Cooperative Program and the new CEO of the Florida Baptist state convention

The only thing I invest in Florida is an occasional chunk of tourist money. The only thing I bring out of Florida is sunburn and a few fish. But I do think events concerning the Florida Baptist Convention are interesting, since it is one of the largest of the state conventions and one of the heaviest contributors to the Cooperative Program on the national level.

In 2014 FBC churches, through their state convention, sent almost $30 million to the SBC Executive Committee in Nashville to be allocated mainly to the mission boards and seminaries. In 2014 the FBC kept 58.63 percent of every CP dollar it received from FBC churches.

In the way most states present their accounting, they use certain traditional techniques to explain how a CP dollar is divided (often called the "split") between their state convention and the national CP allocation budget. The accounting always makes the split appear not to be as unfavorable to the mission boards and seminaries as it looks. I've always considered this accounting to be confusing if not mildly, though not nefariously, deceptive.

Florida has said that a 50/50 split is in the works. I have doubted it would ever arrive because of the accounting system, not that my doubts have any meaning south of the St. Mary's River.

But now Florida has a new Executive who is about a generation younger that their long-serving one who just retired. The new guy, J. Thomas Green, will present a budget this year to the FBC in session which, in his words, "will have a budget that gives away 51 percent and keeps 49 percent."

Goodbye, 59/50; sayonara, 50/50. So long, funny accounting. Hello, 49/51.

This reminds me of similar action taken by the new CEO in Iowa, a much, much smaller state convention. Their split was moved by a new CEO from 85/15 to a "true" 50/50" in one fell swoop. No more funny accounting there either.

Why the sudden shift? Why not slow and steady?

Green, who is 57, about two decades younger than his predecessor, said that the goal was in part to "get the 30-somethings and 40-something-year-olds back into the mix." He commented that the convention had been working towards a 50/50 split for five years and that "we need to do it immediately." He adds that the change is the right thing to do even if this doesn't accomplish what he expects or desires.

I would like the thinking of my new state CEO were I in Florida.

Here's a new executive who will start by having to cut funding in order to give Cooperative Program money away (not just toss it in the air but see that it gets outside the state and to the mission boards and seminaries) and do so in part because he thinks this will demonstrate serious change in thinking about the CP to younger FBC pastors who are not CP enthusiasts.

My anecdotal reading of attitudes is that younger pastors are general not engaged or enthused by the Cooperative Program and, when they find out how the accounting disguises the actual distribution of the funds, they move from mild apathy to cynicism and conclude that their mission dollars are better spent elsewhere. Perhaps others read the attitudes differently. I doubt that there are many who wouldn't recognize that the attitudes of younger pastors towards the CP do not bode well for its future.

Tommy Green, the new FBC CEO, may not have solved the problem but he has done something that will get the attention of his younger colleagues.

How much difference will it make?

No one knows but if I were a pastor in Florida, I'd like what I see.

____________

Interview of the new CEO in the Florida Baptist Witness: Tommy Green talks about everything...

Baptist21, younger dude Southern Baptist site interview: Beyond Fifty Percent: B21interview with Tommy Green

Why church Cooperative Program percentages will never go up

I rather tend to stay away from categorical statements but saying that the percentage of undesignated offering plate dollars given in churches to the Cooperative Program will never go up is, well, categorical. I would qualify that to say never go up by at least one percentage point.

This important metric has increased the past two years, as shown below:

Percentage of undesignated offerings given to Cooperative Program

2011                     5.407
2012                     5.414
2013                     5.500

These are encouraging figures, especially in the context of the decades long slide of percentages. When I entered the pastoral ministry in 1982 the average percentage for a church was over ten percent.

So, if the percentages are up, even slightly, why the prediction that they will never go up to six, seven, eight percent or greater? Here are several reasons why.

1. The Cooperative Program is static, fixed and no substantial changes will make it more attractive.

States now keep about 60% of the CP dollar. There is a movement towards a "50/50" split of funds between state conventions and the Executive Committee. This movement has shown some success. Baptist Press reported that 23 states strengthened global missions last year and were "moving toward a goal of a "50/50 allocation between in-state causes and SBC causes."

The state conventions depend almost exclusively on CP dollars to fund their staff, buildings, and ministries. As a result, their main incentive is to preserve their funds, jobs, ministries, and entities. In doing this they are accustomed to carving out ten percent of the CP dollar off the top and applying a label of "shared" ministries or other label. This accounting technique (standard for decades and not nefarious, just not well known) allows them to keep the first ten percent and then move towards a 50/50 split of the remaining 90%. Not all states do this but most of the CP dollars go through this fuzzy process making 50/50 almost a meaningless figure. The upshot of it all is that the states are making incremental changes that are unlikely to alter the behavior of individual churches, in my view.

Additionally, the SBC allocation formula is pretty well set in concrete. No one expects the seminaries to ever say they need less than 21.92%. No one I know believes that the IMB should be cut from their 50.41%. NAMB has some critics but they are not calling for a reduction of its 22.79%. The Executive Committee cut their percentage to 2.99% a few years ago. The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is generously funded at 1.65% and better watch out because their $3.1 million looks awfully generous for what we receive in return, but there's no big money there, just tiny percentages.

No one. No one, is making any grand vision statements about the CP that will motivate churches to change their behavior and give considerably more and I see no signs that selling the program we have will suddenly have greater success.

2. Large and megachurches will never give at average and above average percentages. 

Our 175 or so megachurches fuel the trends in SBC life to a certain extent. They supply our most visible leaders. Smaller churches seek to emulate their success.

Ronnie Floyd, megachurch pastor and our current president, is a vocal CP supporter and his church is a heavy CP giver, but I haven't seen anyone claim that his church is at or above the SBC average of 5.5%. That's not a problem for me (I'll take the dollars that always pay bills rather than the percentages that never pay bills) but the string of megapastors we elect are influential and they are not going to motivate many churches to give above average CP percentages. They don't practice this in their own churches.

3. Very high CP percentage giving churches have correspondingly higher pressure to reduce that percentage. 

I was pleased to see BP's article about our SBCV colleague whose church is a 30% CP giver. That's almost six times the average, very impressive and altogether commendable. Awesome, really. I commend him and them for it. I'm a long way from the flatlands of Arkansas but I would guess that when discussions occur in his church, or in any other church giving 15%, 20% and more, they center on CP reduction, not increase. Sooner or later someone in these churches will make a proposal to cut the CP percentage by five or ten points and the church will think it to be a good idea. This is a battle that only has to be won once by those who would redirect some of that CP money, whereas CP supporters have to win year-after-year-after year.

Consequently, it is likely that a very high percentage church will eventually be reeled back towards the pack because there are considerable pressures in every local church for local ministry, staff needs, programmatic initiatives, and building plans. A high CP percentage is a big, big target for all of these. It always gets shot at and sometimes hit.

