Greear, Summit Church and the alternative approach to missions funding and support

The choices for SBC president next month include:

• One old-school mega-pastor (Steve Gaines) whose church gives considerably below the SBC average percentage to the Cooperative Program but which gives considerable sums directly to both NAMB and IMB.
• One new-school megapastor (J. D. Greear) who pastors another church that gives considerably below the average church's Cooperative Program percentage but which will this year be one of the top CP churches in North Carolina in dollars given and which church also gives large sums directly to the two mission boards and in partnership with them. 
• One large church pastor (David Crosby) whose church gives above the SBC average percentage to the CP. It was not reported what sums the church gave directly to NAMB and IMB through the mission offerings.

Any of these would be a good choice and the three churches of these men each represents a different method of mission support. There is nothing wrong with any of the methodologies and our denominational entities, from state conventions and their related organizations, to the six SBC seminaries, NAMB, and IMB must and have accommodated themselves to the reality that churches of all sizes, but especially megachurches, have increased their direct giving either at a rate greater than the CP or at the expense of the CP. 

Churches make opportunity cost decisions about their limited pool of missions money and the traditional choice was to give a healthy percentage to the CP (over 10% per church when I was in seminary around 1980) and participate in the entire panoply of state and national (but not associational) ministries and entities. This is, roughly, the practice of David Crosby's church. Traditional, heavy on CP, light on direct giving (except for a percentage point given to NABTS). The winners in this method are state conventions, who have always kept most of the CP revenues.

The old school megachurch pattern represented by Gaines and Bellevue Baptist Church is long established. His predecessor, Adrian Rogers, practiced the low CP/high direct giving pattern. It is the rare megachurch that gives above the average SBC percentage of about 5.4%. The winners in this pattern are NAMB and IMB, since they get considerably greater sums directly from the church. That dollar sent directly to IMB may be contrasted to the thirty or so cents IMB receives out of a CP dollar. The loser in this pattern are the state conventions which gets nothing when a church makes direct gifts rather than their average cut of CP revenues, about 61%. If all megachurches conspired to shift their giving from designated to the average CP percentage, then both NAMB and IMB would lose millions of dollars. State conventions would gain these millions.

Greear's church is the new-school megachurch - satellites, warehouse locations not purpose built sanctuaries, very heavy on church planting and international missions, light on participation in traditional state and associational missions. As a supporter of international missions, neither of the other two churches compare with Summit's, whose support is in direct partnership with IMB and where more current international missionaries are Summit members than any other SBC church.

In the current atmosphere where state conventions, particularly the large, legacy deep south state conventions, are moving to reduce their CP share, any church that looks in their state and sees expensive centralized headquarters buildings and staff, legacy institutions, and little church growth and evangelistic results, may well choose to put their mission dollars directly in those entities that have vision and show results, primarily NAMB and IMB. 

My view is that the state conventions should manage with 40% or so of a CP dollar, should put a sunset on CP support of institutions that have had (some of them scores of years) adequate time to build a support base, and should find a vision that engages churches in their states. Such is sadly lacking in most states.

Churches as large as Greear's with a strong vision of reaching the nations have direct channels to IMB, formal partnership channels. They will continue to use these and have great results. Churches that do not have those kind of resources can adjust their CP and mission offering giving so that the bottom line support of NAMB and IMB reflects what the church desires. Churches that believe the current CP allocation best expresses their vision can continue to divide theiir mission dollar: 62 cents in my state, 19 cents to IMB, 9 cents to NAMB, 8 cents to the seminaries, a penny to the Executive Committee, and a fraction of a penny to the Historical Commission.

Any church with giving like these three is fully cooperative. No church has to apologize because they cooperate in ways supplemental to the Cooperative Program even if those supplemental methods receive greater allocations of the church's budget. The goal is reaching the lost, not propping up legacy entities and programs. 

The SBC has almost always chosen the megapastor with a low CP percentage. I suspect that such will be the case next month. One thing seems certain, the giving patterns of the old-school megachurch and the new-school megachurch will continue to grow while the traditional CP above all approach will decline.

One notable, relevant thing about Fred Luter

Fred Luter (image from BP) is expected to be elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention in just a few weeks in New Orleans. If I am there (and it's not looking like I will be) I would be unhesitant in casting my vote in his favor. His election will be notable because he will be the first black president of the SBC.

That's good.

