Why Cooperate? by Michael K. Whitehead
Six billion people on planet earth are dying from a spiritual disease for which Christians know the cure. We must tell the lost about Jesus Christ, who alone can save them from their sin. World evangelism is a God-sized task that requires God-sized resources and a God-sized plan.
What is God's plan to reach the world? In Acts 1:8, Jesus told his disciples: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8 churches will have God's power and God's passion to reach the world, starting in their local communities and extending to their state, their nation and to the remotest parts of the earth. With supernatural power, Acts 1:8 churches have a vision to start local and go global. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Acts 1:8 Churches. Great Commission churches in various denominations, including Southern Baptist churches, are part of God's plan to reach the world. One way that Southern Baptist churches seek to fulfill Acts 1:8 is through the Cooperative Program. The Cooperative Program is a financial channel of cooperation between the state conventions and the Southern Baptist Convention which makes it possible for all persons making undesignated gifts though their church to support world missions, theological education, disaster relief and other ministry and benevolent work across the street and around the world.
I am a Southern Baptist. I realize that not every believer reading these words will share my denominational affiliation.  There is more than one way to "do missions." But believers everywhere will share a commitment to the Great Commission, and will be interested in the principles of cooperation which have fueled Southern Baptist missions for eight decades.    The Great Commission demands the greatest cooperation of all believers and churches in the Body of Christ,  seeking to make Him known among the nations.
Consider the heritage. In 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention was formed as a partnership of local churches, state conventions and the national convention for the purpose of "eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the whole denomination in one sacred effort for the propagation of the Gospel." In spite of the new organization, mission societies continued to do separate fund-raising, church to church, asking for "designated gifts" for their cause. There were perpetual appeals for special offerings and no coordination of ministry work. The frequent results of this "societal method" of fund-raising were inefficiency, unpaid bills and emergency appeals.
In 1925, the Convention discovered a new strategy which was called the Cooperative Program. Seventy-five years later, the SBC Cooperative Program has been used by God to channel more resources than perhaps any other strategy in the history of the Church, to help fulfill the Great Commission.
How does it work? You make an undesignated gift to your SBC local church budget. (An undesignated gift is one that you do not ear-mark for specific projects, such as building fund, youth camp, etc.) This local church budget helps to reach your community, your "Jerusalem." Your church also supports a local association of Baptist churches in order to cooperate in ministry in your community.
Next, your church votes to give a percentage of the undesignated gifts to the Cooperative Program through the state convention. The church then elects messengers to attend the state convention to vote on the state budget, and the percentage that will be sent on to the national denomination. The state conventions collect the CP funds, retain their share, and forward the remainder every week to the SBC CP for national and international ministries. Finally, the church sends messengers to the national SBC convention to vote on a budget to allocate funds among the SBC agencies. 
The heart of the plan is undesignated giving to a unified budget. Each week, gifts flow from local churches, to state conventions, to the SBC Executive Committee, and then to each agency. Every dollar to the SBC CP benefits all the groups in the CP budget.
Regular, systematic channeling of gifts in this manner has produced unprecedented results.
 
Together. Southern Baptists continue to accomplish far more together than we ever could do separately. Together, we enable the International Missions Board and the North American Mission Board to plant nearly 10,000 missionaries in the US, Canada,  in over 127 countries  and 1,194 different people groups. The fruit: About 995,079 new baptized believers, and nearly 6000 new churches in 2004 around the world.
 
Together, SBC churches  support six SBC seminaries (Southern, Southeastern, Midwestern, Southwestern, Golden Gate, and New Orleans) with world-class faculties who teach the Bible and train new ministers and other Christian leaders for the next generation of ministry. The fruit: About 15,500 students enrolled each year, being grounded in the truth of God's inerrant Word, and being equipped to lead and serve in over 42,000 local churches in the US and around the world.
Together, SBC churches support ethics and religious liberty advocacy before Congress, the courts, and other public policy-making bodies. SBC churches raise millions for world hunger and disaster relief, without a dime going to administrative overhead.   The SBC was the third largest provider of disaster relief to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 serving over 17 million hot meals to people in need.   And we support the Executive Committee of the SBC, which allows accountability and coordination over all the cooperative ministry of the denomination.
To whom much is given. Consider the resources that God has entrusted to the 42,000+ SBC churches.  In 1999, SBC churches reported total receipts of $7.7 billion, and undesignated receipts of $5.6 billion. On average, churches sent about 8% of their undesignated receipts to state conventions, totaling $462 million. State conventions retained about 63% for ministries within their states and channeled about $167.9 million to the SBC Cooperative Program.
A $100 gift. Following this pattern, imagine that a person gives an undesignated gift of $100 to his local Baptist church. Here is how the money is divided:
Total gift $100.00
Local church keeps $92.00
To State Convention $8.00
To State Convention causes (state colleges, children's home, elder care, etc.)   $5.36
To SBC causes $2.64
From the money that reaches the national CP, one half goes to IMB, 23% goes to NAMB. About 21.4% is divided among the six SBC seminaries. Midwestern Seminary, where I formerly served as business vice president and interim president,  received about 1.7 cents of every dollar received at the national level. Following the above example, here is what Midwestern received:
To IMB $1.32
To Midwestern Seminary $0.05
Nickels add up. In this example, Midwestern Seminary would receive a nickel out of every hundred dollars that a person gives to the general budget of his local Baptist Church. But with the combined giving power of all Southern Baptists, those nickels add up to over $3.0  million per year to Midwestern.  SBC seminaries with larger enrollments receive larger funding.
According to the Association of Theological Schools, the median annual tuition for Masters of Divinity programs in seminaries across the United States in 2002 was $9,000.   This means that the Cooperative Program is providing a scholarship of about $6000 per year to every full-time Southern Baptist student.
Societal Giving.  Some ministry organizations operate on what is called "societal giving."  Individuals or churches make pledges to a particular missionary society or individual, and that person makes regular reports and fund-raising appeals in order to support the work in the field.    The distinctive of this method is designated giving.   By contrast, the Cooperative Giving approach sustains regular funding for all the missionaries as well as the ministries involved in the missions sending enterprise,   including state colleges and national seminaries to educate Christian servants, volunteer or vocational.  
 
Some SBC churches, especially mega-churches,  have recently reverted to the "designated giving model, " giving less through the national CP channels and more through the local church's own missions budget to fund short-term volunteer missions trips by their own church members.   Volunteer missions are wonderful, they usually depend on the "standing army" of the career missionaries.    Support for volunteers and career missionaries  should be "both / and," not "either/or."   If there are no career missionaries in place, the short term volunteer cannot be effective. 
 
 
Southern Baptists, at their recent national convention in Greensboro, NC, expressed their renewed commitment to the "Cooperative Program" method of doing missions.  In a variety of ways, messengers declared that cooperative giving by churches is the first way, and the best way, for the Convention to do missions, in addition to local church involvement in direct missions projects.  Messengers elected a president, Dr. Frank Page, whose First Baptist Church in Taylors, SC,  gave 12% of its undesignated budget to the SBC Cooperative Program.   
 
As you go, or as you give, you are helping to fulfill Acts 1:8.  That's true for all evangelicals, working to do their part to fulfill the Great Commission.   For Southern Baptists, the message from the Convention messengers was clear:  there is no place you could give your money to do more good for the Great Commission than through your local church's budget and  the SBC Cooperative Program.
 
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