4. Churches will inch the CP percentage upward in fractions but move downward in large numbers.

I am familiar with a church that cut their CP percentage from over 15% to 10% to free up funds for local ministry. A 5% cut. Show me churches that increase their CP percentage by 5% from 5 to 10% or 7 to 12%. Seldom happens. This is why Frank Page's Great Commission Challenge which asked for one percentage point increase by churches, can be widely successful with thousands of churches accepting it but the CP can still decline. A church that goes up by 0.5% or by 1% is more than offset by churches that drop by 1%, 3%, or 5%.

The CP was undoubtedly helped by Page's initiative but the math is such that it isn't showing in any considerable increase in revenues or lifting of percentages.

5. It's official, we are mostly a societal giving convention anyway.

OK, my erudite SBC colleagues. What is trending upwards in SBC life? Lottie Moon is, record offering in 2013. Annie Armstrong is, SEND North America is thriving, offerings are up. Churches doing direct missions both here and overseas are up. Churches partnering directly with IMB (and thereby bypassing both their state convention and the Executive Committee) are up. None of these are CP driven. All of them are CP unfriendly.

And it's old news now but for two years straight the Executive Committee has received more in designated dollars than in undesignated, Cooperative Program dollars. At the SBC level we are mostly societal, brethren.

6. The Cooperative Program is a dying brand. 

I asked a thirtysomething, solidly Southern Baptist pastor what he thought of the Cooperative Program. He looked at me and replied, "Oh, that's a state convention thing." Not said was, "That's a state convention thing and we aren't all that interested in funding central staff and expensive buildings. We are much more attuned to local ministry and supporting North American and international missions. The CP is a tough sell. In fact, the CP does much better the less pastors and laypeople know about it, since the less people know them more they believe that the CP is mostly IMB and NAMB. The brand is not dead but it is slowly dying.

But let's be positive here. The CP still puts hundreds of millions of dollars into ministry all over the US and the world. It is a huge funding engine. We should thank God for it and support it. But it will never recover from where it was.

I have several hats and will be glad to eat any one of them if the CP goes northward of 6%.

The CP and the SQ

My insightful friend and fellow blogger, Bart Barber, has a short article on SBC Voices entitled, "It's the CP, not the SQ", in which he says,

"I write today to disabuse you all of the idea that defending the Cooperative Program means defending the status quo."

I've concluded that our venerable denominational funding scheme, The Cooperative Program, has become an inherently status quo system with little chance of accommodating major changes. This article explains why.

To discuss this necessarily involves dividing the question of status quo into two parts: (1) state convention spending and the percentage of CP revenues that they keep rather than forward to the SBC Executive Committee for allocation to national entities. This is commonly called the "split", (2) the SBC Cooperative Program allocation formula, the percentages of CP revenue forwarded by the EC to the International Mission Board, North American Mission Board, the six seminaries, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and the Executive Committee itself.

I believe the status quo is vigorously defended and quite evident in both.

State Conventions and the Split

State conventions keep an average of about 62% of every CP dollar. There has been little variation in this split with states dipping below 60% only twice (when Truman was president). In the 35 year period I have been either a seminary student, SBC church pastor, or retired SBC pastor the percentage has had a very narrow range, between a low of about 61% (1987-1988) and a high of about 65% (1979-1980). The recent trend is slightly downward, measured by fractions of percentage points.

I recognize a couple of things about the split.

(1) The original CP agreement of yea scores and scores of years ago was that states keep half, plus the expense of promoting the CP; so, states expect to have a floor of 50% and add to that various percentage points for promotion. This 50% plus agreement means a guaranteed and expected floor of 55 or 60 percent, depending on the accounting techniques of the individual state conventions. Even a new state convention like the Southern Baptists of Texas, although free of some the legacy constituencies that the states have accumulate, varies only a little from that. They keep 45%.

(2) Many of the states have declared an intent to move to a 50/50 split, although 50/50 in some cases means 55/45 or so, depending on the promotional expense add-ons individual to each state. No state is talking about major percentage changes. Not one.

When people like Bryant Wright, former SBC president, speaks of state conventions needing to move to a 25/75 split, moving from 62% to 55% or so looks a lot like a lot of resistance to change and some rather aggressive defense of the status quo.  We could all do like Texas and ditch the current convention and get a fresh start with a another one where there would be competition for church CP dollars and then move a bit below 50% in the split but that is unlikely to happen. State conventions could indeed vote to give away a substantial part of their revenue stream. I don't see that happening but if some state wishes to make me a believer, I'm ready for it.

Status quo.

SBC allocation formula

Here's the current allocation formula:

IMB              50.41%
NAMB          22.79%
Seminaries    22.16%
ERLC             1.65%
EC                  2.99%

There have been changes over the years but the three major components, IMB, NAMB, and the six seminaries have always the main recipients consuming almost all CP dollars at the SBC level. IMB has been bumped up a fraction of a percent. NAMB was allocated more after swallowing some smaller entities in a reorganization. ERLC has been given a bit more and the EC relinquished a fraction of a percent to IMB after the Great Commission Resurgence process.

Looks a lot like status quo to me. Does anyone anticipate any large changes in the Big Three? Since the two mission boards have the two major mission offerings, Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong, any chance for significant change would have to come from the six seminaries. Does anyone anticipate that the seminaries will ever be allocated less than they have now? We have a track record on them, the Great Commission Resurgence, where they successfully defended their percentages.

One could argue that even fractions of percentages involve tens of millions of dollars and that such changes are anything but status quo, but I'm at the place where it looks like we can fiddle with fractions at the SBC level but that's about it. Status quo.

Jimmy Draper, old CR lion, former SBC president, and former SBC entity CEO speaks of the CP needing to be "revised, restarted, reinvented or something" because of the decades long CP giving lethargy. Ronnie Floyd current SBC president raises all the usual questions about the split, the allocation formula, church giving, and individual giving. Both seem to be saying that we need to move away from the status quo.

But CP money, as Ronnie Floyd says, is church money and judging by their giving patterns, churches have looked at their mission giving and concluded that the CP is important but only about half as important as it was decades ago. Churches have changed their mission status quo, I suspect after concluding that the state convention and SBC allocation status quo is not likely to change.

I am one who thinks the CP, although heavily weighed down by the status quo, is irreplaceable. I like it. We need it. The SBC we have would be unrecognizable without it. If there is some new idea that would revise, restart, reinvent, or reinvigorate it...I'd like to see it. I just don't see the CP status quo being overturned.

Is there a realistic "Third Way" Cooperative Program alternative?

Here are the two main choices SBC churches have in regard to the Cooperative Program: Give to it through the regular state convention channel or not give to it.

Almost all churches give to the Cooperative Program. In fact, and despite the incessant lamentation over the declining percentages given to the CP, the average church gives 5.5% of its undesignated offerings to the CP. While this may be about half of the percentage of a generation ago, it still is a mammoth common funding plan that generates almost half a billion dollars to our ministries. If we stop griping about what it used to be thirty years ago and consider that any church that chooses not to give to the CP is a very rare Baptist bird, we might have a better perspective for the future.

