April 25, 2024
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. – The Georgia Baptist Executive Committee has approved a $32 million Cooperative Program budget, which includes $15.8 million for a wide variety of initiatives aimed at “pushing back lostness” in the state plus $12.8 million for national and international causes.
“The generosity of Georgia Baptists is on full display here,” said Georgia Baptist Mission Board Executive Director W. Thomas Hammond Jr. “They have experienced the joy of walking with Christ, and they give sacrificially so that others may come to know Him.”
The budget approved Tuesday includes well over 100 individual line-item appropriations, including for Baptist Collegiate Ministries on higher education campuses across the state, Disaster Relief deployments, seasonal camps for students, and the popular mobile healthcare ministry that delivers medical and dental care to communities across Georgia, all of which combine to lead hundreds of people to Christ each year.
“Our desire is to see Cooperative Program funding increase,” Hammond said. “We want to plant more churches than ever before. We want to be on more college campuses. We want to encourage our pastors and resource our churches to reach their communities. Georgia is more lost today than it was a year ago, and the best way for us to reach our state is to combine our efforts, experiences, knowledge and resources.”
The budget also includes a combined $3.2 million for Brewton-Parker College, Shorter University and Truett McConnell University, all of which are Georgia Baptist institutions that are preparing the next generation of Christians for the state’s workforce and pulpits.
The Executive Committee budget also appropriates nearly $16.6 million for the International Mission Board and more than $9.3 million to the North American Mission Board from the Cooperative Program as well as the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong special offerings.
The Executive Committee also approved recommendations from a task force to continue to appropriate 40 percent of the state’s Cooperative Program gifts for national and international causes.
The task force, which held a series of meetings in recent months, reviewed traditional giving patterns and current needs before determining that the current distribution model should remain in place.
“It’s crucial that we get the gospel into all of Georgia as well as into all the world,” Hammond said. “Our churches are committed to that, and our funding model reflects that commitment.”
The new Cooperative Program budget allocates more than $2.5 million for church strengthening, $2 million for pastor wellness, $1 million for Woman’s Missionary Union initiatives, $360,000 for Disaster Relief, $430,000 for Baptist Mobile Health, $335,000 for church planting, $117,000 for evangelism and $930,000 for collegiate ministries.
The budget document shows Georgia Baptists also give nearly $9.9 million for Georgia Baptist colleges and Southern Baptist seminaries through the Cooperative Program and special offerings, as well as $6.1 million for SBC compassion ministries.
David Melber, the state mission board’s chief financial officer, said he expects Cooperative Program giving to continue a downward trend in the coming year.
Since 2007, Cooperative Program giving has fallen from $49.5 million to a projected $34.3 million in 2022.
“We began seeing this downward trend in 2007, and in a seven-year period leading up to 2014 Cooperative Program giving had declined by nearly $10 million,” Melber said. “In the following seven years between 2015 and 2022, it had fallen another $6.5 million.”
The Georgia Baptist Mission Board began an educational campaign three years ago, when Hammond was elected executive director, aimed at reminding church leaders of the value of the Cooperative Program in reaching Georgia and the world for Christ.
Hammond and his staff have crisscrossed the state telling Georgia churches about the great things being accomplished through the Cooperative Program.
“We talk about the countless souls being saved at home and abroad,” he said. “We talk about the 3,600 international missionaries now serving in nations around the world, about preachers being prepared in Georgia Baptist colleges and Southern Baptist seminaries, success stories of churches that are being planted, pastors being encouraged, about the many incredible wins for Georgia Baptists because we’re in this together,” he said.
“We’re hoping we will see a turnaround when churches of this generation realize what churches of past generations knew, that we as believers are at our best when we’re working together. And the Cooperative Program is that initiative that keeps us on the frontlines not just here in Georgia but around the world.”
