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.

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.]