Churches have always had the option of designated giving and almost all churches give in this manner, chiefly through the two mission offerings, Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong. Many churches are diverting dollars formerly given through the CP to either or both of these offerings or to other SBC and non-SBC mission causes. By the end of the decade the two mission offerings will total more than the SBC part of the CP.

But, suppose for example that a church wants to keep their 5% Cooperative Program amount and that they don't want to designate any of that percentage. Is there an alternative? Jon Akin at B21 says that there is and offers one in a recent article, CP: Another Way.

Akin rehearses the difficulty and slowness of state conventions moving to forward more of the CP dollar to the two mission boards and seminaries and smaller SBC entities. The fact is and the fact will remain that most of a CP dollar is kept within the state conventions, meaning that the legacy southern states that are so heavily populated by Southern Baptist churches also keep most of the mission money, about 61%. This is nothing new. State conventions have always kept most of the money. That's the system.

The Great Commission Resurgence created a lot of noise and a little movement towards adjusting this 61% downwards toward a 50/50 Cooperative Program split. This has had incremental results partly because state convention insiders and executives consider that 50/50 really means 55/45 or even 60/40 (nothing much has changed since 2011 when I wrote the piece linked).

Here's where Akin sees another way,

But, what if there was an alternative? What if a church genuinely values what the state convention is doing, wants to be a part of the process, wants to support its missions and ministries, but wants to move more quickly to 50/50 so more money gets to the nations? Is there an option for them? What if churches could give their CP dollars straight to the national convention and tell them to send 50% of my dollars to my state convention to help fund their mission efforts?  

This alternative is possible and some churches already do this. The Executive Committee receives some funds directly from individuals and churches (in the low single digit percentages) and, presumably, they are able to direct these funds as the donor wishes.

I don't think this to be a realistic alternative.

Forgive my pessimism but this, (a) it requires too much of an irregular process, and (b) there are more comfortable and less demanding alternatives. There's nothing wrong with Akin's suggestion but churches, I speculate, would feel a bit hesitant to send their checks around their state convention even if the state convention ended up with half of the church's giving after it was first routed through Nashville. Add to that the ease and long habit of churches taking the two mission offerings. The easier alternative, one that has been practiced for decades and one that churches are inherently more comfortable with is for a church to decrease their CP percentage or amount by an amount that then is budgeted to Annie Armstrong, Lottie Moon, or other causes. The state convention will still keep their 60% or 65% but the church has effectively reduced the percentage by giving less.

What the Akin proposal clearly shows, though, is that there are many Southern Baptists who are loyal, who love the Cooperative Program, who love and support their state convention, but who feel that the CP process and allocation formulas do not reflect their priorities, nor the reality of the world's Gospel needs in the 21st Century.

I get this general conclusion when I ask younger pastors about the Cooperative Program and their mission priorities. I've never had a thirtysomething pastor who said they believe that our state, Georgia, has a greater need for CP dollars that places in North America and the world beyond the Chattahoochee and Savannah rivers. Not once. Maybe I'm talking to the wrong thirtysomethings.

We could do the same thing Akin suggests in an easier fashion if state conventions would offer churches alternative giving plans. My state could offer two alternatives, a "traditional" plan that maintained the current split (about 60/40, the state keeping the 60%) but also a straight "50/50" plan where that CP dollar is divided equally between the Georgia Baptist Convention and SBC causes (and the 50/50 would be straight, without any accounting funny business where money kept in Georgia is called "shared" ministries or other fuzzy labels). I think that this alternative would have an immediate market among churches and pastors and that many churches would adopt the 50/50 plan, thereby fully supporting the official CP while giving in better accord with their mission priorities.

I wouldn't look for this, though, since the only result would be a decrease in state convention revenues. State convention decision makers would prefer to have the ability to dangle tiny, fractional percentage movements towards 50/50, since they are better in control of those decisions. The idea of giving a church a straight choice removes the state convention from being in control and is therefore an idea that is DOA...

...Unless there is a grassroots movement to storm the Baptist Bastille and demand liberte from the legacy keepers of the Cooperative Program.

The best Cooperative Program giving plan you never heard of

The South Carolina Baptist Convention is fairly typical among SBC state conventions in that it divides a Cooperative Program mostly in favor of in-state expenses. The SCBC keeps 59% of Cooperative Program gifts in-state and forwards 41%. That is a couple of clicks less kept in-state than the SBC average for state conventions.

But they do something that no other state convention does, so far as I am aware. They send a considerable sum directly to the International Mission Board, bypassing the Executive Committee. The 2014 budget calls for $716,813 in Cooperative Program gifts to be sent from Columbia straight to Richmond.

This method multiplies the CP gifts of South Carolina Baptist churches that is used for international missions by a factor of five.

SC Baptists wanted to increase their support for the IMB and their efforts in sharing the Gospel with the billions of souls around the world. To do this they could have taken the traditional route of attempting to decrease by tiny increments the amount of CP funds kept in state thereby increasing by even tinier increments the part of a CP dollar devoted to international missions. Doing this would yield negligible additional sums for the IMB, since 59 cents of a CP dollar is taken for in-state expenses, and then another 20.5 cents is sliced off by the Executive Committee for the seminaries, North American Mission Board, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and Executive Committee itself. Thus, the SCBC Cooperative Program dollar that finally arrives at the IMB has shrunk to 20.5 cents.

Instead of the above, SC Baptists take some Cooperative Program gifts and send them directly to the IMB. The IMB gets that full dollar. Thus, the $716,813 to be sent in 2014 is the equivalent of $3,496,649 sent through normal CP channels.

It surprises me that little is said around the convention about this. In a way it undermines the CP which has a rather rigid fixed allocation formula whereby a CP dollar is sliced and diced into tiny chunks. The IMB does get the largest chunk but on average that is less than twenty cents.

The way the SCBC explains their action is that they are sending direct gifts to the IMB in order to quickly arrive at supporting international missions with the same sum of CP gifts that they would if there were a 50/50 split, rather than 59/41. The Baptist Courier reported it in this way:

messengers voted to increase South Carolina’s contribution to IMB by 21.95 percent over the next three years in order to fund IMB at a level equal to the amount IMB would receive if South Carolina were splitting Cooperative Program receipts 50/50 with the Southern Baptist Convention.  

I love the action of South Carolina Baptists here. While I appreciate and support the Cooperative Program, it has a serious flaw in that the allocation formulas are essentially inscribed in stone, as if by the finger of God.

Touch not the portion of that dollar allocated to the six seminaries, or NAMB, or ERLC! Thou mayest touch the state/SBC split...but only just a little!

We are seeing small movements by state conventions to reduce the portion kept in state, often described as "moving to a 50/50 split." This is very slight, quite incremental, and will make little difference in international missions. Although some state conventions have declared an intention to move to a 50/50 split, because of funky CP accounting in some states this only means moving to a 55/45 split or other proportional division, not a true 50/50.

The SBC allocation formula is even less likely to be changed from the present where the IMB gets about 50%, NAMB 23%, the six seminaries 23%, and XComm and ERLC the remaining 4%. The Great Commission Resurgence wasn't so great in doing anything with this, every entity successfully protecting their financial turf. Frank Page did lead the Executive Committee to reduce his allocation by a few tenths of a percent. That's the grand substance and outcome of the GCR effort at the SBC budget level.

