Cooperative Program gifts that bypass state conventions

One of the eyebrow raisers about David Platt's selection as the new president of the International Mission Board was the fact that his church gave a considerable amount ($100,000) directly to the SBC Executive Committee Cooperative Program Allocation Budget. In doing so his church bypassed the Alabama Baptist State Convention which would have lopped off more than half of that amount.

The usual routine is for a church to send their CP gifts to their state convention which keeps most of the money (varies by state but well more than half on average) and sends the remainder to the Executive Committee which by an approved allocation formula keeps a tiny slice and sends the rest to the mission boards, seminaries, and Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Churches have always had the option of handling their CP gifts by sending them directly to the EC but not many have availed themselves of it.

This may be changing.

Shown below is the percentage of direct gifts to the Executive Committee CP allocation budget (those that bypass state conventions) as a percentage of total Executive Committee CP gifts:

2011-2012                 2.2%
2012-2013                 2.4%
2013-2014 (YTD)    3.0%

The route Platt's church has taken is not followed by many churches nor for much CP money, about 3% of the total for the eleven months of this fiscal year; however, the proportion is growing. The total amount of CP monies given directly is small, a little over $5 million so far this year. The EC hasn't released the number of churches who give in this manner.

The popular younger SBC minister website, B21, has an article by Jon Akin, CP: Another Way? In this article Akin suggests sending that CP check to the Executive Committee with the instruction that they send 50% back to the state convention for the sending church.

I judged that alternative to be too unwieldy to gain much traction (mainly because of the kickback from EC to the state, makes no sense to add that step) but the option of sending money directly to the EC is growing. Because of his election as IMB president, David Platt's former church is now the poster church for that methodology.

You can like it. You can dislike it. It is part of 21st Century SBC reality.

There are some things growing in Southern Baptist life, brethren. Here are three:

1. Direct gifts to the Executive Committee CP allocation budget, small amounts but growing.
2. Great Commission Giving (see my piece, UPDATED: Great Commisstion Giving vs Cooperative Program Giving, How's That Working Out?). GCG is growing fast but we haven't had much in the way of data reported, just three year's worth.
3. Designated giving received by the Executive Committee, mainly Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offerings which show slight increases. The EC now receives more in designated giving than in CP giving.

This is where we are. I see nothing that will change it.

So, how do we expect NAMB to spend our money?

The North American Mission Board is Southern Baptists' second largest entity with a budget for 2012 of $115 million. NAMB gets the second largest slice of Cooperative Program money, about ten percent. Their annual mission offering, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, totaled over $56 million in 2011.

One wonders, just how do we expect NAMB to spend our money?

Were Southern Baptists satisfied with the spending under prior administrations which included overseas trips to movie premiers, ice sculptures for in house events, and millions in wasted money on programs now defunct?

Were Southern Baptists satisfied with centralizing spending in NAMB's Alpharetta headquarters with hundreds of employees and paying millions in travel expenses?

Were Southern Baptists satisfied that NAMB in reaching North America for Christ, was spending only about twenty-eight cents on every budgetary dollar on church planting?

Are Southern Baptists displeased that headquarters employment and spending and travel expenses have been cut by many millions and that spending on church planting will consume forty-two cents on every 2012 budgetary dollar?

I hear a lot of general complaining about NAMB but I'd like to hear someone make the case made for the status quo ante at NAMB.

Aha, it's about NAMB cutting funding to state conventions some say.

Fair enough. Can we talk data?

NAMB no longer pays insurance for positions they fund at less than a 50% level (although I understand that for some of these they have agreed to take several years to transition the ending of that funding). There are several positions that NAMB funds at a very insignificant sum, couple of hundred dollars a month, for which they have paid 100% of insurance costs.

Does anyone think it inappropriate that this system be ended?

NAMB has a policy that is reducing cooperative funding to the stronger state conventions and increasing funding in the weaker state conventions.

