The Cooperative Program Miracle

by Jerry Rankin                                                                                                                                       Vol. VI, No. 9, December 1993

     President, Foreign Mission Board

To some the Cooperative Program is a collection of funds. To others it is a unified budget. Still others view it as a plan for cooperative missions. The Cooperative Program has been called "the glue that holds Southern Baptists together," or "the rope of sand with strength of steel," or "the lifeline of missions," and has been given numerous other designations.

The Cooperative Program may be all or a blend of its titles and appellations, but my twenty-three years of service on the mission field have brought me to the conviction that it is more than a humanly devised program to finance missions. To me the Cooperative Program is a living miracle. I have experienced and witnessed it firsthand.

The Cooperative Program is a miracle of faith.

Each Lord's Day faithful Baptists give by faith to their local church and by faith the church shares a percentage of those gifts each week or month for the work of Christ in the state, the USA, and throughout the world. Faithlessness on the part of all Southern Baptists for just one Sunday would create a denominational economic crisis of astronomical proportions! Missionaries thank God daily for the faithfulness of Southern Baptists.

The Cooperative Program is a miracle of love.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. God so loved the world that He also gave Southern Baptists a burden for a lost world and the love of His son to reach it. Cooperative Program gifts are a tangible expression of that love. Almost 4,000 Southern Baptist foreign missionaries in 129 countries are the incarnate expression of that love as they make Christ known to the nations.

The Cooperative Program is a miracle of cooperation.

Faithful church members, cooperating Baptist churches, concerned associations, committed state conventions, other Southern Baptist Convention entities, and the Foreign Mission Board together weave a web of cooperation that encompasses the globe with evangelism that results in churches. This cooperative effort resulted in 251,901 baptisms overseas last year, an average of over 4,800 baptized believers each week. A miracle indeed.

The Cooperative Program is a miracle of distribution.

The local church members vote on the percentage or dollar amount of funds that are forwarded for all Cooperative Program causes. The state convention messengers vote on the percentage distribution of funds for state convention and Southern Baptist Convention ministries. The SBC Executive Committee and the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention vote on the percentage of funds to each SBC entity, including the Foreign Mission Board.

The cooperative Program is a miracle of grace.

No human instrumentality can claim credit for the success of the Cooperative Program. It is only by the grace of God that Southern Baptists have been blessed with the financial resources to reach our world. It is only by His grace and the leadership of the Holly Spirit that Southern Baptists have been led to contribute generously to missionary causes.

It is a miracle of God's grace that a culturally diverse and geographically scattered people called Southern Baptists can be bound together by trust that transcends our differences and combines our resources for doing together what none of us can do alone.

The Cooperative Program is a miracle of growth.

Since its beginning in 1925 the Cooperative Program has grown beyond the fondest dreams of our Baptist forefathers who nurtured it through its infancy. Yet the last few years indicate a downward trend in SBC Cooperative Program gifts, while the potential for future growth is as great as the promises of God.

Our people, our churches, and our conventions must be challenged as never before to increase their gifts and their percentages for global evangelization during these final years of Bold Mission Thrust.

Another miracle is in the making. I challenge you and your church and your state convention to be a vital part of what God is doing in our world.

[Editorial Comment: (1) Readers will be interested to know that of all the Cooperative Program funds received by the SBC 50% goes to the Foreign Mission Board for support of our overseas missionaries, 20% to the Home Mission Board for evangelization within the United States, and 20% supports our six SBC seminaries. You will note that only 10% is devoted to all the other SBC entities. (2) We may be witnessing the beginning of a turnaround in CP receipts. Donations for each of the last three months have been above gifts for the same month in 1992. Please make the Cooperative Program a matter of sustained prayer. The fields are white unto harvest both at home and abroad. There are unnumbered millions aching to hear the gospel, but unless we all give and more of us go, "how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard"? Romans 10:14]