None of this nonsense for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. They recognize that if they want to quickly put more of their CP money towards global missions, the most efficient way is to send it directly to the IMB.

Will other state conventions follow this plan? I don't know.

I do know that I like the approach. If because of its rigidity the Cooperative Program is seen as an impediment to reaching the vast numbers of people around the world who need Jesus, then I'm for any reasonable workaround.

South Carolina Baptists are to be commended for their creativity and determination in this matter.  

Do Cooperative Program percentages, divisions, and accountings really matter?

The answer is: YES and NO.

Yes, it absolutely matters...

...to state convention executives because many continually offer various complex calculations of what portion of Cooperation Program revenues are kept in-state and what portion is forwarded to the Executive Committee for distribution to our International Mission Board, North American Mission Board, the six Southern Baptist seminaries, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and the Executive Committee itself.

See last week's post on the Georgia Baptist Convention's Cooperative Program Accounting. I make no hint of an implication of any ill motives or practices but the GBC figures the CP percentage kept in a manner that is not always clear to those who aren't steeped in this stuff. The GBC maintains a 60/40 split but footnotes that 9.82% of CP revenues are "used for the Promotion, Support, Accounting, and Distribution of Cooperative Program Funds" so it is implied that they don't really count as being "kept." This is historically correct, since from the start the state conventions agreed to promote, collect, and distribute the CP funds.

When some state conventions speak of moving towards a 50/50 split of CP revenues, sometimes it means that they are moving to a 55/45 split. They just call it 50/50 because they take 5% of the table because they keep and use it for in-state for CP promotion and collection. I wrote on this over two years ago (CP Math: 50/50 = 55/45 or 60/40). While there have been some changes in this, often this is still the math.

Consider the action of the Missouri Baptist Convention this month. Here's how Baptist Press reported their Cooperative Program budget and explanation:

A $14.5 million CP budget was approved, a decrease from last year's $14.6 million budget. Nevertheless, messengers moved toward the "50-50" cooperative giving plan, approving 60 percent of the CP budget for state causes and 40 percent for SBC causes. Additionally, 5 percent of the 2014 budget was placed in a separate "shared expenses" category, which would not count toward the 50-50 goal. The funds will be allocated for annuity protections and The Pathway state newspaper. In contrast, messengers at the MBC's 2012 annual meeting allocated 62.5 percent for MBC causes and 37.5 percent for SBC causes.

Got it? The MBC is aiming at a 50/50 split that will actually be a 55/45 split. They explain that money budgeted by the MBC for "annuity protections" and, presumably, all of the state paper money is to taken off the table in arriving at a 50/50 split. Exactly how annuity protections are justified as promoting, collecting, and distributing CP revenues by the state convention is not explained. There are no set rules for this stuff. No one dictates to any level of Baptist life how this should be done.

No, it does not matter...

...to the people who drop their tithes and offerings in their local church offering plate each Lord's Day.

I cannot imagine that Bob and Betty Baptist who work hard and happily support their church, their state convention, Lottie and Annie have any level of understanding of this state convention sausage making process. If they did understand, I'd suspect that they would not care.

What they care about is this. Where does my money go?What are you doing with it in this state? How much of it gets to the IMB, NAMB, and the seminaries?

While the state conventions fiddle with accounting, budgets, pie charts and historical precedents, average Baptists want to know how serious we are about reaching North America and the world for Christ.

There is a push within many of the state conventions for a 50/50 split in CP revenues. It is my view that if we call it 50/50 it should divide a dollar into 50 cents for the state convention and 50 cents for the Executive Committee to distribute to SBC causes. No one asked me. No one may care about my opinion. And I certainly haven't been appointed Czar of Baptist CP Percentages. I humbly offer my opinion.

In the end, I would speculate, state conventions will win this insider baseball debate about CP percentages. Rather than fight it or complain about it, churches will just continue to give less to the Cooperative Program and more directly to causes that have higher priorities.

Georgia Baptist Convention Cooperative Program Accounting

The GBC has made a welcome and needed change in their Cooperative Program accounting. This is something that is helpful but rather obscure to any but SBC and GBC geeks and insiders.

As a pastor, I seldom had any laypeople ask me about CP percentages except to ask what part of Cooperative Program gifts went to international or North American missions. If you are trying to explain a state convention CP pie chart it is easy to get lost in the high weeks, and that rather quickly.

Here is my simple summary of how GBC Cooperative Program allocations may be presented, in order of increasing complexity:

The Georgia Baptist Convention divides each church's Cooperative Program gifts in this manner:

60% is kept in-state for Georgia Baptist causes.

40% is forwarded for SBC causes mainly IMB, NAMB, seminaries, ERLC, and Executive Committee.

While our oustanding leader, Robert White, said this verbally. This is seldom if ever presented to the public in this fashion. No GBC/CP pie chart will have just two slices, GBC and SBC. There is always a third, shown in the 2014 version below:

The Georgia Baptist Convention divides each church's Cooperative Program gifts in this manner:

40.00% is forwarded for SBC causes.

48.97% is kept in-state for GBC causes.

11.03% is for Georgia Baptist Mission Extension Ministries

Quickly now, what is the "Georgia Baptist Mission Extension Ministries"? Who knows? It is about as generic as any label could be. This is the $4.6 million spent in-state on our three Georgia Baptist colleges, our retirement communities, and a couple of other tiny allocations. All of these are traditional state convention items - schools and ministries to aging. But why the budget carve-out for them?

I see no reason other than to avoid describing the CP allocation budget as 60/40 with the sixty staying in state.

Wouldn't it be more straightforward to put it to Georgia Baptist churches, ministers, and laypeople in this manner. "We do good work in this state with many ministries. In doing that we use 60% of every Cooperative Program dollar for a broad panoply of the Lord's work here in our state."

Here's the final method of explaining CP allocations:

The Georgia Baptist Convention divides each church's Cooperative Program gifts in this manner:

40.00% is forwarded for SBC causes.

48.97% is kept in-state for GBC causes.

11.03% is for Georgia Baptist Mission Extension Ministries

Note: The Southern Baptist Convention has historically requested that a portion of their Cooperative Program funds remain in Georgia to be used for the Promotion, Support, Accounting, and Distribution of Cooperative Program Funds, which equals 9.82% of the 2014 budget. 

Aha, the dreaded footnote further complicating things. Almost a century ago when the SBC and states adopted the wonderful system of fund allocation we have always called the Cooperative Program, it was understood that the states would do the promoting, collecting, and distribution of the money and that they were entitled to keep a portion for this work. Various state conventions handle this differently. The GBC puts a good bit more under this rubric than most, perhaps all, state conventions.

The dollar total of the footnote is about $4.1 million. So how is the CP promoted, collected, and distributed with this $4.1m? You have to ask. It is not shown.