But there is something more notable about Fred Luter that is acutely relevant to the SBC. He is a megachurch pastor and would be the latest in a long string of megapastor elected president of our convention. But he is a megachurch pastor whose church gives an above average percentage to the Cooperative Program. 

This is unusual as these things go.

Fred Luter's church gives about six percent, not a large percentage but quite healthy for a megachurch. His six percent is more than given by our current president, Bryant Wright, whose megachurch is in the 4% range. Previous megachurch pastors who were SBC presidents, Johnny Hunt, Jack Graham, and James Merritt were in the 2% range (although Hunt notably increased his church's CP giving in recent years).

Fred Luter will be the first megachurch SBC president whose CP giving is above the SBC average since Jim Henry back in the mid-1990s.

That is notable.

For all the laments about the decline of the Cooperative Program (we have gone from an average above 10% a generation ago to under 6%) when messengers meet in our annual session they rarely find a megachurch pastor that they are unwilling to elect as president, regardless of the low giving to the Cooperative Program.

Wright was easily elected in 2010 even though alternative candidates far surpassed him in their church's CP giving. That is the usual scenario. I can think of only one megachurch pastor, Ronnie Floyd, whose CP giving was so low (around 0.3%) that it cost him the election (he has since raised it to around 5% last time I checked).

If Southern Baptists are genuinely concerned about falling Cooperative Program giving, one of the ways we ought to express our concern is to consider unelectable any candidate for major denominational office whose church gives less than a threshold percentage. Five percent is a good number, though I made an exception for Bryant Wright who was a little under that.

One of the more ridiculous things regularly heard about the SBC is all the  complaining about megachurches having undue influence, when we regularly elect them to the top SBC office in spite of their low CP giving. 

I hope that Fred Luter's election establishes a precedent in ways other than related to his race. Such would be good for us all.

SBC presidents and the Cooperative Program

What shall we say about SBC leadership and their support, or lack thereof, for our grand Cooperative Program?

Here is a summary of the past SBC presidents and their Cooperative Program support over the past 32 years:
Less than 4%: Rogers, Smith, Stanley, Vines, Young, Elliff, Merritt, Graham, Hunt, Wright.
Above the contemporary average: Draper (7%), Chapman (11%), Henry (10%), Welch (15%), Page (12%).

Between 1979 and 1992, the year the Conservative Resurgence was effectively over, seven men were elected president. Only two of those were significant CP supporters, Draper and Chapman, and only Chapman’s church gave greater than what was held out as the standard at the time, 10%. I don’t recall either of them being elected on a platform of cooperation or CP giving, but rather on a platform of continuing the conservative takeover. For the entire period up to 2010, sixteen presidents have served. Only six of those gave average or above to the CP.

Since 1992, the convention has happily elected leaders who are not known for their outstanding CP support. Only Henry, Welch, and Page were above average, while Merritt, Graham, and Hunt were down in the 2% range. I don’t think you can find a greater contrast than in the election of last year where Bryant Wright, in the 3% range, defeated a candidate who was in excess of 10%.

Since the convention elected people whose CP levels were very, very low (Bailey Smith, 1% or so, Ed young the same, Stanley, Vines, Merritt 2% or so), one has to say that the Cooperative Program was clearly not an important factor for the Conservative Resurgence. Even in the years since the CR was completed, the convention has been quite comfortable in electing leaders whose CP levels are way below average.

I summarize these things because I keep seeing people who are dissatisfied with the giving of current leadership incorrectly interpret the SBC’s history of the past three decades. I think an honest view of the past would lead to the conclusion that the CR was not a boon to the concept of cooperation and to support of the Cooperative Program. The most salient of CP statistics, that churches give less and less of undesignated giving through the CP, is partly the result of the success of megachurch pastors like Rogers, Stanley, and Young in being elected to the SBC presidency in spite of low CP giving percentages.

For my part, a presidential candidate who shows strong support for NAMB, the IMB, and whose CP percentage is above the threshold of 3-4 percent is fine by me. In my book Bryant Wright is a very strong supporter of our cooperative work as Southern Baptists even though he may not meet the CP litmus tests of some. If we dismiss pastors like him and churches like his we will be a much weaker convention.

A future question to be considered: Why has the average church CP percentage been dropping for decades when almost all SBC pastors (87% in a 2007 survey) report that they are generally satisfied with the CP?