I was looking for something else when I happened upon this blog post by Tom Ascol (Pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Cape Coral, Fl and Executive Director of Founders Ministries) about the Cooperative Program of the SBC. It is three years old, but very interesting from an outsider’s perspective (and it seems, based on Pastor Ascol’s words, that would be helpful to many within the SBC to consider as well). Read the whole thing, but here’s a piece of the core: For example, in my own state the Florida Baptist Convention (FBC) keeps 60% of money that local FBC congregations give to the CP (If you want to see the percentages of other state conventions, click here). That means that 40% makes its way to Nashville, to be disbursed by the Executive Committee according to budget allocations adopted annually by Southern Baptist messengers. The 2005-2006 allocations stipulate that 50% of all money that does finally make it to Nashville via CP gifts go to the International Mission Board. The North American Mission Board receives 22.79% Most of the remaining money (21.64%) goes to "Theological Education Ministries" (primarily, the 6 Southern Baptist Seminaries). Here is what that means: if Bob puts $100 in the offering plate at Happy Southern Baptist Church (HSBC) in Punta Gorda, Florida and if HSBC has allocated 10% of their undesignated receipts for the "Cooperative Program missions," then 10 of Bob's dollars gets sent to the Florida Baptist Convention offices in Jacksonville. Of that, $6 of his money stays in the state for various concerns like those mentioned above and $4 gets sent to Nashville, Tennessee. Once there, $2 gets allocated to the International Mission Board for overseas mission work. A little less than $1 goes to mission work in North America and a little less than that goes to support theological education. In other words, of every dollar that Bob gives, about $.o2 goes to overseas missions (assuming HSBC has no other avenue for contributions to missions efforts).