I asked three years ago but haven't updated the information. In the 2011 budget more than half of the money was for debt service, plus the entire budget for the communications department and some other stuff. I believe that GBC decision makers have shuffled budget items in and out of this. If it were easily understood then why not llist one-by-one the budget items that are "counted" as CP promotion, support, accounting, and distribution? Then we would all know. Guess it is not that simple.

But I do commend the GBC for the change they have made in this regard.

Formerly, the GBC presented the CP as sharing CP monies equally with the SBC. The rationale for this was that about 20% of CP spending, all of which was in the GBC portion of the budget and not forwarded to the SBC Executive Committee, was labeled "shared ministries," or "jointly funded causes." CP promotional materials would have a graphic of a dollar bill sectioned into a 40/20/40 portions. The two '40s' were meant to convey that the GBC and SBC share equally, when in fact the GBC kept 60. Good move to drop that. It was completely misleading.

I like my state convention. I like my state convention leader, Robert White. He is an outstanding leader and administrator who has presided over the GBC in the roaring days of CP increases and in the depressing days of the CP's steep decline. He is a wonderful servant of Christ and our churches. He has shown wisdom and insight in his view of and reaction to some of the convention changes, most notably the steep reduction in North American Mission Board kickback funding to legacy southern state conventions.

The changes in budget presentation techniques are an improvement but my view from the GBC hinterlands is that all the caveats, provisos, and footnotes should be eliminated. Give a budget pie chart that has two slices: GBC causes, SBC causes.

We can all understand that.

But I do understand the historical precedents on all this.

Readers are welcome to inform me what I don't understand, what I am seeing incorrectly, or how I am all mixed up on this. Make a comment or feel free to email me. There may well be things I need to know but I don't.

Kentucky Bapt. Conv. agressively attacks Cooperative Program

I would be more accurate if I said that the aggression among KBC leaders is being directed at the division of Cooperative Program receipts from the churches.

This is a good way for Southern Baptist state convention leaders to channel their aggressive impulses.

 

State conventions are the biggest beneficiary of Cooperative Program dollars with considerably more than 50% on average staying within each state convention. Many SBCers think that while state conventions do good work and while the division of the CP dollar between states and national entities is consistent with historic levels, state conventions should not be keeping over 50%.

Count me in this number and count me skeptical that the states will ever do much to rectify this for a couple of reasons.

One, everyone can justify their budgets and find an endless stream of in-state projects to eat up CP dollars. Second, state conventions have long been deep into fuzzy math when it comes to CP accounting. In many cases when a state says "50/50" what they really mean is "60/40" or "55/45". Third, the inertia that comes from legacy funding of schools, campus ministries, and other state spending is very tough to overcome.

But I give the Kentucky Baptist Convention credit for taking steps to move their CP split towards 50/50. Baptist Press has a story from the KBC state paper, Western Recorder, on the move: Ky. advisory group proposes $700,000 CP shift.

The shift of CP receipts is in taking CP dollars given by KBC churches away from in-state causes and reallocating them to SBC causes such as the seminaries and mission boards. This is not insignificant and is the most serious such move among the state baptist conventions.

Almost all, about 95% of the reductions are being taken from two KBC colleges, the state paper, and the Kentucky Baptist Foundation. The rest comes from an array of smaller ministries.

If this is implemented, the new funding scheme is just a proposal now, the KBC will be closer to that 50/50 split, which in Kentucky's case actually means 55/45 but the convention is committed to making that 53.5/46.5.

Confused? Join 99.9% of Southern Baptists in that. I will explain later.

I commend the KBC for their relatively aggressive movements in getting more CP money out of their state. The are ahead of most state conventions in this. 

Does this CP shift make much difference?

The math helps us get to a conclusion on that. Stay tuned.

I allow for the possibility that this Georgian may be missing something about this move in Kentucky. If so, I would welcome some bluegrass Baptist if they wish to correct me or supplement my information here.

New wrinkle to the Cooperative Program

South Carolina Baptists are doing something that ought to raise at lease a single eyebrow around the Southern Baptist Convention. 

They are taking a significant portion of their Cooperative Program receipts from the churches and sending it directly to the International Mission Board thereby bypassing the Executive Committee, all of the seminaries, the North American Mission Board, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

I am unaware of any other state convention taking this course.

The Baptist Courier has the story, carried here by Baptist Press:

S.C. Baptists increase direct giving to IMB

The direct allocation to the IMB was boosted from $400,263 to $583,768, while the amount of Cooperative Program funds to be forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention remained unchanged at $11,685,000.

State conventions are autonomous, just like churches, and may direct their funding any way they wish but if they choose to take the traditional route of taking Cooperative Program receipts, keeping a portion for in-state use (the SCBC keeps about 59%, below the average for state conventions across the SBC), and forwarding the remainder to the Executive Committee, the International Mission Board would receive 50.2% of that amount.

A simple way to express this is to say that the SCBC gives about 5% of their SBC allocation directly to the IMB, that portion not being diminished by funds taken for the seminaries, Executive Committee, NAMB or the ERLC.

Another way to understand this is to realize that with direct giving the SCBC is multiplying their support of international mission by simply routing the $573,768 directly to Richmond. Under the usual CP allocation formula for SC and the SBC, SC Baptist churches would have to give about $2.8 million to the CP to net that much for the IMB. 

What the SCBC is saying is that International Missions has higher priority in their CP allocation and they are taking steps to accelerate IMB support.

I like the concept.

The Cooperative Program is our main channel for missions support, a mammoth funding engine. Here is what I see happening:

1. Churches are giving less of their offering to the CP. This is a trend a generation and a half long.
2. State conventions are moving to keep less of the CP dollar in their states. This trend was initiated mainly by the Great Commission Resurgence report. Many state conventions are making tentative moves from keeping 60% or more of the CP dollar to a 50/50 split. This is a very slow process that only marginally helps the IMB.
3.  State conventions giving directly to the mission agencies, bypassing the Executive Committee, seminaries, etc. So far as I am aware, only South Carolina is doing this but if other states follow it would be quite significant and sufficient to be felt, mainly by the seminaries and NAMB who lose potential funding in this process.

SBC life is interesting these days. There are few firm ground rules.

Having formerly served in SC, I am familiar with things there but I do not recall hearing any reaction from SC Baptists on this nor can I find any discussion of it. I'm curious if there was any reaction.

Temporary setback in my 50/50 split predictions

Back in September I blogged and expressed skepticism (Skepticism, on this blog? Shocking, I tell you, shocking!) about the Florida Baptist Convention moving towards their stated goal of an eventual 50/50 split in Cooperative Program allocation. I said:

It looks like the FBC, with predictable regrets, may abandon the goal of a 50/50 split. It hasn't happened yet but the groundwork is being laid by convention leadership and the matter is being discussed. I suspect that a rollback from the 50/50 goal is as sure an outcome as is the rising of the sun over the Atlantic rather than the Gulf of Mexico.

Plodder dined on crow last evening; however, 50/50 is still years away so I will still stick with his prediction that the FBC will never get there.

At their annual meeting in the Sunshine State, the FBC did indeed continue on their route towards 50/50.

