Point of View

The thread of cooperation always has been an identifiable fiber of Baptist life.

Though we have always been fiscally independent by nature and public declaration, that thread of cooperation runs through our history because we are family.

Families can always accomplish more by cooperating than existing in chaos. Yet, I am certain that many, even Baptists, see what they perceive as lack of direction and wonder if cooperation is at work.

Perhaps this perceived lack of cooperation comes when they see others adopt convenient convictions that curve with calculations based on secular acceptance, not biblical certainty. When Baptists of conviction become convinced concerning a certain reality or doctrine, it is extremely difficult to persuade them in an opposite direction.

As a result of this tenacity, when Southern Baptists made a viable commitment to cooperate on a method for Kingdom finance, it became the most radical decision of any major denomination. The missionary and education mindset of the Southern Baptist Convention now had the financial underpinning to engage the world in an organized way.

It has always been of keen interest to me that from the beginning in 1845, the Southern Baptist Convention was formed for missions and education. Still today the national portion of the SBC budget allocates the largest portions to missions and education—50 percent to the International Mission Board; 22.79 percent to the North American Mission Board; 22.16 percent to theological education; and 5.05 percent to other areas of the denomination's work.

The Cooperative Program centerpiece of this cooperation came into being in 1925. This was on the heels of the very successful "75 Million Campaign" in 1919, a five-year pledge campaign that for the first time, included everything—the missions and ministries of all state conventions and SBC agencies. The campaign proved Baptists can work together.

Though there have been changes and fine-tuning along the way, we have and will continue to debate the best practices of Cooperative Program funding. Yet we must never abandon the plan for missionary expansion—in the state, nation and world—that has been tested and proven worthy of our support, prayerfully and financially.