperative Program. However, some churches in KNCSB had already reduced their Cooperative Program giving and redirected it to “Great Commission Giving.” Other churches have since done the same.
This change in missions funding along with the economic situation has left us with a projected budget shortfall of approximately $400,000. If we were to continue to send the 32% on to the Executive Committee as we have done in the past, mission work in our two-state convention would be crippled. There is a tendency in the SBC to focus on our giving to the “utter most ends of the earth.” And I celebrate our desire to reach the nations. However, we cannot forget “Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria.”
The modern world missions movement began with William Carey in England. Why is England no longer the leader of this movement? Why has that shifted to the United States? It is because they did not pay enough attention to “Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria.” Today, they are more pagan than Christian. What will happen to us if we turn our attention away from Nebraska and Kansas? In the short term, we may send a great deal of money on to the nations. But, remember England. That could be us in just a few years.
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