Baptist Press even headlined it: Fla. Baptists continue toward 50/50 CP split.

Messengers approved a 2013 Cooperative Program budget of $31.6 million, an amount identical to the 2012 budget. The budget, based on gifts from Florida Baptist churches through the Cooperative Program from June 1, 2011, to May 31, 2012, will increase giving to the Southern Baptist Convention by 1 percentage point to 41.5 percent.

The increase in the SBC portion sustains a commitment by Florida Baptists to raise the percentage allocated nationally to an even 50/50 percent division of funds between the SBC and state.

"We are on track to be 50/50 in the next seven years," John Sullivan, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention, told messengers.

I consider myself self-chastised over the matter...but we are still in the early innings.

The FBC is to be commended for continuing towards that goal.

There has been a major recalibration of state convention work the last few years, primarily as a result of dramatic drops in revenues. The response by many conventions is to react by incremental movement towards an equal division of Cooperative Program receipts with the SBC Executive Committee.

My thinking is that the changes are good, are positive, but that they will prove insufficient to motivate churches to increase the percentages they give from their offerings to the Cooperative Program.

Is 60+% of each CP dollar enough for state conventions?

Our wonderful Cooperative Program has done well in funding the panoply of state and SBC missions, seminaries, and entities over the last 87 years. It is not a perfect stewardship vehicle but is has been and is our main channel for cooperation. SBC life as we know it is unimaginable without it.

As it stands now, the state conventions keep, on average, about 62% of each CP dollar for their own use, a figure well within the 60 to 65 percent range that is the historic average. 

Question: How much of each undesignated Cooperative Program dollar should be enough for the state conventions?


[I am asking mainly about the legacy state conventions of the south, the ones with thousands of churches and millions of members, not of the state conventions outside of the south.]

After the Great Commission Resurgence there was a move to give more of the CP dollar to missions and, concomitantly, for states to keep less. A 50/50 split was the declared goal of many state conventions including the Florida Baptist Convention.

As I suspected/predicted almost two years ago when the FBC voted overwhelmingly for a 50/50 split, it is one thing to designate a 50/50 goal but quite another thing altogether to actually do what is necessary financially to get there.

It looks like the FBC, with predictable regrets, may abandon the goal of a 50/50 split. It hasn't happened yet but the groundwork is being laid by convention leadership and the matter is being discussed. I suspect that a rollback from the 50/50 goal is as sure an outcome as is the rising of the sun over the Atlantic rather than the Gulf of Mexico.

Baptist Press reported the other day about how 'Liquidity challenges' may loom for Fla. convention. 'Liquidity challenges' is a fancy way to say that the FBC cannot meet its current financial obligations. The story condensed opposing viewpoints of two Florida Baptist leaders (I do not think that the two opinion pieces in the Florida Baptist Witness are available online just yet). One view was that FBC spending must be cut to continue on the track to a 50/50 split while the other view implied that it was more important to keep CP dollars in Florida.

One FBC executive board member said,

 "... I don't want to see the Florida Baptist Convention come to a point where we can no longer do viable ministry here in Florida for the sake of sending monies somewhere else."

The proposed 2013 FBC budget keeps 58.5%, over $18 million, in the Sunshine State for  "viable ministry." in Florida where there are about 3000 churches and missions and a million members? That is better than many state conventions. 

No doubt the speaker supports international missions but differs on the funding proportion, implying that to do "viable ministry" in Florida requires the FBC to keep much more than half of every CP dollar.


One must acknowledge that state conventions have suffered far more in the last few years than other SBC entities. The FBC executive director claims that his state convention has suffered more than any other in this regard. Budgets have been slashed and then slashed again. Jobs have been cut. 

The question is whether or not churches value the work of the state conventions such that they are willing to continue allot over sixty percent of every CP dollar to in-state ministries or if this legacy allocation formula needs to be updated for the 21st Century. 


Since the Florida Baptist Convention is on a defined track to keep less in-state and give more of that CP dollar to SBC entities, mainly the mission boards, the question for churches is this: Do we believe that it is proper to cut international and north American missions funding to continue the same funding level for ministry expenses in our state?

Reading Baptist tea leaves is difficult but my sense about these funding decisions is that state conventions will do what is necessary to continue the historic funding proportions and we will never see anything close to a 50/50 split. As a result partly of that, churches will continue to give less to the Cooperative Program.

But to go back to my highlighted question above, just how much of each CP dollar should state conventions keep?

Eye-to-eye with J. D. Greear on the Cooperative Program

Sixtysomething retired micropastor Plodder and thirtysomething megapastor J. D. Greear see the Cooperative Program in remarkably, or frighteningly, similar terms.

Greear, something of a rock star among younger SBCers has a blog article up
on Southeastern seminary’s blog site Between The Times: Our Church, The SBC, and the Cooperative Program

Greear states plainly that he appreciates the Cooperative Program but identifies the main problem with it as being the reality that “so much of what is given to the CP stays right here in the states.” He uses his state convention, the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, as an example. The BSCNC keeps about 65% of CP gifts in state.

This causes, he writes, a “disturbingly small fraction” of the total to actually make it to the “mission fields,” a phrase he sets out with quotation marks, presumably meaning our two mission boards.

He declares his appreciation for SBC leaders, his BSCNC leaders, the good things they do, and the difficulty of significant change in mature organizations; however, he notes “that it will be a long journey to get our [CP] dollar allocations back to the right levels.”

I’m a full generation older than Greear but would say almost exactly the same things. I have no quarrel with our leadership, state or national. I appreciate the work done here in Georgia through the Georgia Baptist Convention. It is good work. But giving a dollar to the CP and watching it whittled down to about thirty cents for our two mission boards leads me to ponder methods that give greater efficiency to my mission dollars.

I would however, point out for Greear that states have for decades kept a little under two-thirds of a CP dollar, so changing this wouldn’t be getting back to anything. It would be a completely new direction and a proper one, both he and I would say.

Greear also intriguingly writes, "I don’t think there’s any question that some of the institutions must cease to function, at least at their current levels" leaving one to ask, "OK, J.D., which ones?"

Greear declares his intent to increase CP giving with the caveat that “[w]hile we are doing that, however, we will continue to give directly to institutions we are particularly excited about, bypassing some of the unnecessary bureaucracy. As the system gets leaner, our giving will increase.”

It seem to me that this statement can be generalized and should be seen as what lies ahead for the SBC, her institutions, the Cooperative Program, and mission support. The Cooperative Program will continue to be our main giving program but direct giving will become more and more attractive and will increase proportionately to the CP.

I see state conventions getting "leaner" because the money is not coming in through the CP, not because they choose to keep less of it. And, I don't see the SBC getting any leaner in the sense of significant institutional change.

Has anyone forgotten that we went through a high profile self-study process called the Great Commission Resurgence that, for all the noise it made, changed very little?

As a result of the GCR process and report, many state conventions have voluntarily made commitments to begin adjusting downward what they keep of the CP with a goal of an equal split.

