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| Strong CP Giving Needed to Keep Missions Vital |
| Release Date: 02/14/2008 |
LOUISVILLE – Thanks in large part to missions gifts from Kentucky Baptist churches through the Cooperative Program, pastors trained in Kentucky are reaching thousands of people from the fastest growing ethnic group in America: Hispanics.
Many of these new church leaders are graduates of the Hispanic Baptist Bible Institute (Instituto Biblico Bautista Hispano), formed three years ago by the Kentucky Baptist Convention. With campuses in Louisville, Covington and Bowling Green, the Institute has graduated 76 students, with another 57 enrolled this semester.
Half of the educational costs for this effort come from the Cooperative Program, the historic vehicle for funding missions in the KBC and Southern Baptist Convention.
“The Cooperative Program means the Institute is a reality, not just a dream,” said Director Twyla Hernandez. “It means our Hispanic ministers will have a deeper theological basis and we’ll help train leaders for our churches.”
Despite CP’s importance in ministries like the Hispanic Baptist Bible Institute, giving has remained behind budget throughout the first five months of the 2007-08 fiscal year. Record January receipts helped recover much of the deficit, but the remaining seven months will also need to be strong in order to meet budget, said Steve Thompson, assistant executive director for the KBC.
Prior to January, CP had slipped to its lowest percentage of budget in six years. As of Dec. 31, gifts for the first four months of the fiscal year were 11.3 percent behind budget, a deficit of nearly $904,000.
That’s the worst since 2001-02, when gifts ran 12.6 percent behind for the same period, though that year ended only 1.4 percent in the red, said Thompson.
According to Lowell Ashby, business manager for the KBC, churches gave $2,794,763 in January to bring giving totals for the fiscal year to $9,891,160, and narrowing the deficit to 1.1 percent.
That’s the most ever to be given in any month throughout the history of the Cooperative Program, said Ashby.
The annual budget for CP during the 2007-2008 fiscal year is $24 million. Ashby said $14,108,840 would be needed throughout the remainder of the fiscal year in order to meet budgeted projections. For that to be achieved, just over $2 million would need to be received in each of the remaining seven months.
“Even though we are working on what we call a ‘spendable budget’ because of a shortfall in CP gifts earlier in the year, we’re hoping for a full funding of the CP budget by year’s end,” Thompson said. “We are extremely grateful for a record January, which went a long way toward making that possible.”
CP funds come from the percentage of undesignated offerings forwarded to the state convention by 2,400 Southern Baptist churches. The KBC invests 63.3 percent in missions and ministry efforts in Kentucky, and forwards the rest to the SBC’s Executive Committee to help fund missions agencies and seminaries.
The Cooperative Program percentage of the KBC churches’ undesignated gifts has steadily declined, from just over 10 percent in 1996 to 7.2 percent in 2006.
“Most notably, more of our churches are doing hands-on mission programs on their own,” Thompson said. “So they’re keeping some of the missions money they have been giving through the Cooperative Program.”
Another trend that Thompson says he can’t document but knows is occurring is an increasing number of churches are giving a set dollar figure through CP instead of a percentage.
“That is of particular concern because it doesn’t let CP rise and fall with donations,” Thompson said. “If a church uses a set figure to control costs, CP can’t rise when giving goes up.”
One of the ways the KBC is addressing the decline is by adding to its staff former pastor Billy Compton as executive associate for Cooperative Program and resources.
Though only on the job since early January, Compton plans to speak in numerous venues about the Cooperative Program’s value in fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission.
“One of the foundational pieces is to remind our churches and leaders to make sure they get information and understand what CP is and does,” Compton said. “Not only what it does now, but what it has done in the past and will continue to do in the future.”
He encourages pastors across the commonwealth to use bulletin inserts and other informational pieces available through the KBC to inform people about where such donations go.
Those resources include DVDs with short testimonies that can be shown prior to taking offerings or during special giving campaigns.
“Not only can pastors do this, but directors of missions are on the front lines too,” Compton said. “We need to encourage what they’re doing while they use tools to inform the churches they minister with in the local area.”
At the national level, CP gifts rose 5.03 percent for the first four months of 2007-08. Bob Rodgers, vice president for the Cooperative Program with the SBC executive committee, attributes that to various states increasing promotional efforts.
An effort in Oklahoma has been so successful that Rodgers is considering adapting it at the national level. Promotion is one key to reversing the decline in giving, since Rodgers says awareness of the program had faded in recent years.
“We have tried to change our promotion to better articulate CP and what we provide,” Rodgers said. “Every number has a story. The story is very important. At the end of that story is the value of the Cooperative Program.”
In Kentucky, that story includes 66 Hispanic churches and missions welcoming an average of 1,500 worshipers each week, many of them recent converts.
“We are growing and growing because we are part of this Baptist family,” said Carlos de la Barra, ethnic associate for the KBC. “Without cooperation, Baptists are not Baptists,”
“If we believe we’re supposed to reach the world with the good news of Christ, there’s no way we can ignore the Hispanics who have come to Kentucky,” Hernandez said. “Planting churches is important to seeing people come to Christ.”
And those congregations are being planted and nurtured in Cooperative Program soil.
Cooperative Program information and resources are available at www.kybaptist.org/cpmissions or by calling 502-489-3578 or 502-489-3578 (toll free in KY).
The Kentucky Baptist Convention is a cooperative missions and ministry organization made up of more than 2,400 autonomous Baptist churches in Kentucky. A variety of state and worldwide ministries are coordinated through its administrative headquarters in Louisville, Ky. including: missions work, disaster relief, ministry training and support, church development, evangelism and more. For more information, visit www.kybaptist.org.
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Release prepared by Ken Walker, KBC Communications |
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