Do Southern Baptists think this is unwise or unfair?

A commenter here made the assertion that NAMB is "decimating" missions in  the Colorado Baptist General Convention.

Really?

Well, not really, if funding is any measure of things, since NAMB has increased funding to Colorado by about one third for 2012. Other states may wish for NAMB to decimate missions in their state in this manner.

A popular blogger from New Mexico lamented NAMB's cutting of mission funding for his state.

Really?

Well, really. NAMB has dropped their funding for New Mexico by about $222,000 for 2012, about a twenty percent cut.

Why?

Seems New Mexico is a pretty strong Southern Baptist state with well over 300 congregations serving a total population of right at two million. In fact, the case can be made from the data that New Mexico is a stronger Southern Baptist state than even Florida and than every other state outside the South except for Wyoming. NAMB has adjusted their funding based on parameters that make sense to me, although making sense isn't always the measure in SBC funding issues.

I wish someone would make the case for NAMB spending our money differently and in doing so specifically address all of the above.

I've seen Kevin Ezell and, to make a wild conjecture, he doesn't look like he can walk on water. I suppose he has made some mistakes at NAMB and perhaps some of the new NAMB policies are not wise, not workable, or appropriate.

Would some insightful SBCer please make the case for how NAMB can better spend our money.

The field for doing so is wide open. Have at it.

Surprising giving factoids from Georgia Baptist churches

Here in Georgia The Christian Index prints the giving records of all Georgia Baptist Churches, 3,556 of them, displayed in eight pages of mice type so as to cause those with even the sharpest visual acuity to strain. It makes for some interesting reading, however. The most recent report gives 2010 results and there are some interesting observations to make:

18% of GBC churches did not make a report, presumably, not filing the ACP. I would speculate that this number will rise as pastors and churches find that reporting has less value to them. I give the bigwigs credit for simplifying the ACP.

Almost one in five (19.4%) GBC churches reported no contributions to the GBC, no Cooperative Program, Lottie Moon, World Hunger, nothing. This number is up from last year when 17.6% of churches reported no contributions.

Almost one in four (24.3%) of GBC churches reported no contributions to the Cooperative Program.

Cooperative Program gifts by GBC churches were down 1.54% in 2010, about $700k total. Not too bad, I’d say.

Total giving was up, mainly because of sizable Haiti relief giving (about $1.5mil) and increased Lottie Moon ($721k) giving.

Gifts to NAMB dropped by about 4%.

I suppose that one could find some trends in some of this but I don’t have past years readily available.

I don't have a figure for the number of GBC churches that have elected to designate their CP gifts around one or more SBC agency or institution.

Whatever happened to the benefit of the doubt?

It is a rare commodity these days.

Take the example of a very good point raised by Tim Rogers in his blog of last Thursday. He noted that one of the pastors and churches featured in a Baptist Press article, written by a North American Mission Board writer, was identified on its website with the Acts29 Network.

The story was a promotional piece for the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions - Russian speaking pastor in Boston doing a good work but the connection with Acts29 raises the hackles of many SBCers.

How is it that SBCers support such a church with our AAEO money? Is this what we want to be doing with our AAEO donations?

Good questions. Fair questions. Questions that should be asked and answered.

Questions, assertions, conclusions, misrepresentations,and declarations ensue from the blog linked above. You can read it all there. You may notice that no one spoke to the pastor involved and ascertained exactly what connection the church has with Acts29, not that it slowed any of the critics down.

So, one pastor with connections to two churches is identified on the Acts29 website. NAMB doesn't know of his involvement. The extent of involvement is not ascertained; nonetheless, this one instance is implied to be a stealth policy at NAMB.

Pick a factoid, apply it liberally, as you wish, draw conclusions from it. Unfair. Unreasonable. Premature.

Is there not a better way?

Don't we lose something here - trust, comity, colleagiality, and respect?