While that is good, I have noted that 50/50 probably means, at best, 55/45 and in some cases even 60/40, hardly the kind of change that will move Greear and likeminded pastors to conclude that the CP is a more efficient method for distribution of their mission dollars.

One would have to conclude, either disparingly or dispassionately, that the kind of "getting back" to the “right” levels Greear envisions will never happen.

Which leaves both Greear and his older colleague, me, to conclude that while the Cooperative Program is a wonderful giving plan, and while we appreciate our state and SBC leaders, we desire to get more in mission from our dollar than the CP permits. In my case that meant most of my church’s mission dollars went to the Annie Armstrong and Lottie Moon offerings. In Greear’s case it means that those plus, presumably, other direct giving consume most of his mission dollars.

I see nothing that will change our common view on this.

Top ten SBC stories of 2011

I recognize that most SBCers think that if it doesn't involve the SBC it's not worth thinking about, so here's my list of top SBC stories for 2011. The rest of Christendom can have their list, but none of that counts here (however, if the world had ended as Harold Camping said it would a couple of times in 2011, I would have been happy to include that non-SBC story in the list).
_______________

1. Bryant Wright appoints an informal, unfunded SBC name change committee. And thereby stirs up the ire of many who resent his ability to do this. Get over it. You will get a direct vote, if it comes to that, next June.

2. Tom Elliff elected as new head of IMB. Whenever our flagship agency has a new leader, that's big news. I wish him every success in leading the SBC's flagship entity.

3. SBC Cooperative Program receipts show a slight increase. The Executive Committee reported this for the fiscal year ending September 30th; however, the next two months showed a steep decrease. Maybe they back-loaded September to make 2010-2011 look good? Whatever...an increase was unexpected.

4. Southern Baptists bash Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Start with Robert Jeffress, pastor of what used to be the SBC's top church, FBC Dallas. Add a few others and not a few bloggers who display their religious bigotry in foreswearing voting for a Mormon candidate. Perhaps the brethren should start a re-elect Obama SBCers group.

5. State conventions move towards 50/50 Cooperative Program split. State conventions get credit for good intentions; however, Plodder takes the Matthew 24 approach to these - cuts and rumors of cuts, but don't be alarmed, the checks haven't been written.

6. Surry (NC) Baptist Association kicks out church with female pastor. And does so summarily. How dare the church call a female and ignore the association's doctrinal purity and unity? And some in the SBC say that our name ("Southern") is the cause of our bad image.

7. Frank Page puts Calvinism at the top of his list of challenges for the SBC. Since he hears from a lot of Baptists, I'd listen to him on this.

8. SBC annual meeting attendance lowest since 1944. Only 4,814 at Phoenix, a group which didn't include moi (I've already been to Phoenix in 110 degree heat in June). So, it was an off election year and ther was no raging controversy. Still, SBCers used to like to spend some expense money.

9. New biography of Lottie Moon published. Regina Sullivan's new bio is the first in about three decades. It calls into question the use of Lottie's starvation death narrative as a fund raising tool but what good are facts if they don't get the money flowing? SBCers should read the book.

10. Plodder resigns his church and retires. Well, this one is pretty big news around my house if nowhere else. I reserve the right to undo this one if the Lord leads.

Getting serious about missions: SC Bapt Conv directly funds IMB

The many state conventions held their annual meetings, most last month, and Baptist Press reported on their actions. Following the Great Commission Resugence process and report, many of the states took action to increase their support of International Missions but I don't recall reading of any state convention that took the action the South Carolina Baptist Convention took.

S.C. Baptists to send more to int'l missions

The SCBC voted to "increase South Carolina Baptists' contribution to the International Mission Board by nearly 22 percent over the next three years and to move the SCBC toward a 50/50 split of Cooperative Program receipts with the Southern Baptist Convention over the next five years."

That in itself is significant because the SCBC voted to cut programs to free up money to decrease the proportion of Cooperative Program money kept in South Carolina. Many of the state conventions have voted to move toward a 50/50 split but with the caveat that it will happen only if churches increase CP giving to the state. It appears that the SCBC voted to move toward a 50/50 split without assiging the churches the blame if giving does not increase and therefore they cannot move to 50/50.

But back to the SCBC taking action that no other state has taken. What would that be?

The South Carolina Baptist Convention added a line item in their SCBC budget for the IMB. That is, they voted to send some of the SBC part of their CP monies directly to the International Mission Board, cutting out the Executive Committee, the six seminaries, the North American Mission Board, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

I don't recall this happening on the state convention level.

Churches do this every year through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions. Some churches even budget for IMB gifts that don't go through the Cooperative Program, thereby assuring that 100% of that money gets to the IMB rather than the 20% or so that would if they gave through the CP. State conventions haven't taken this route, until now, so far as I am aware.

Granted, the amount isn't a lot, about $400,000 or about 7% of what the IMB receives through the indirect (Executive Committee) channel. The SCBC is saying, "Sorry, Frank Page, you don't get to handle this money and cut it in half before you send it to the IMB."

If Southern Baptists want to get more money to the IMB and then to international missions then this is the route that will make that happen. I have little confidence that the sprawling SBC and state convention institutional structures will ever be significantly cut and savings applied to NAMB and IMB.

I spent 15 years as a pastor in SC and recall that the SCBC was moving towards a 50/50 split 25 years ago. They didn't move much. It looks like they are moving now. Good for them.

[If any readers are in SC I would appreciate your perspective and any corrections to what I have said here. It is possible that I am missing some material facts that are buried in the details of your GCR actions. Thanks.]

CP Math: 50/50 = 55/45 or 60/40

I blogged earlier in Cooperative Program Confusion about how state conventions, by utilizing accounting presentation techniques that are perfectly reasonable and understandable to them, probably confuse average Southern Baptists about the distribution of Cooperative Program gifts from the churches.

An average of about 63% of all monies given in churches through the Cooperative Program is retained by respective state conventions. Many would like to see this move to a 50/50 split. That’s clear enough, right?

Well, no.

Read the following paragraph, a report in SBC Life on the recent meeting of state convention executives:

[State convention executives] agreed to begin moving toward a 50/50 split of Cooperative Program receipts, after shared ministry expenses have been subtracted, between the respective state conventions and the Southern Baptist Convention.

There you have it: 50/50 - half to the state conventions, half to be distributed to the SBC mission boards, seminaries and the rest.

Right?

Wrong.

Note the phrase after shared ministry expenses have been subtracted. These shared ministry expenses are monies that stay with the state convention, every single penny so labeled. There is nothing nefarious about this. The explanation is that if states are going to collect for SBC entities, let them deduct their expenses.

Reasonable enough.

But then, if God is in the Cooperative Program concept, the devil is in the details. Some states allot as much as 20% of their entire budget to these “shared ministry expenses.” So...

Presto! 50/50 becomes 60/40. Only 40 cents on a CP dollar gets out of the state and on to seminaries and mission boards, yet state conventions may accurately say that this is a 50/50 split.

State executives have sensibly recognized the value of limiting this soft accounting practice and recently agreed among themselves to limit shared ministry expenses to 10%. Good. Now…

Voila! 50/50 only becomes 55/45.

