The Open Door

In the last edition of The Index, I began a focus upon the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force report that will be presented at the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Orlando. I addressed Component #3 regarding the Cooperative Program and Great Commission Giving.

In this edition I would like to speak to Component #4 that makes reference to Cooperative Agreements with the various state conventions of the SBC. For many years now the Cooperative Agreements and accompanying budgets have driven the work of Southern Baptists in relationship to our state conventions all across the United States. While they have been effective tools, the task force felt deeply that we need to be even more effective in evangelizing and congregationalizing the areas of our own nation that have the fewest number of Southern Baptist churches and the greatest percentages of lostness.

This makes sense. The report calls upon state conventions to divest themselves of the Cooperative Agreements within seven years for the purpose of freeing up resources for evangelism and church planting in our new work area states.

What this means is that the old line state conventions, older state conventions are typically located in the Southeast, will return to the North American Mission Board approximately $14 million in order to make those resources available for an evangelism and church planting focus in the new work state conventions unlike anything Southern Baptists have ever attempted.

This does not mean that the North American Mission Board is deserting its relationships with old line state conventions. NAMB will continue to engage with the larger, more Southern-Baptist-populated state conventions on various occasions as together they do the work of evangelism, church planting, disaster relief, etc.

What it does mean is that Georgia Baptists will not be receiving the $835,000 we have been receiving from NAMB as we have shared the costs involved in supporting NAMB-appointed missionaries serving in Georgia. The other old line state conventions will be giving up similar amounts of money. Jointly funded missionaries serving with the old line state conventions will become funded solely by the state convention where they are serving.

Obviously, in order for this to happen, our churches are going to need to step up their Cooperative Program giving to help us overcome this loss. We can do that. Just one percent more coming from our churches last year would have provided $9 million more for the Cooperative Program which would serve to meet our needs in Georgia and send a huge amount of mission dollars on to the Southern Baptist Convention.

Our staff is already working diligently on a plan to continue our mission work in Georgia at the same level and return more than $835,000 to the North American Mission Board to expand Southern Baptist churches and evangelism ministries in the Northeast, upper Midwest and West of the United States.

Is this going to be a challenge? Oh, yes, it certainly will be, but I want you to know that I am excited about providing more money to our new work state conventions than they have ever received in order to plant more churches and reach more lost people in those areas than ever before in our history. Just how all of this will progress is in the hands of the board of NAMB and the new president when he is selected.

With the love that I have for our new work state convention executive directors, I can assure you that I would not be supportive of this component if I was not convinced that it would send significantly greater resources to these state conventions for a more rapid development of their work. We have got to get serious about being more effective in helping our new work states to plant churches and win the lost to faith in Christ. They have done a great job with the resources they have had, but we must be more aggressive in supporting their work.

It’s time for all hands on deck in the Southern Baptist Convention if we are to penetrate the lostness of our own country in our lifetime.