And wouldn't it be sufficient at this stage to say that the Acts29 business is important to us and should absolutely be given due diligence by NAMB and see what happens before we pull Annie Armstrong offerings, before we elevate this example to policy, before we imply hidden agendas, and before we parse every syllable that flows from the keyboard of our agency people?

I believe that would be the more helpful, less harmful, and ultimately beneficial route to take here.

Too bad for all of us that we're past that.

How a Plodding Pastor looks at his SBC agency/institutional leaders

I’ll be honest, brethren, I don’t understand this business of submitting to authority in SBC life. We SBCers are notable for being unmanageable and recalcitrant. Sometimes we don’t even submit to Jesus’ authority over us but in no case has it ever been demanded of us that we submit to the authority of denominational employees.

Best I can tell, Jesus isn’t the CEO in any of our agencies and institutions and, forgive me, but I reject the ‘God’s man’ assertions also, else I have to conclude that God is an terrible judge of character and skills; however, I’m pretty sure all of our leaders are sinners saved by God’s grace just like me.

So, here’s how I look at my SBC leaders and what I believe they deserve.

1. They deserve my respect and courtesy, a simple matter of civil, Christian treatment of your brethren.

2. They deserve my careful consideration of their decisions, policies, and leadership. I am perfectly willing to listen to what they believe God wants them to do in leading their agency or institution. I presume that they have made a conscientious, prayerful, deliberate effort to carry out the work of the Lord and they have a right to expect me to give them the same conscientious, prayerful, deliberate hearing of their proposals.

3. They deserve the benefit of the doubt from me, and I will grant that. Since I am not a missiologist, a heavyweight leader, a church planting expert, and since I don’t know everything about SBC life that these leaders know, I will gladly grant to our SBC leaders the benefit of the doubt in most matters. I am willing to support, most of the time, those who have greater experience, success, insight, and training in these areas. If I have doubts and reservations, I’ll still yield to them on that, most of the time.

4. They deserve honest, courteous criticism from me. And I'm happy to give it.

5. They deserve, always, my prayerful support as they do their jobs.

6. Our SBC entities deserve my financial support. I am an SBC pastor. This is what we do. There has never been a year when my church has not given to Annie Armstrong, Lottie Moon, and the Cooperative Program. The level of support may vary and no one gets to demand any set percentage or amount, but before I switch financial support to a non-SBC ministry, our SBC entities deserve patience and an opportunity to correct whatever has made me consider a change.

I don’t believe that SBC leaders deserve more than these, nor do I believe they deserve less.

NAMB to cut missionaries in South by half

I'm a blog exhibitionist, always looking for blog titles that might get attention.

I can see how, if you are a NAMB funded missionary, or a joint NAMB-State Convention funded missionary, this might be a rather difficult time for you. As the new NAMB unfolds, we learn a little more month-by-month. Now we learn that NAMB will drop half of their funding for missionaries who are jointly funded with state conventions in the South.

A few exerpts from NAMB CEO Kevin Ezell’s interview with Florida Baptist Witness editor James Smith:

Ezell said NAMB and the states would continue to have "jointly funded missionaries in every state. We're not going to totally reduce all those…State conventions in the South, which he said currently receive about 20 percent of NAMB's funding through cooperative agreements, will "probably end up being somewhere around 10 [percent]" as part of the reprioritization of church planting funding in regions outside the South."

So, state conventions in the South will have to pick up funding for about half of these. Which half? Whom? Ezell said that the states will decide that.

Ezell emphasized that money -- "absolutely every dollar" -- withdrawn from the states as a result of the new strategic partnerships "will be invested in church planting. Every cent."

Sounds like a good change to me.

On the Annie Armstrong offering and Cooperative Program funding:

"Whether you were for GCR or against GCR. If you like me, don't like me. It's not about me; it's not about GCR. It's about missionaries.... Whatever you do, we need to support our missionaries. We can work the rest of this stuff out. But we don't want to do it at the expense of our missionaries," he said.