What SBCers can expect out of this 50/50 talk is that state conventions will make a good faith effort to move from keeping 63 cents of every CP dollar to keeping only 55 cents on that dollar. Good. To take about a 13% cut in revenues is a move in the right direction and is not an insignificant development. But neither does it convey much clarity.

I'd bet that the average SBC pastor or layperson if they are told there is a 50/50 split, thinks that 50/50 is 50/50, not 55/45.

Nope. 50/50 is actually 55/45.

But whaddoIknow, I'm just a plodder in this business.

50/50 no incentive for greater Cooperative Program giving?

I like Norman Jameson and think what happened to him in NC was a travesty. He knows the SBC landscape as well as anyone.

His Dec 1 article in the Biblical Recorder, Illusion of 50-50 drawing power expresses his view that moving to a 50/50 Cooperative Program split will not do anything to attract new or greater church offering plate dollars to the CP.

He might be right. Jameson:

Those who support the GCR mantra of de-emphasizing state convention work in favor of the national and international ministries of the SBC feel that if state conventions would forward at least 50 percent of the CP gifts from churches, then churches would be inspired to send more money.

This perspective gives great weight to the idea that Baptists want more of their gifts to reach “the nations,” and they are not being as generous as in the past because they feel too much of their money stays in the state for local ministries, when there already are enough churches to take care of local needs.

Is that perspective accurate?

He offers the example of the Oklahoma convention doing just that 25 years ago. They moved to 50/50 and, as he put it:

…in a time of unity within the state convention; when Southern Baptists nationally were unified behind Bold Mission Thrust goals; when state conventions were committed to increasing CP gifts nationally; when 10 percent CP giving from churches was more the norm than the exception, state conventions that adopted a 50-50 CP division could not maintain it.

Churches simply did not respond.

They were neither impressed nor moved by their conventions’ commitments enough to increase their own.

While I do not argue the example, I would argue that churches should not be blamed for state conventions not being able to exist on half of the CP funds that they receive. Jameson's statement that the Oklahoma convention "could not maintain" the 50/50 should be read that they didn't have the pressure, incentive, or will to maintain it. We can always do what we have to do or what we think is right to do.

I understand the motivation that makes state convention executives condition a move to a 50/50 split on churches giving more. "Give us more and we can do with less," they say.

The execs would like to keep as much money as they can to fund as many of the state staff jobs and ministries that exist now. They would like to avoid more program, staff, and budget cuts. But the whole point of moving to 50/50 in my opinion is that more of each CP dollar should go to higher priority destinations and that the present two-thirds of CP gifts shouldn’t be kept in heavily churched states like Georgia, Alabama, Florida and other Bible Belt states.

If churches don’t give an additional nickel to the CP, it is a better use of CP dollars to send more to Nashville and on to the seminaries, IMB, and NAMB.

But, all the 50/50 talk is somewhat of an empty exercise, IMO. I doubt states, even those who have made some declaration of intent about moving to 50/50 (and one notes the usual caveats: “will take a protracted period of time”, “if churches give more”, etc.) will ever get there.

The Great Commission Resurgence didn’t cause the problems that the CP now faces. It may prove significant in putting more money in authentic Great Commission activities.

We will see.

Florida votes overwhelmingly for a 50/50 split but will they ever get there?

Good, honest question.

Answer to come in 4 to 7 years.

At least the Florida Baptist Convention but a timetable on it, however soft whereas the leader of the Baptist Convention of North Carolina said that their move to 50/50 may take a "protracted period".

The Florida Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly to move “within 4-7 years” to a 50/50 Cooperative Program split with the SBC. The split is now 60/40, the 60% naturally staying in the Sunshine State for their use. The recommendation to move in this direction came as a result of a lengthy study and, after an hour and fifteen minutes of presentation and debate. Only a “small number” of messengers voted against it.

How does the administrative leader of the FBC view a move that would cut his revenue stream by about 17 per cent? Here is what John Sullivan, executive director-treasurer of the Florida Baptist Convention, said:

“Let’s be sure we understand; we are not making budget decisions in this convention,” Sullivan said. “We are asking the SBOM to study these proposals; come back in the 2011 convention and report how we handle these recommendations.”

Sullivan said he has told the task force and the SBOM if the allocations change, it will require churches “stepping up to the plate and saying, ‘we are going to increase our Cooperative Program giving.’”

“I make this commitment to you,” Sullivan told messengers. “We will not allow the Florida Baptist Convention ministry to lose its integrity nor its effectiveness. This is an absolute essential. I do not have any problem going to 50/50. I do have a problem going to 50/50 and destroying the integrity and the effectiveness of this wonderful state convention.”

Let's do a little figuring here.

If the FBC had a 50/50 split on their present budget, rather than the 60/40 split, the International Mission Board would receive about an additional $1.5 million. If the FBC, in order to maintain the integrity and effectiveness of their ministries, puts the burden on the churches to just give more to the CP in order to implement the 50/50 split, then churches would need to give another $6.3 million to the CP. And that is with the assumption that the FBC can live on what they are living on now about a $31 million budget, an assumption that is probably not justified.

What will FBC churches do? I haven’t the faintest idea but if they felt strongly that overseas needs were a priority, why would they give $6.3 million in order to get less than a quarter of that, $1.5 million, to the IMB?

It seems to me that state conventions are responding positively to the Great Commission Task Force recommendations, but then, as John Sullivan pointedly said, “we are not making budget decisions” just yet.

Until then, it doesn't cost anyone anything.

We will see.

The Holy Grail 50/50 Cooperative Program split: When Pigs Fly?

Recent action by the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina seems to hit all the necessary notes: Hollifield commits to 50/50 CP split with SBC


1. The BSCNC will move to a 50/50 split on Cooperative Program money they receive. Currently, the split is more like 65/35.

2. “It is imperative that we all understand that a move to increase the SBC portion must be accompanied by an increase in CP support by our churches,” This from the BSCNC’s chief executive, Milton Hollifield.

3. CP giving has been down six of the past eight years in NC.

4. “Hollifield pointed out that if churches had maintained their CP giving percentage of 1995 $15 million more would have been available for missions throughout the state and world annually.”

5. “Hollifield said lower gifts in churches and from churches “is just a symptom of a larger problem of church health. When this problem is solved then stewardship will naturally be addressed with our people.”

As I read this, I do not blame BSCNC executives for desiring to maintain what they have but why wouldn’t a BSCNC church hear these things and conclude:

1. We are blamed for not giving to the CP.
2. The BSCNC leadership is saying we will be blamed if the CP split doesn’t move to 50/50 because we do not give more in the future.
3. It's all our fault...it will be all our fault...let's go home and eat worms.

I commend the call to move to a 50/50 split but am looking for a reason to think that the BSCNC is serious about moving in that direction. Hollifield’s description of the BSCNC making that move “over a protracted period” is not the language of any real commitment to doing so.

I am curious if any BSCNCers have a higher degree of optimism about this.