Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The Cooperative Program is all about percentages

Those who must promote the CP hate to read or hear it put this way, they would rather have all Southern Baptists think of the Cooperative Program as people - missionaries, church planters, relief workers, seminary students, etc. - but when Southern Baptists start a conversation about the CP, you can bet that they will be talking percentages, not people.

Here are some Cooperative Program percentages:

5.41   The percentage of the average SBC church's offering plate undesignated dollars given through the CP.

1.78 The percentage of the average SBC church's offering plate undesignated dollars that will end up at SBC entities, the mission boards, seminaries, ERLC, and Executive Committee.

81    Percent of SBC pastors who agree or strongly agree that the CP "fuels an agressive enterprise of reaching UPG around the world."

50  Percentage goal for the proportion of CP dollars kept within that state and not forwarded to the Executive Committee and then to mission boards and seminaries.

1  Number of states that have reached the goal of a 50/50 split.

62 Approximate average percentage kept by state conventions and not forwarded for distribution to the mission boards, seminaries, etc.

0 Number of years since 1930 that state conventions have forwarded at least 50 percent of CP dollars to the Executive Committee for distribution to SBC causes.

4 Percentage below which the churches of these SBC presidents gave to the Cooperative Program: Adrian Rogers, Bailey Smith, Charles Stanley, Jerry Vines, Ed Young, Jr., James Merritt, Tom Elliff, Jack Graham, Johnny Hunt, Bryant Wright.

 10 Percentage above which these SBC presidents' churches gave to the CP: Jim Henry, Bobby Welch, Morris Chapman, Frank Page.

11.13 Unbelievable, the percentage of undesignated offering plate dollars given on average by all SBC churches in 1979. Compare with the first figure I gave above and cast a wistful eye at this one.

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