I would point out to our NAMB CEO that this is about what NAMB has been saying in the past, during and after their famous debacles. At some point, SBCers who pay the bills by giving to NAMB through the CP and AAEO have no option other than to withhold support. When we see that NAMB is going to be run properly, our money not be squandered, and decisions not embarrass us, we will support it wholeheartedly.

Neither NAMB nor the International Mission Board, the seminaries or any SBC entity is entitled to unwavering financial support from the churches because not to do so would penalize our missionaries. Trustees and administrators need to see that their decisions are the ones that penalize missionaries, not churches so fed up with agency meltdowns that they give less.

I'm an outsider in all this but what I read about changes at NAMB are good.

When church offering plates talk: Cooperative Program or Mission Offerings?

There is good news of a sort concerning Southern Baptists and mission giving.

The Cooperative Program has dropped like a rock, about 50% since 1978, going from 11.13% of the undesignated offerings of churches to around 6% today; however, what churches have been giving to the International and North American Mission Boards through their special offerings (Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong, respectively) has declined at only about half that rate.

Sort of backhanded good news, I guess, if you love missions.

I don’t have exactly comparable statistics but consider the following:

Percentage of Undesignated Giving 1987
Lottie Moon/Annie Armstrong....... 2.276
Cooperative Program.................10.323

Percentage of Undesignated Giving 2009
Lottie Moon/Annie Armstrong.......1.725
Cooperative Program (2007-8)......6.082

Percentage decline of CP 1987-2008......... 41.08
Percentage decline of LM/AA 1987-2009......24.2

The latest comparison may show an even greater contrast between what churches give to CP as compared to LM/AA, since 2009 actually showed an increase compared to the previous year of LM/AA gifts as a percentage of undesignated church offerings.

One result of the 2007 LifeWay Research survey on Cooperative Program was that “70 percent of responding pastors agree that CP allocates contributions among state, national, and global ministries, missions, and entities appropriately.”

The great majority of pastors are happy about the allocations, right?

Maybe so, but when churches make decisions about their own offerings, they have chosen to devote more of their offering plate dollars the mission boards than to the Cooperative Program.

This isn’t brain surgery. Churches have drastically reduced their CP percentages but have not chosen to decrease their special mission offerings nearly as much.

The Cooperative Program is vitally important to the Southern Baptist Convention. It makes no sense to try and massage the statistics to present a more pleasant picture. Southern Baptists may respond to a survey and sing the praises of the CP but when their offering plates talk, you hear a different story.

Pastors and church members are 'saying' that they want a greater proportion of their dollars get to the two mission boards.

Maybe someone should listen.

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Notes on the figures: I am not a statistician but know that the better comparison would be between LM/AA/CP and total giving, in comparable time periods. I just didn't have time to do it. Readers are welcome to challenge me on this.

Fact is, NAMB was a dysfunctional mess...

People lament some of the changes at NAMB. In a weak and hypercritical moment, sometime I have to remind myself why NAMB is going through all this...takes me about five seconds to remember:

Our North American Mission Board squandered millions, millions of our dollars.

For a stretch trustees were asleep at the wheel with respect to watching our penultimate agency.

Trustees hired, praised, then forced a leader to resign. Who knows how much we lost on that.

NAMB built a showpiece HQ in suburburn Atlanta and filled it, packed it, with perfectly good people for the most part, so much so that critics imply that the happy HQ was sucking the air and funding out of their primary role.

It is hard to argue with our new leader's assessment that NAMB did a world of things, none terribly well.

NAMB seemed to me to be a classic case of unchecked bureaucratic inertia. What were we getting for $140+ million dollars? Not what we should.

The jury is still out on all the spiffy new strategies and policies. After a time let's see if, (a) Annie goes up indicating increased confidence in NAMB from churches (I have predicted that this year will not yield an Annie increase), and (b) there is any significant increase in North American missions in a statistically honest assessment of such.

