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| Pastor Says Cooperative Program Drew Him to the SBC |
| Release Date: 04/15/2008 |
BOWLING GREEN – Although Jason Pettus is the pastor of a church that is a consistent leader in giving to missions through the Cooperative Program, he didn’t always believe in the giving plan’s effectiveness.
Instead, he says, it was only after he saw how the program enables churches of all sizes to combine resources and fund hundreds of worldwide mission efforts that he became the staunch supporter he is today.
Pettus is pastor of Living Hope Baptist Church in Bowling Green, a church that ranked first in CP giving among all Kentucky Baptist churches last year and has given more than $4 million to support missions through the plan to date.
Pettus said his appreciation of the Cooperative Program has only grown over time, however.
He wasn’t raised in a Christian home, so he had no exposure to CP until he was saved in a Southern Baptist church at age 15, he said. Even then, he thought the Cooperative Program only supported missionaries.
Then as an adult, Pettus served at an interdenominational church that didn’t participate in missions giving.
“It was a seeker-sensitive church, and most of the resources were put into good things,” he said. “They were put into ministries and making the worship services and events that the church did very appealing to unchurched people. It was a large church. I was there just over five years and I saw over 1,000 people saved and baptized.”
It was a church, though, that believed it was independent and needed only to focus on its responsibilities in its city, neglecting the Acts 1:8 imperative to reach out regionally, nationally and globally as well, Pettus said.
“We always told ourselves we were a mission so we didn’t have to give to missions,” he said. “I just didn’t feel like that was good or right. It’s not what I saw in the early church, not what I saw in Scripture as what a church did.”
Pettus sensed a desire to return to the Southern Baptist Convention, he said, because of its stalwart giving to missions through the Cooperative Program and its clear doctrinal stances.
“Being a part of a church that was giving to something beyond itself was really important to me,” he said.
So in 2001, Pettus accepted the position at Living Hope and found himself “part of a denomination where people are partnering together to expand the Gospel influence around the world.” At that time, he still believed the Cooperative Program was simply about giving to international missions.
“What I've come to realize now is that it's actually much bigger and better than that,” Pettus said. “It's not just impacting people on other continents. It impacts our state and our nation. It provides educational resources for pastors and church leaders so that they can better equip the church for God's Kingdom service.
“It provides for the care of people outside the church. We are one of the largest disaster relief operations in the United States,” he said, referring to the Southern Baptist disaster relief network, which ranks third in the nation behind the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
When he arrived at Living Hope, Pettus didn’t have to convince the membership that the Cooperative Program was a worthwhile venture. The Kentucky Baptist church has been a missions-minded congregation since its inception in 1976, he said, and has consistently given at least 10 percent of its undesignated receipts through CP. In 2007, Living Hope led the state in total CP dollars given, exceeding $417,000.
In addition to the 10 percent Living Hope currently gives to CP, the church gives another 7 percent to associational and other missions causes.
And Living Hope members are not only giving to missions, they are also going on mission. This year, the church is sponsoring trips to Honduras, Costa Rica, Japan, West Africa, Scotland, South Asia and East Asia. Living Hope has also planned domestic missions trips this year to Cleveland, New Orleans, Oklahoma and Lynch, Ky. And each year they host community missions projects to show their concern for those in their immediate vicinity.
One way Kentucky Baptist Convention churches can encourage their members toward giving more through the Cooperative Program, Pettus said, is to take advantage of educational literature produced by the SBC Executive Committee, the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board. A wide variety of CP literature is available through the Kentucky Baptist Convention.
He said it’s also helpful to make sure the people in the pews know that their Cooperative Program money helps support six Southern Baptist seminaries.
“By and large, Southern Baptists are blessed and receive biblical preaching from pastors who have been trained at Southern Baptist seminaries,” Pettus said. “Also, every church in this convention has the opportunity to be in a country ministering to a people group that they could not minister to if the Southern Baptist Convention did not exist.
“... We are blessed to be a blessing, and if we are not going to be a blessing and to give financially to people around the world that we may never know the name of or never be able to actually give a verbal witness to, then we're not fulfilling the responsibility to be a blessing,” Pettus said.
At its last annual meeting, the KBC approved a Cooperative Program budget goal of $24 million for the 2008-09 fiscal year. The budget includes a $1.3 million challenge goal for a total CP goal of $25.3 million.
The KBC forwards 36.7 percent of its Cooperative Program receipts to the Southern Baptist Convention. The Kentucky Baptist Mission Board uses another 36.2 percent for missions and to strengthen churches in Kentucky. The remaining 27.1 percent is allocated to Kentucky Baptist entities and Christian education.
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 Erin Roach, KBC Communications
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