NAMB did a good job of squandering the trust of many of us. It will take time to regain it. I'm all for trying something different that NAMB has tried the past decade or so.

Yeah! Over our Lottie Moon goal!

Last fall I was in Africa at a meeting of all of our missions people and some higher-up administrators. I appreciated being allowed to sit in on their group meeting and hear the news, the difficulties, the questions to the IMB admin people. One of the concerns was funding levels.

I was asked, "What is your feeling about the Lottie Moon offering this year?"

I replied, "Things are extemely tight but we will go up a little from last year on our goal."

We've been promoting and receiving the offering for two months and had received only 90% of our goal. Last Sunday was the absolute last time I planned to push it and ask for more. Ninety percent isn't too shabby, considering that we cut our budget by about 10%, including my swallowing a slight pay cut.

Well, during the week someone came through to get up us to our goal. Hallelujah and amen!

This is our most important offering of the year. It is the largest and the most critical. It is the way we give most of our missions money.

My church's modest sum is a drop in the bucket to the IMB but at least our drop is not smaller this year.

I am happy. I am motivated to push hard for Lottie Moon. We will take an Annie Armstrong offering but at this stage we're not pushing that as hard.

Ma NAMB's unveils new strategy, new terminology

Kevin Ezell, as promised, unveiled his new strategy to NAMB trustees yesterday. As expected, they approved all of it.

Baptist Press report on it: NAMB trustees approve sweeping changes

Is it fair to ask if one aspect of the new strategy is more than a fresh coat of paint on the old barn. I'm speaking of the NAMB/State convention relationships, the so-called "Cooperative Agreements."

There was great anguish along with loud weeping and wailing from some state conventions when the Great Commission Task Force said that NAMB needed to control how they spend their budget and to get greater control they should phase out these Cooperative Agreements with state conventions.

These are being phased out but are being replaced by what Ezell describes as "integrated strategic partnership agreements" with states. This is Baptist Press' quote. I presume that Ezell said the words.

"Integrated strategic partnership agreements" certainly sounds sexier than "Cooperative Agreements." Is there a difference other than the title? I dunno. Ezell did say this about NAMB pouring money into the states under these agreements:

As NAMB funding to Southern states is reduced, Ezell said state leaders will be able to direct that money to specific unreached regions of their choosing. NAMB activity in the South will continue, Ezell said, noting, "We'd be very remiss if we did not continue to invest in the South and plant churches in those areas."

And will ordinary Southern Baptists, you know, the ones who pay all the bills through Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong giving, be able to actually read one of these Integrated Strategic Partnership Agreements? If not, why not? It's our money.

And as expected, the trustees approved the five Baby NAMBs, regions that get their own layer of management - a Vice President, and attendant accoutrements.

Perhaps good things, good days, and productive ecclesiastical activity are about to begin at NAMB. I hope so. But Kevin Ezell, all of the NAMB executive level employees, and every single trustee should be required to regularly review a synopsis of NAMB's last five years of mistakes, meltdowns, and messes and be reminded how the organization let Southern Baptists down, wasted millions, and lost a lot of trust and credibility. Maybe this will motivate them to be diligent about the Lord's work, responsible in spending our money, and humble and grateful for the many millions that are entrusted to them.

I'm all for sounding the old standby clarion call of Southern Baptists: Let's Move On! Please, let's do. But let's not fail to learn from the recent past so that we do not repeat those expensive mistakes.

NAMB has $70m Annie Armstrong goal...and not a snowball's chance of achieving it. (updated)

The Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions is nigh upon us and our North American Mission Board’s key collection, it provides over 40% of their budget, is sharply down for 2010.

Last year the churches gave $54.3 million, down from $56.6 million in 2009. The decline was expected, I suppose. The goal for last year was $70 million, same goal this year.

One wonders when a goal becomes a completely meaningless figure. The offering was $2.4 million under goal in 2008, $8.4 million in 2009, and a staggering $15.7 million under in 2010. It doesn't cost anything to set a goal but are we challenging the churches or mocking them? Is it defeatist to reduce a goal? I’d be satisfied with realistic goals. Sure, NAMB rarely meets their goals but they have never been so far short of them.

Goals aside, will the offering increase? I would like to predict an increase but I get the sense from reading the tea leaves that this will be a more difficult year financially for churches and receipts will fall. Hope I'm wrong.

This AA offering will be Kevin Ezell’s first as head of NAMB. He earlier stated that he didn’t see why Southern Baptists couldn’t give $100 million if the agency offered a “compelling vision and effective strategy.”

It's fair enough to visualize far more and better things than we have now. NAMB trustees’ grand experiment in bringing in an individual with a record of nonsupport to head Southern Baptist’s number two entity will have a measurable outcome beginning sometime this summer. I suspect that most churches aren't too focused on the CEO's past record and will give based on economic realities.

As for the “compelling vision and effective strategy,” we will get to see the latter part in a couple of weeks, Ezell says. Indications about the new strategy don’t show anything new to me. Perhaps the compelling part will be in the details.

In my church we will, as we have for scores of years, support the AA Easter Offering, though not as vigorously as we do the Lottie Moon offering for the International Mission Board.

Unrealistic goal aside, if NAMB can demonstrate better stewardship, better leadership, and better prioritizing of their tasks, I will be willing to be more agressive in financially supporting them.
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More Annie Armstrong facts:

Since 2000, the offering totals have been less than the previous year five times, including the last three – 2008, 2009, 2010. From 1933 to 2000 the offering declined only five of those 68 years. Now, five of the past ten. Times are tough.

The offering goal has been reduced from the previous year only five times since 1933, the last in 1998. Might be time to reassess reality here.

The offering has declined at an increasing rate since 2007. Down 2.2% in 2008, 2.6% in 2009, and 4.1% in 2010. From the halcyon year 2007, largest ever offering, the offering has declined almost 8.7%, over $5m.

Just to stop the rate of decrease would be a success for Kevin Ezell and NAMB.

[I thank Mike Ebert from NAMB for the Excel chart on historic goals and giving.]

Ezell tapping the 'incredible capacity' to fund NAMB

Baptist press has an article on Kevin Ezell's first trustee meeting as NAMB CEO: TRUSTEES: NAMB's Ezell: 'We must do more'

Among his statements was this:

...there's now an incredible capacity to tap into those who have disengaged. There are thousands of pastors who are ready to re-engage if we provide them a compelling vision and show them how we're going to efficiently and effectively use the money that they encourage their people to give through the Cooperative Program and Annie."

It is stating the obvious that this comment by the new NAMB CEO shows that he has clearly, quickly, and totally coverted to a supporter of the Cooperative Program and Annie Armstrong offering. Not that he has a choice. The new leader of NAMB has to find a way to make these two funding streams work, since they provide most of what he has to work with.

"We will do the best for every dollar Baptists send us," he said.

Avoiding such disastrous things as trips to London to see movies, ice sculptures, and lavish severance agreements will be a step forward.

Ezell, recognizing his credibility gap in not being much of a NAMB supporter as a pastor said:

"One thing I regret is that years ago, when I examined the system, I got frustrated and I disengaged. Thousands of churches also disengaged because they looked at the system and considered it broken.

"It's been a regret of mine that I disengaged..

A regret of his since, say, this past summer? Well, never mind. He's engaged now and hopes to stimulate the engagement of the thousands of churches. I would like to believe him to be accurate in saying that there is an "incredible capacity" waiting to be tapped for NAMB support. Time will tell. I think the climb is rather steep towards significantly increasing church support of NAMB. Retooling NAMB to reallocate present levels of funding is a good way to start.

I hope he succeeds.